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In a place far away. Tennessee. In a time long ago. 1986. 

There was a Republican governor who came up with a gimmick. 

He called it Homecoming ‘86. 

It was pretty simple: Celebrate the 3,000 communities Tennesseans call home. 

You have to remember it was a quaint time. There were “Democrats for (Lamar) Alexander.” There were “Republicans for McWherter,” in support of Gov. Ned McWherter, elected in November 1986.

It was easy to deride Gov. Lamar Alexander’s Homecoming ‘86. 

After all, serious issues were being ignored. Lamar ran away like a scalded cat from any talk of a state income tax — despite having a high-profile group of senior legislators on both sides of the aisle willing and able to give him ample political cover. 

The state’s prisons were a mess, with two conservative federal judges losing patience with the administration’s band-aid solutions and a court-appointed special master acting as de facto corrections commissioner. 

Still, Homecoming’86 was on to something. 

Famed country comedian Sarah Cannon, who performed under the name “Minnie Pearl,” one of the co-chairs, summed it up. 

ICE’s latest focus in Tennessee: traffic court

“Grinder’s Switch (home of the fictional Minnie Pearl) has become more than a place in Tennessee. It typifies the communities where people work together, cry together, laugh together and love together.” 

The other chair was Alex Hailey, the author whose novel “Roots: The Saga of an American Family” entranced the nation when it became a television mini-series and caused a frenzy of families wanting to know where they came from…because all of us, Black like Hailey or qhite like Minnie Pearl, came from somewhere else. 

Now, imagine Gov. Bill Lee calling for a Homecoming ‘26.

A Homecoming ’26 where the General Assembly’s Republican super-majority routinely shuts down legislative debate in committee and on the floor by “calling the question” on legislation because they apparently don’t want a record of legislative debate.

A Homecoming ’26 where Tennesseans in communities across the state are afraid to go to church or the grocery store because they are undocumented or their citizenship could be questioned.

A Homecoming ’26 where masked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement,ICE, agents in unmarked vehicles roam Tennessee communities’ streets and roads seeking to detain Tennesseans who may or may not be subject to deportation.

A Homecoming ’26 where traffic court in Robertson County has become a fishing pond — like the old trout farm at Bucksnort — where ICE agents are all but guaranteed a catch as undocumented persons do what they believe is the right thing of admitting to a traffic violation but then find themselves detained.

Wilson County Mayor: ICE eyes immigrant detention ‘mega center’ in Lebanon to house up to 16,000

A Homecoming ’26 where Wilson County Republicans and the presumptive GOP nominee for governor, U.S. Sen. Marsha Blackburn, are all for the Trump Administration’s draconian mass deportation policies until they almost land in their backyard when ICE wants to build a warehouse-sized detention center near Lebanon, denting the county’s self-image of being a 21st century Grinder’s Switch of neighborliness.

A Homecoming ’26 where, in the last two weeks, two Nashville mothers who thought they were following the rules to become U.S. citizens have been detained by ICE. One had just dropped off her 7seven-year-old daughter at a bus stop; the second had just dropped off her 10-month-old son at daycare.

A Homecoming ’26 where the Republican supermajorities are pushing a package of bills, written with the help of the White House, to support and augment the Trump Administration’s mass deportation policies.

A Homecoming ’26 where the estimated 186,000 unauthorized (as defined by the Migration Policy Institute) Tennesseans are effectively being told they are no longer welcome, even though 48% of them have resided in the United States for 15 years or longer.

Yes, Lamar’s Homecoming ’86 was a gimmick.  And, yes, it was political at the end of the day, but it was a politics of finding common ground.

We are no longer in that Tennessee.

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