Meet Gary Chambers Jr., Louisiana's Confederate flag-burning, marijuana-smoking Senate candidate

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Firsts across the country just keep on coming: In Louisiana, Gary Chambers Jr. not only wants to be the first Black senator in the state, but wants to better the state’s health, education, infrastructure, and economy to increase the state’s rank.

“When I look at this state and its people, we are so much greater than our state’s ranking,” Chambers said. “And it’s in part because of the leaders that we’ve had who make decisions that are against the people of this state.”

Chambers is an activist and now a Democratic challenger for the state’s U.S. Senate seat. According to NBC News, the 36-year-old has gone viral on social media for calling out local politicians and fighting for communities of color.

Among one of his popular campaign posts is one of him smoking marijuana, and another one of him burning the Confederate flag.

“We need to burn the remnants of the Confederacy from every piece of legislation that exists in this country in order for this country to be whole again,” Chambers told NBC News in March. “And we need to build that conversation by talking about the racial inequities that exist.”

Chambers’ first ad, entitled “37 Seconds,” was released in January. During this ad he smoked a blunt in an open field and spoke of the high rate of arrests and prosecutions related to marijuana. He added that Black Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for marijuana despite usage being at the same rate as other racial groups. The ad was viewed more than 6 million times.

According to an analysis by NOLA.com, while Black people make up 60% of the state’s population, they accounted for 86% of all arrests and summonses issued for weed in 2020.

Advocates for the decriminalization of marijuana applauded Chambers’ ad but noted the backlash it would attract.

“We certainly appreciate somebody who is getting out front, making a lot of noise about this issue, and not just doing it in a provocative way, but also explaining the many different criminal injustices,” Peter Robins-Brown, the executive director of Louisiana Progress, told NBC News. He noted that many viewers “got caught up on what he was doing and they didn’t listen to what he was saying.”

As of this report, marijuana has only been decriminalized in 27 states. It is still illegal at the federal level. Chambers said legalizing marijuana at a state and federal level would reduce some racial inequalities.

“We should not be okay going on about our day … while people are having a luxury in one part of the country, while other folks are having a penalty for that same luxury,” Chambers said.

If elected, Chambers hopes to change this through supporting policies like “Medicare for All” and raising the national minimum wage to $15 per hour. His main campaign focus is combatting racial injustice.

Despite his competitor having raised a more significant amount of money than he has according to the most recent data available from the Federal Election Commission, Chambers remains optimistic about his campaign. At this time, he has raised about $1.2 million while his opponent, Republican incumbent Sen. John Kennedy, has raised more than $23 million.

“This is a very winnable race,” Chambers said, citing the reelection of Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards in 2019. “If the DNC and … state party take this race seriously … we can raise the resources and build the infrastructure to win this election.”

In his second campaign video, which was called “Scars and Bars” and released in February, Chambers burned the Confederate flag. This action made his video go viral, but many believe it took away from his message of how the Confederacy enforced laws to limit or revoke the rights of Black people and communities due to the reactions burning the flag engendered.

“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 video. “And the remnants of the Confederacy remain.”

“Our system isn’t broken,” he added.“It’s designed to do exactly what it’s doing, which is producing measurable inequity.”

But this isn’t the first time Chambers made headlines for what people call his controversial tactics. According to NBC News, two years ago, posts of Chambers went viral after he called out a school board member for allegedly shopping on her laptop during a meeting about the removal of Confederate General Robert E. Lee’s name from a school building. Chambers changed his planned remarks to call the board member “arrogant,” “horrible,” and an “example of racism in this community.”

“Some things can only be fixed if you call it out,” Chambers said. “Too often we like to pretend things aren’t as bad as they are, and if you just say it then people can say, ‘OK, let’s do something about this.’ And that’s what we do.”

Despite the backlash Chambers has faced and the potential loss of his message in his actions of burning the flag and smoking, the videos worked well for exposure. According to The Washington Post, within 24 hours of the videos being released, Chambers saw his biggest fundraising haul of the campaign. It was a “six-figure day,” Chambers told the Post.

Chambers’ campaign comes at a time when the public is demanding lawmakers draw congressional districts that better represent the state’s population. According to NPR, census data shows that roughly one-third of the state’s population identifies as Black; however, only one of the state’s six congressional districts has a majority minority population. A second majority-Black district is likely to result in the loss of a safe Republican seat in Congress, NPR noted.

As a result, Chambers sees a possible victory in this election as an overall win for Black people.

“There will be some redemption in that moment being possible not just for me, but for all of the thousands, if not millions of Black people who lived in this state over the years,” Chambers told NBC News. “Who were brilliant and talented enough to have served in the United States Senate, but racism and bigotry would have prevented them from being able to have this opportunity that I have today.

“I think about what it would mean in that moment for all those people, more than what it would me for myself.”