Democratic candidate Charles Booker wears a noose in campaign advertising to highlight the painful feelings of the nation history of lynch and criticize Senator Rand Paul (right).

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Charles Booker, Democratic nominee challenging Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky), wears a noose in a new campaign ad in which he seeks to emphasize the painful history of lynching and opposition to Paul’s 2020 bill to make him a federal hatred crime.

“Pain of our past persists to this day,” Booker. says in ad. “In Kentucky, like in many states of the South, lynching was a tool of terror. It was used for kill hope for freedom.”

camera shows the noose around Booker’s neck.

“Used to kill my ancestors,” he said. says. “Currently, in historic victory for our community, I became first Black Kentuckian to receive Democratic nomination for US Senate”.

“My opponent? Booker continues like images of Paul Flash on screen. “A person who single-handedly blocked the operation of the anti-lynching law as a federal law.”

The ad doesn’t mention that Paul backed updated a bill known as the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, which was passed in Senate in March and now the law. Paul alone held up legislation in 2020 saying he was concerned it could be applied too widely.

In March, Paul admitted to the Louisville Courier-Journal that “it wasn’t a popular position to slow down this bill. down” in 2020, but he still believed he did the right thing. Paul later co-authored updated a bill that was introduced by Senators Cory Booker (DN.J.) and Tim Scott (RS.C.).

“In the end I think compromise language let’s hope to keep us from the deprivation of liberty for some of crime this is not a lynching,” Paul told the newspaper. “We just wanted do sure that the punishment was proportionate to the crime, and I assume it is just good news that it finally worked out”.

In a statement Wednesday, Jake Cox, Paul’s deputy campaign manager suggested that Booker’s ad was “a desperate misrepresentation of data.

“Dr. Paul worked hard with Senators Booker and Scott to reinforce language of of this legislation and is a co-author of a bill that now ensures that federal law will define lynching as absolutely heinous crime that it is,” Cox said.

President Biden signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law. in March, noting that it took more how century of failed efforts to pass federal law expressly prohibiting lynching.

“For a long time lynching was clean terror to secure the lie that not everyone, not everyone belongs in In America, not everyone is created equal,” Biden said at the time. in Rose garden ceremony after the signing of the bill. “Innocent men, women as well as children hung on hinges from trees, bodies burned, drowned and castrated. Their crimes? Trying to vote, trying to go to school, trying to own business or preach the gospel. false accusations of murder, arson and robbery. Just be black.”

new law amends US Code to define lynching as hate crime punishable up to 30 years in prison. Over 4,000 people, mostly African American, lynched in USA from 1882 to 1968 in everything but a handful of states. Ninety nine percent of criminals escaped state or local punishment.

Booker and Paul will face off in november general elections. Paul faced four contenders in Republican primary on May 17, but won deftly. Booker, A. former Representative of Kentucky and Louisville native failed in his attempt to be a Democratic Senate candidate in 2020 but also easily won his primary race last month.

Booker new ad also calls out Paul for once comparing expanded healthcare to slavery and for his past criticism of Civil Rights Act.

Felicia Sonmez and Eugene Scott contributed to this report.

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