Gary Chambers, a U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana who went viral last month for smoking a blunt in his campaign ad, is back again with his lighter. This time, the longtime community activists is using the lighter to set fire to a confederate flag.
In his release, a one-minute video titled “Scar and Bars,” Chamber is seen wearing a camo jacket as he pins a Confederate flag on a clothesline, douses is with gasoline and then sets it on fire.
In the video, he discusses – and symbolically destroys — the legacy of Jim Crow.
Who is Gary Chambers, the candidate for senate from Louisiana?
The ad opens with Chambers holding an American flag and quoting the Constitution, then replacing it with a Confederate flag as he remarks that its remnants linger in much of the South. He says the right of Black Americans to vote and participate in democracy is under attack, calling gerrymandered districts “a byproduct of the Confederacy.”
“Our system isn’t broken,” he says at one point, setting the flag aflame. “It’s designed to do exactly what it’s doing, which is producing measurable inequity.”
In the ad, Chambers notes the high rates of poverty and disenfranchisement among Black Americans as he watches the flag burn.
“It’s time to burn what remains of the Confederacy down,” he says. “I do believe the South will rise again, but this time it’ll be on our terms.”
Chambers faces an uphill battle in his challenge to replace U.S. Sen. John Kennedy — the 70-year-old Republican incumbent — as the junior senator from Louisiana. But these short clips are providing him a major boost in visibility, with his marijuana video racking up millions of views and considerable media attention.
