Congress passed a bill on Tuesday that for the first time would make lynching a federal crime in the U.S.
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, named after the black teenager who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955, is among some 200 bills that have been introduced over the past century that have tried to ban lynching in the country.
BREAKING: The US Senate unanimously passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Now, the bill will head to @POTUS' desk to be signed into law. https://t.co/EfPeXVVma6
— Ben Crump (@AttorneyCrump) March 8, 2022
“After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress is finally succeeding in taking a long overdue action by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act,” said Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York.
The bill allows the federal government to prosecute a crime as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury. The maximum sentence under the Anti-Lynching Act is 30 years.
Last week, the House approved a revised version and the Senate passed the bill unanimously on Monday, sending the bill to President Biden’s desk for his signature.
“Lynching is a long-standing and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy,” said Illinois Congressman Bobby Rush. “[It] sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the US federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act”.
Republican Senator Tim Scott also called the passage of the bill a “necessary and long-overdue step toward a more unified and just America”.
“After working on this issue for years, I am glad to have partnered with colleagues on both sides of the aisle to finally get this done,” Scott wrote on Twitter.
According to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), lynching is defined as “violent public acts that white people used to terrorize and control Black people in the 19th and 20th centuries, particularly in the South.”
“Lynchings typically evoke images of Black men and women hanging from trees, but they involved other extreme brutality, such as torture, mutilation, decapitation, and desecration. Some victims were burned alive,” the NAACP added.
