As he tiptoes closer to launching a 2024 White House bid, Republican Tim Scott released a video to his supporters this week that trumpeted his biography.
Scott, the lone Black Republican in the Senate, grew up poor, was raised by a single mother and is the grandson of man who had to drop out of third grade to pick cotton.
"I know America is a land of opportunity, not a land of oppression," he said in the video unveiling his exploratory committee for a presidential run.
That message strikes at the heart of how Scott plans to appeal to the country — and how he views the issue of race in America. The South Carolina lawmaker isn't offering voters a colorblind candidacy, but rather a belief in redemption rooted in his rfa
It echoed remarks Scott delivered during the GOP rebuttal to President Joe Biden's first joint address to Congress inn 2021.
At the time, the South Carolina senator declared: "America is not a racist country," which was denunciated by Democratic critics and other progressives.
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That the 57-year-old lawmaker chose to unveil his intentions on the 162nd anniversary of the Civil War—and at Fort Sumter where the conflict's first shots were fired —also reveals how Scott sees the 2024 campaign taking shape.
He strikes a tone that seeks to uphold American idealism while aggressively confronting Democratic policies and views on race in a way that will appeal to GOP base voters plugged into culture war issues.
"America's soul was put to the test, and we prevailed," Scott said while passing a row of cannons. "Today our country is once again being tested."
Scott: 'This is personal to me'
Like many Black conservatives Scott has been on the receiving end of sharp criticism and name-calling.
In 2021, he was dragged across social media by Twitter users who used the term "uncle Tim"—a play on "uncle Tom" to describe a sellout—after he said the country wasn't racist.
While Scott didn't address that incident specifically, he said Democrats have often weaponized his race against him.
"When I fought back against their liberal agenda, they called me a prop, a token, because I disrupt their narrative," he said in the announcement video.
"I threaten their control," he added. "They know the truth of my life disproves their lies."
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The video continues a conversation Scott has been at the center of for years around race, where he has often talked about the country's past, current attitudes and how he's navigated them.A Republican adviser close to the Scott campaign, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely, told USA TODAY the senator is deeply conservative with evangelical roots, but that he's not a polarizing figure.