U.S. Sen. Cory Booker made the nation's complicated history with race relations and racial disparities a focal point at events in the key state of Iowa during his first 2020 presidential campaign swing over the weekend.
Booker, 49, a former Democratic mayor of Newark, New Jersey, frequently discussed incarceration and employment disparities, while also telling his parents' story of trying to buy a house in an un-integrated New Jersey suburb in the late 1960s with the help of a volunteer civil rights lawyer.
Booker's focus was an overture to the coalition of young, diverse voters who twice elected former Democratic President Barack Obama, while also differentiating his style from that of the first black U.S. president, who rarely discussed race during his campaign.