Gary Chambers has, once again, set the internet ablaze.
The Louisiana Senate candidate returned Wednesday to release another provocative campaign ad that highlights inequalities in America. The 60-second video, titled “Scars and Bars,” shows Chambers standing outside holding the U.S. flag while reciting the second sentence of the Declaration of Independence. The activist-turned-politician is then seen pinning a Confederate flag to a clothes line, before dousing it with gasoline and lighting it on fire.
“Here in Louisiana and all over the South, Jim Crow never really left, and the remnants of the Confederacy remain,” Chambers says. “… The attacks against Black people, our right to vote, and participate in this democracy are methodical. Gerrymandered districts are a byproduct of the confederacy. Our system isn’t broken, it’s designed to do exactly what it is doing, which is producing measurable inequity.”
Chambers then shares several statistics that underscore the inequities Black communities continue to face.
“One in 13 Black Americans are deprived of the right to vote. One in nine Black Americans do not have health insurance. One in three Black children live in poverty,” he says. “It’s time to burn what remains of the Confederacy down. I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it will be on our terms.”
You can watch the full campaign ad above.
Chambers, a Black Democrat born in Baton Rouge, is looking to unseat incumbent Republican U.S. Sen. John Kennedy in the upcoming election. The politician garnered national headlines last month when he released a campaign spot in which he was seen sitting in a chair smoking marijuana. Chambers used the ad to express his support for marijuana legalization.
“Every 37 seconds, someone is arrested for possession of marijuana,” Chambers said in the video. “Since 2010, state and local police have arrested an estimated 7.3 million Americans for violating marijuana laws — over half of all drug arrests. Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana laws than white people.”
