Rep. Al Green, D-Texas, who was removed from the House chamber for heckling President Donald Trump during his speech Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, has a history of dramatic political gestures.

Green, 77, shook his cane as he interrupted Trump’s speech, shouting that the president had “no mandate to cut Medicaid.” He was twice told by Speaker Mike Johnson to sit down or face ejection, before being escorted from the chamber by the sergeant-at-arms, to cheers from Republicans.

The ultraconservative House Freedom Caucus said it planned to introduce a resolution Wednesday to censure Green over his protest, which was also a show of defiance against leaders of his own party. Democratic leaders had asked members to attend Trump’s speech and refrain from disruptions, and his protest underscored Democrats’ broader struggle to find a message of opposition with broad appeal.

First elected in 2004 to represent the 9th Congressional District of Houston, Texas, Green is described on his House website as “a veteran civil rights advocate.” His profile page on X, the social media network, features a video of his arrest outside the Capitol in 2021 while protesting a voting rights bill, along with the words “#GoodTrouble #NecessaryTrouble” — references to the motto of former Rep. John Lewis, the Civil Rights leader.

Al Green Arrested in 2012

Green was also arrested in 2012, along with other lawmakers and actor George Clooney, outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington after protesting against Sudan’s then-president and his policies during a civil war.

Green was born in New Orleans, and his career has traced a path trodden by Black politicians for decades, combining his service in Congress with activism focused on voting rights, civil rights and fighting poverty. Among his antecedents is Shirley Chisholm, who in 1968 became the first Black woman to serve in Congress and later ran for the Democratic nomination for president.

He also has a record of strong opposition to Trump. Again defying his party’s leaders, Green was the first lawmaker to introduce and force a vote on articles of impeachment against the president in his first term. When Trump was impeached in 2019, and again in 2021, Green voted in favor.

Green attended Florida A&M University, Howard University and the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, but did not receive an undergraduate degree, according to his website. Later, however, he enrolled in the Thurgood Marshall School of Law in Houston, where he earned a doctorate in 1973. He went on to open a law firm.

He is a member of the Congressional Black Caucus as well as the Congressional Asian Pacific American Caucus, and also served for about a decade in the leadership of the NAACP, one of the country’s most important civil rights organizations.

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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

By Matthew Mpoke Bigg/Kenny Holston
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