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Republican Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith is learning the hard way that making light of public lynchings is a bad idea at anytime, but especially when running for office against a Black man—even in Mississippi.
Sunday, a video surfaced of Hyde-Smith praising a supporter at a November 2 campaign rally, saying she would “fight a circular saw for him.” And then added: “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.”
Now, a political action committee that supports her opponent, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Mike Espy in the Nov. 27 Mississippi runoff race, has released a video illustrating how it would look if her dream came true, according to the Clarion Ledger.
In the ad, sponsored by PowerPACPlus, Hyde-Smith is superimposed into an old photo of a white crowd attending the lynching of two Black men.
“This is where Republican Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith would like to be, according to her own words,” a male voice states in the video.
“The tragic, brutal and racist history of lynching in Mississippi is well known,” the ad states, underscoring Mississippi’s brutal post-Civil War history of conducting the most lynching in the U.S.
READ MORE: Tallahassee Mayor Andrew Gillum considers lawsuit as vote recount deadline nears
Campaign spokesmen for both Hyde-Smith and Espy called the video inappropriate.
“This is the same out-of-state group that is spending millions of dollars promoting Mike Espy and has now taken his campaign to the lowest depths imaginable,” Hyde-Smith campaign spokeswoman Melissa Scallan said in a statement. “It is time for Mike Espy to tell his group to end this appalling, divisive attack.”
For his part, Espy noted that while Hyde-Smith’s “public lynching” comment “inflamed passions,” he too found the latest ad, which was not produced by his campaign, to be disturbing and racially divisive.
Check out the video here. Viewer discretion is advised.
READ MORE: Michelle Obama looks becoming on the cover of Essence magazine
Mississippi Governor Phil Bryant defends Cindy Hyde-Smith’s lynching joke with comment about Black abortion rate. Hyde-Smith is facing public outcry after jokingly invoking “hanging” while campaigning in Mississippi
Full Story: https://t.co/hAOZH8YIZR pic.twitter.com/6xugKak9v7— Atlanta Black Star (@ATLBlackStar) November 14, 2018
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