Kentucky Democratic Senate nominee Charles Booker released a campaign ad involving a noose.
The ad opens with a noose hanging from a tree.
“The pain of our past persists to this day. In Kentucky, like many states throughout the South, lynching was a tool of terror. It was used to kill hopes for freedom,” Booker said during the narration.
The ad shows a historical image of a man being lynched.
Another image shows a sign hanging from the building, saying, “A man was lynched yesterday.”
Booker continued, “It was used to kill my ancestors.”
He is shown wearing a noose around his neck.
“Now, in a historic victory for our Commonwealth, I have become the first Black Kentuckian to receive the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate,” Booker explained.
He went on to criticize Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for his comparison of expanded health care to slavery.
Booker called Paul the “person who said he would have opposed the Civil Rights Act.”
Additionally, Booker took aim at Paul for having “single-handedly blocked an anti-lynching act from being Federal law.”
Check out the campaign ad below:
Wow. Probably the most powerful ad I've ever seen. @Booker4KY is the real deal. pic.twitter.com/lNNCwdUH1v
— Brian Tyler Cohen (@briantylercohen) June 1, 2022
“The choice couldn’t be clearer,” Booker said.
Holding onto the noose, Booker proceeded to ask, “Do we move forward together? Or do we let politicians like Rand Paul forever hold us back and drive us apart?”
Removing the knot from his neck, Booker said, “In November, we will choose healing. We will choose Kentucky.”
Paul made the comparison mentioned by Booker in 2011.
“With regard to the idea whether or not you have a right to health care you have to realize what that implies. I am a physician. You have a right to come to my house and conscript me. It means you believe in slavery,” Paul said.
He added, “You are going to enslave not only me but the janitor at my hospital, the person who cleans my office, the assistants, the nurses. … You are basically saying you believe in slavery.”