Representative Al Green, Democrat of Texas, who was removed from the House chamber for heckling President Trump during his speech on Tuesday to a joint session of Congress, has a history of dramatic political gestures.
Mr. Green, 77, shook his cane as he interrupted Mr. 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.
His protest was also a show of defiance against his own party, whose congressional leaders had asked that members attend Mr. Trump’s speech and refrain from disruptions. In doing so, he drew attention to 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, Mr. 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 Representative John Lewis, the civil rights leader.
Mr. Green was also arrested in 2012, along with other lawmakers and the actor George Clooney, outside the Sudanese embassy in Washington after protesting against Sudan’s then-president and his policies during a civil war.
Mr. 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.
He also has a record of strong opposition to Mr. Trump. Again defying his party’s leaders, Mr. Green was the first lawmaker to introduce and force a vote on articles of impeachment against the president in his first term. When Mr. Trump was impeached in 2019, and again in 2021, Mr. Green voted in favor.
Mr. 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 around a decade in the leadership of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, one of the country’s most important civil rights organizations.
