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U.S. Senate candidate Charles Booker’s memoir, “From the Hood to the Holler,” hit bookstores Tuesday, detailing his experiences growing up in Louisville, his early days in politics and the 2020 bid he lost for Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell’s seat.  

Booker is in the middle of a bid to challenge Sen. Rand Paul this year, with the May 17 Democratic primary for that election just three weeks away. 

Here are three highlights from his book, released by Crown Publishing, an imprint of the publishing giant Penguin Random House:

He thought about contesting Amy McGrath’s 2020 primary victory

The 2020 election in Kentucky was unlike any other, thanks to COVID-19. Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams and Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear worked together on a pandemic plan that included widespread mail-in voting for the first time in state history, among other changes.

When the primary election results were released a week after Election Day, they showed Booker lost to frontrunner and fellow Democrat Amy McGrath by about 15,000 votes, or 2.8%. And at first, Booker didn’t want to concede, according to his memoir.

“There had been so much confusion with the mail-in ballots, and we’d learned that votes were being discarded in some counties for not having proper signatures,” Booker wrote. “We were hearing stories from people about thousands of votes being improperly thrown out, but we didn’t have any hard facts to prove it, and we certainly didn’t have anything to indicate that the irregularities were enough to overcome the 15,000-vote margin.

“Still, so many people were begging me to challenge the results and keep fighting.” 

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He said he told a member of his campaign: “I’m not a quitter. If votes were thrown out, we should fight for them. That’s the point of all of this!”

However, the staffer told him there wasn’t a path to defeat McGrath, and contesting the primary results could hurt his relationship with the Democratic Party and hurt McGrath as the party’s nominee to challenge McConnell that November.

“I fussed a bit more, but eventually I relented and accepted that I would not be the Democratic nominee,” Booker wrote in his memoir. 

That fall, McConnell walloped McGrath with a double-digit reelection victory.

He intervened amid rising tensions after law enforcement killed David McAtee

Booker’s 2020 Senate bid rocketed into the spotlight when he joined Louisville’s racial justice protests in the summer of 2020, mere weeks before the June primary election. 

His memoir reflects on that summer, including the death of David McAtee, who ran a popular barbecue shop in the West End and whom law enforcement shot and killed overnight in June 2020.

Booker describes going out to join mourning residents the next morning and the growing tension he saw between the crowd and law enforcement officers on the scene. 

“I immediately called Governor Beshear to tell him that the residents were terrified and that the National Guard presence was only making things worse,” he wrote. “‘If you want to keep people safe,’ I said, ‘please call them off.'”

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Booker also said he spoke with law enforcement and called Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer after an officer told him they couldn’t put their weapons down without his say-so.

“Mayor, we have a problem on our hands that will get worse any minute without your help,'” Booker recalled telling Fischer. “‘These officers are standing in a combative posture with the community, and it’s antagonizing them. I’ve asked the officers to put their weapons down … I need you to give the order.’

He came up with his ‘Hood to the Holler’ slogan on a road trip in Eastern Kentucky

Booker drove east in early 2020 to meet with voters and demonstrate that the grassroots coalition he hoped to build across geographic, racial and other demographics in Kentucky was possible.  

“Other than the beautiful hills around us, it all felt familiar,” he wrote of the drive to Whitesburg. “These were the same houses I’d grown up with in the West End. I even saw one house with the same plastic lawn chairs my mom had in our backyard.” 

Booker said his campaign manager, Colin Lauderdale, told him: “Folks in the hollers get counted out, but there’s a lot of hardworking people around here, people who’ll take care of one another, even if they don’t have a lot.”

“That sounds like the hood!” Booker responded. “…The folks in these hollers are just as much my family as those I live with in the West End. That’s why I am fighting, man. We are going to bring change for all of us, from the hood to the holler.” 

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“As I said it, we looked at one another and sat quietly,” Booker wrote. “I could tell he felt the same reverence that I did. We were on the verge of something powerful.”

“That’s it, man!” Booker recalled saying. “From the hood to the holler. That’s going to be our rallying cry.” 

It didn’t just become Booker’s campaign slogan. He also named the nonprofit he formed after losing the 2020 primary “Hood to the Holler” and used the phrase again as the title for his memoir.

Morgan Watkins is The Courier Journal’s chief political reporter. Contact her at [email protected]. Follow her on Twitter: @morganwatkins26.