NewsTracker Answers for week of Apr 10, 2023

Q: Republican legislators in Tennessee voted to expel two Black Democrats from the state House over their protest on the chamber floor against gun violence after a school shooting left six people dead, including three 9-year-old students. Where is Tennessee?

Circle the area on this map

Q: The school shooting took place in less than 10 miles from the Tennessee State Capitol where legislators meet. What is Tennessee’s capital city?

A. Chattanooga

B. Knoxville

C. Memphis

D. Nashville

D. Nashville is the capital and largest city, followed by Memphis, Knoxville and Chattanooga. Republicans failed by one vote to expel Rep. Gloria Johnson, D-Knoxville who is White. She had joined Black representatives Justin Jones, D-Nashville, and Justin Pearson, D-Memphis, in the protest. The two men’s expulsions left about 140,000 voters without any representation in the Tennessee House.

Q: Like most of its neighbors, Tennessee is one of 26 states that do not require a permit to carry a concealed weapon. Which of Tennessee’s neighbors has the second-highest rate of firearm deaths?

A. Alabama

B. Arkansas

C. Mississippi

D. Missouri

A. In Alabama, there are 21.5 firearm deaths for every 100,000 people. Only Alaska has a higher rate with 23 firearm deaths per 100,000. Tennessee has 17 firearm deaths per 100,000. Out of the 10 states with the highest gun death rates, seven do not require a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

Q: Tennessee and all of its neighbors were slave states before the Civil War, but two of them did not join the Confederacy like Tennessee did. Which of these neighboring slave states remained in the Union?

A. Georgia

B. Kentucky

C. North Carolina

D. Virginia

B. Kentucky and Missouri remained part of the United States during the Civil War, although some of their citizens actively supported the Confederacy.

Q: From the end of the Civil War until the 1950s, Tennessee passed some 20 laws to enforce segregation and make it a crime for Black and White people to marry. What were these measures commonly called?

A. Apartheid laws

B. Eugenics laws

C. Jim Crow laws

D. Nuremberg laws

C. Jim Crow laws were passed in the 19th and 20th centuries across the Southern United States to segregate the races and restrict voting by African-Americans. “Jim Crow" was pejorative term for a Black person. Apartheid laws were used for the same purpose in South Africa, and the Nuremberg laws were used against Jews in Nazi Germany. Eugenics laws were used to forcibly sterilize disabled and “undesirable” people.