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Kentucky U.S. Sen. Rand Paul brought his presidential campaign to Chicago on Wednesday, appealing to African-Americans on the South Side, entrepreneurs downtown and Republicans in the suburbs.

On a stage set up on a blacktop parking lot in front of an American flag mural at 66th Street and South King Drive, Paul continued a unique approach for GOP White House contenders making an appeal to African-Americans who tend to favor Democrats.

Paul opened his speech by referring to the "black lives matter" refrain used by protesters after the controversial deaths of African-American men at the hands of police. Paul said the phrase reminds him of the deaths of Eric Garner, who was choked to death by officers in New York, and Freddie Gray, who was fatally injured in police custody in Baltimore. But Paul said the phrase also has meaning in Chicago.

"When I hear people say, 'Black lives matter,' I think of Jacele Johnson, who is 4 years old and got shot this weekend just a few blocks from here," Paul said of the Englewood girl who doctors say is swiftly recovering after being shot on the left side of her head Friday night outside a family gathering. "You may be saying to yourself, 'Why is this white guy saying black lives matter, what does he know about crime in my neighborhood?' Well, I've got crime in my neighborhood too. We've got some kind of thing going on in our country, and we need to come to grips with it."

Paul then talked about a horrific 2011 case in his home state. "In my little town in Kentucky, a white woman cut a baby out of another white woman.

"There is crime going on all across America. It is not a racial thing, it is a spiritual problem," Paul said. "I think government can play a role in public safety, but I don't think government can mend a broken spirit. Government can't provide you salvation, government can't save you. Ultimately, salvation is something you accept yourselves."

A white, libertarian Republican senator from the South urging African-American voters in an impoverished, heavily Democratic neighborhood on the city's South Side to look within themselves to "find your inner grace" isn't a typical scene in a GOP presidential bid. Paul, though, isn't running a conventional campaign.

His stop in Chicago came a day after the release of his book "Taking a Stand," in which he makes the case for a new, more inclusive Republican Party, proclaiming the "Republican brand sucks."

On Wednesday, Paul sought to bring that theme to the stump.

He advocated for reclassifying nonviolent felonies to misdemeanors as part of his call to end "mass incarceration" in America.

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Rand Paul in Chicago: Crime 'not a racial thing, it is a ...