There has been some progress made since the Constitution was written, where "I was three-fifths of a man," but there is still a lot that needs to be done, Sen. Tim Scott, the only black Republican in the Senate, said Monday.
"There's no doubt that in our nation, the original sin was that of racism," the South Carolina lawmaker said on "CBS This Morning." "One of the reasons I've encouraged the White House to look at having the Department of Justice focus on race injustice is because it's one of the areas where Americans want fairness."
He added that if one looks at the case of George Floyd, who died after a police officer in Minneapolis held a knee to his neck, and Ahmaud Arbery, the young man who was followed and killed earlier this year in Georgia, "to suggest that there aren't racial challenges and patterns is for someone to be blind. So we cannot deny the truth."
However, Scott said he's been stopped walking into the Capitol "even with my Senate pin on. Because I'm an African-American, they didn't believe my pin was mine."
"I get it," he said. "But I'm not going to focus my attention in the midst of this challenge on one individual who got it wrong. I want to focus my attention on folks like John Lewis, the peaceful protesting led to systemic change in our nation. If all we do is celebrate the negative and, frankly, I know it sells better, we'll miss the very important point ... every single American wants to understand their own intrinsic value and want to allow that to be expressed publicly."
Scott also said Monday he's had a "constructive conversation" with President Donald Trump about his tweets on the protests and suggested that it would be good to speak with some of the leading voices in the African-American community.
"I have a piece of legislation called the 'Walter Scotland Notification Act' that would help understand the shootings around the country," said Scott. "There's no one place you can go to get the information today. I'm hoping we'll see that and other pieces of legislation going forward."