CJ Pearson, 21, Enters Race for Georgia House Seat

By The Right-Wing Teen

Coreco Ja’Quan Pearson (birthdate July 31, 2002) is an America First activist, political advisor, and commentator who describes himself as an anti-establishment populist. In January 2024, CJ announced his candidacy for the Georgia House of Representatives special election in District 125.

Born in Augusta, Georgia, Pearson was raised by Democrat parents and grandparents. “But what I always tell people is that—and this is a common story within the black community—my parents may have voted Democrat, but the values they instilled within me from when I was a child were conservative values,” he said. “They were pro-family, they were traditional, they were about personal responsibility.”

CJ’s political interest began at age eight, when his second grade class held a mock presidential election. In a Desert News interview, CJ explained:

I voted for John McCain, because my grandfather served 20 years in the U.S. Army — it was something I respected a lot — and I came home and told my grandmother who I voted for, and she looks at me and says, “CJ, you must think that you are white.” I was super confused about that. I’m a little kid. I didn’t know anything about politics. I’m just a little kid. I didn’t know that the color of my skin should dictate my politics. I was just excited to cast a vote for someone who had something in common with my grandfather. After that was when the road to self-discovery began for me. I wanted to understand what a Republican was, what a Democrat was, what a conservative was.

CJ told The Daily Signal…

Where I started was with … [reading] the Federalist Papers, I read the Constitution, I studied the platforms of both of the major parties. I actually even read a couple white papers on The Heritage Foundation back then. And this was like when I was like 10 or like 12.

I had a great conversation with the president of The Heritage Foundation, Mrs. [Kay Coles] James. The point that she made was that after the Great Society, that’s really when we saw a type of dependency within the black community we had never really seen before.

The black community before then was very self-reliant. They were self-starters. They owned black businesses. It was a huge thing. They prided themselves upon their independence. But after the Great Society, it became a crutch.

For me, I think victimhood is laziness, and it’s just not something I ascribed to. I think that the way you advance in this world, the way that you move forward, is by putting in the work, grinding real hard, and just seeking opportunity.

I don’t need anyone to give me an unfair advantage. All I need is a fair shot.

In early 2015, the outspoken 12-year-old became an internet personality when he uploaded a video to YouTube criticizing then-President Barack Obama, which gained international attention. In his conversation with the Desert News, CJ said it happened like this:

I got a Camcorder for Christmas, which turned out to be the most regretful gift my grandparents ever got me. And I turned it on, and I basically went off on Obama. … And that video went viral overnight, and I joked with my friend that it was a Justin Bieber movement, because it was the first video I ever made, but it just took off. I didn’t even tell my grandparents that I made it. The way they found out about that video is because my grandfather has this incredible love-hate relationship with Sean Hannity — he loves to hate-watch him. So Sean Hannity was on TV, and the video had been blowing up all day, but my grandparents aren’t big internet people, so Sean goes, ‘up next, 12-year-old CJ Pearson from Augusta, Georgia, with some comments about Barack Obama,’ and the video he was intro-ing was mine. And my grandfather looks up at the TV, sees that it was me and screams my name. “CJ, what is this? You need to delete this. How can you talk about the first Black president like this?”

CJ and his family were the target of death threats, and the President even blocked CJ on Twitter. A liberal teacher at Columbia Middle School in Evans, Georgia, allegedly told his students that young black conservative CJ Pearson was “not worth saving in a fire,” and that he “hated him.” (I thought liberals were against hate speech!)

After this, CJ began his career as a freelance journalist blogging in support of local conservatives and campaigning for several Republican politicians. CJ has been featured on national media outlets including Fox News and the New York Post. CJ joined PragerU at age 20, where from 2022 to 2024, CJ was an in-house PragerU personality.

CJ has helped spread truth and American values to the next generation through PragerU’s 5-Minute Videos, The Wrap Up, Left vs. Right, and online content that continues to reach millions of young Americans. CJ is also the Founder and President of The Free Thinker Project.

On January 9, 2024, CJ posted on X (formerly Twitter), “At 21 years old, I just qualified for the special election to be Georgia’s next State Representative to hold Soros-backed prosecutors like Fani Willis accountable, protect Georgia’s traditional values, and to usher in the next generation of America First leadership to our state.”