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From The ReidOut with Joy Reid

Louisiana Senate candidate sets fire to Confederate flag: 'The South will rise again'

In a new ad, Democrat Gary Chambers torches a Confederate flag while talking about the history of racial oppression in the South.

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Louisiana Democrat Gary Chambers, who’s vying to unseat Republican John Kennedy in this year’s Senate race, shared a fiery new ad on social media taking aim at Confederate sympathizers.

In the ad, called “Scars and Bars,” Chambers, who is Black, sets fire to a Confederate flag while explaining how Southern states routinely oppressed Black people during and after the Civil War.

“They said, ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal.’ But here in Louisiana and all over the South, Jim Crow never really left,” Chambers said in the ad. “And the remnants of the Confederacy remain.”

Chambers went on to tell the story of former Louisiana Gov. P.B.S. Pinchback, the country's first Black governor. Pinchback was elected to the Senate in the 1870s but never sworn in due to — get this — allegations of fraud. 

"I do believe the South will rise again," Chambers said. "But this time, it'll be on our terms."

Chambers hasn’t shied away from discussions about racial inequality since launching his campaign. In January, he shared an ad featuring him smoking cannabis while discussing racial disparities in the way cannabis laws are enforced. 

On "The ReidOut" last month, Chambers said he’s speaking frankly on these issues because there’s a constituency longing for it in Louisiana despite widespread beliefs that the state is staunchly conservative. 

“The demographics of this state say that we can do exactly what Georgia has done,” he said, noting the state is “35 to 40 percent Black or brown.” 

“We have a Democrat as our governor right now, which is something that is often lost: the only Democratic governor in the Deep South,” he added. “This is a winnable state.”

Check out the “Scars and Bars” ad:

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