ROCKLAND COUNTY, NY – Democratic Congressional candidate for NY-17 Mondaire Jones released his first campaign ad, “Dirt Path.”

In the video, Jones, a 32-year-old old former Obama Administration staffer, community leader, attorney and lifelong Rockland county resident, talks about the racism his grandparents faced in the Jim Crow South and the civil rights crises our country faces again today. He was raised in Spring Valley by a single mother who worked multiple jobs and still needed to rely on Section 8 housing and food stamps. Mondaire attended East Ramapo public schools and Stanford University before graduating from Harvard Law.

Watch the video below:

White kids used to spit on my grandfather while he walked to school in the Jim Crow South.

Now I’m running to be the first black, openly gay Congressmember in America. Watch our first campaign ad & help us make history: https://t.co/rxvQCmja2O pic.twitter.com/B5QFioKBr8

— Mondaire Jones (@MondaireJones) November 14, 2019

“My grandfather used to tell me a story about how when he would walk to school growing up in Virginia, there were white students who got to take the bus. And they would spit on him through the school bus windows as he was walking the dirt path on his way to school. I was raised by a single mother who worked multiple jobs, and we still needed food stamps to get by,” NY-17 Congressional Candidate Mondaire Jones says in the ad. “I didn’t come from money. I’m black, I’m gay, and so I don’t see people like me in office very often.”

In his bid for New York’s 17th Congressional District, Mondaire has already picked up endorsements from a dozen local elected officials including The Victory Fund and The Collective PAC, and pulled in a Q3 fundraising haul of more than $218,000. If elected, Mondaire will be the first openly gay, black member of Congress.