A day after he drew attention for a frank discussion of race, Sen. Tim Scott Timothy (Tim) Eugene ScottAuthor Ryan Girdusky: RNC worked best when highlighting 'regular people' as opposed to 'standard Republicans' Now is the time to renew our focus on students and their futures GOP lobbyists pleasantly surprised by Republican convention MORE (R-S.C.) on Thursday said the country needs to have a national conversation about how to fix growing racial tensions.

"I don't deny that our nation must have tough, painful conversations. Family conversations. But I have experienced what's possible when the family talks, and it's a really cool thing," Scott said from the Senate floor. "It's a dark hour for race relations."

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Scott, one of two African-American senators and the only black GOP senator, pointed to his own family as an example of how the country can move forward. His own grandfather, he noted, didn't finish elementary school and picked cotton.

"In the heart of the South, the home of the Civil War, a majority white district, these voters elected the grandson of a man who picked cotton over the children of the former United States senator and presidential candidate Strom Thurmond and a very popular governor, Gov. Carroll Campbell," he said. "From cotton to Congress in one lifetime."

Scott represented South Carolina's 1st District in the House from 2011 to 2013. He joined the upper chamber in 2013, becoming the first African-American to represent a Southern state in the Senate since Reconstruction.

He's given a series of speeches this week about how to bridge the gap between black communities and law enforcement, stressing that he's hopeful the country can overcome current tensions.

On Thursday, he focused on possible solutions including police body cameras, improved tracking of police shootings and criminal justice reform. Senators have renewed a push this week for a stalled bipartisan reform bill, which Scott supports.

"Thousands of people are protesting in the streets right now, thousands of them, because they believe our justice system is broken," Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) said separately Thursday. "We have a bill that has been worked on ... [but] that bill is going to sit, and sit and sit because we didn't do our jobs."

Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) and Scott are also discussing "solution Sunday," where families of different races would have a meal together.

The comments come as political figures in both parties are talking about race in frank terms.

Two black men were killed by police in separate incidents last week in Louisiana and Minnesota. In Dallas, a sniper shot and killed five police officers at a demonstration sparked by those two killings. Police said the sniper was targeting white people, and white officers specifically.

Lawmakers have praised Scott for taking to the Senate floor to talk about race.

Asked about his colleagues' reactions this week, he told reporters that they've been "positive" and "they're certainly, you know, more interested in the issue than they were before."