It’s time to flip some tables since Tennessee has entered the Twilight Zone

Ever watch the classic television show “The Twilight Zone?” I was always grateful to get back to reality when the episode ended.  

“Twilight Zone” creator Rod Serling could have filmed the recent special session of the Tennessee Legislature. He could have opened the show explaining the year 2026 and telling the viewers to watch and see if Tennessee decides to roll back all the progress of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. When I watched what our leaders did last week I was horrified as if it was a nightmare and I cannot imagine how African-American Tennesseans feel.  

Y’all, I am a white woman who is a Baby Boomer and a new septuagenarian. I am a person of faith, but I confess that I sinned and I need an altar call every day because I did not do enough about racial injustice when I was young. 

I believe white people who came to America did not treat Native Americans fairly and that nwe assaulted and kidnapped African-Americans from their homeland and sold them as slaves to build our country.

The good people of the United States should continue to atone for that and the modern Civil Rights movement was a courageous start toward atonement for our nation. According to my husband, Larry Woods, who teaches constitutional law, the Voting Rights Act of 1965 “was the primary success because it created political power for minorities in our country by guaranteeing them the right to choose and vote for candidates”. 

I think it is important to study the facts of Tennessee racial history. Tennessee’s U.S. Sens. Albert Gore, Sr., and Ross Bass voted for the Voting Rights Act of 1965 as did U.S. Rep. Richard Fulton, who later became Nashville mayor. 

The political party in power has always changed the lines of congressional districts after the results of the U.S. census that’s conducted every 10 years, just as our state constitution provides. Until 2022, major Tennessee cities — including Nashville and Memphis — were represented by one member of Congress.

When the U.S.Supreme Court gutted a crucial part of the Voting Rights Act earlier this month, President Donald Trump reached out to the “red” states to change their state laws purely for immediate political gain, no matter the long term cost of people’s loss of faith in the integrity of their leaders. Our state leaders could have said no but they did not. Instead they repealed the laws that both Republicans and Democrats have followed for decades.

What I saw happen last week was not normal — it was vindictive and mean and done just to please a person who will not always be president, but our actions will go down in history as something we should be ashamed of.  

After the 2020 census results the majority Republicans redrew the Congressional maps to their advantage. Democrats did the same thing when they were in power. To the victor go the spoils. 

I was unhappy with the 2022 results of redistricting because my city, Nashville, was divided into three Congressional Districts. 

Before we were divided into three parts, I knew who my congressman was as  he represented all of Davidson County. I had access to get my questions answered about the federal government. 

Since 2022, I have not been able to find a Nashville office for any of the three congressmen that we have today and to me that says they don’t care about Nashvillians. 

When I was younger I identified with the “Party of Lincoln,” because my father, George A. Terry, served in the Tennessee legislature as a Lincoln Republican during the 1950’s and 1960’s and his best political friend was a Democrat. I  thought Tennessee would always remain a state with two strong political parties that would work together after the elections for the good of the people. Do we do that now? 

Somehow, Tennessee went from a state where in 2006 almost half of us voted for U.S. Rep. Harold Ford, Jr. of Memphis who lost a close race for U.S. Senate to Bob Corker, former Mayor of Chattanooga. Ford is Black.

Barack Obama was told not to bother to come here and campaign for president just two years later in 2008.  It seemed to me that leaders in the Tennessee Democratic Party had forgotten how effective Obama was when he came to Nashville to campaign for Ford in 2006. 

When Obama was elected in 2008 I hoped that our country was finally turning into a country where we could all get along. I did not pay much attention to the Tea Party and assumed educated Republicans would ignore them, but I was wrong. I tried to keep an open mind about Trump, but he lost me when there was a protest led by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia in 2017. Someone was killed and Trump said there were very fine people on “on both sides.” I expected quick condemnation from Republicans, but that did not happen. 

Newsflash: The South lost the Civil War. 

Tennessee Republican leaders did not stand up to the 2020 election deniers and many of our former Tennessee leaders and “statesmen” remained silent when Biden won in 2020. They did not accept the official returns of Biden’s victory over Trump. What happened to upholding the constitution and honesty? 

Trump fairly won the election of 2024 and Tennessee Republicans were silent when he pardoned those who stormed the Capitol on January 6. 

Now they have punished Memphis which has a population that is at least 65% Black. 

Tennessee Republicans pass US House map carving up Memphis days after SCOTUS guts Voting Rights Act

I am ashamed of the way Memphis voters and their families were treated. It was unkind and wrong. I hope Tennesseans wake up, read the facts of history and help me explain to my grandchildren that this will go down as a low point in Tennessee history. 

I am angry, sad and embarrassed. I would be mad as hell if my ancestors were enslaved. What  I saw our Tennessee Legislature do to Memphis last week made me want to “flip some tables,” like Jesus. In the Bible, verses in 2 John tell of how Jesus turned tables over in the Temple, a sacred place of worship where money changers were set up to cheat people entering the Temple.

If it was good enough for Jesus, it’s good enough for me. I’m ready to overturn some tables at the Legislature and make our voting system fair in Tennessee.