Biden Signs Historic Anti-Lynching Law That Criminalizes This White Supremacist Tool Of ‘Terror’
After more than a century of failed attempts, lynching is finally a federal crime in the United States. On Tuesday (March 29) President Joe Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, named for the 14-year-old Black boy who was tortured and killed by a mob of white vigilantes in Mississippi in 1955.
At the White House Rose Garden signing, the president underscored that lynchings, which mostly targeted Black people, was a tool used by white supremacists.
“Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone, not everyone belongs in America, not everyone is created equal,” The New York Times quoted Biden’s remarks.
“Terror, to systematically undermine hard, hard fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night, but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses from trees. Bodies burned and drowned and castrated. Their crimes? Trying to vote, trying to go to school, to try and own a business or preach the gospel.”
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act designates lynching as a hate crime, punishable by up to 30 years in prison, The Washington Post reported.
The passage of a federal anti-lynching law was more than a century in the making. Lawmakers in the House passed the bill in February with minor opposition (approved 422 to 3), and Senators voted unanimously in favor of the measure a week later.
In 1900, Rep. George Henry White, a North Carolina Republican and the only Black lawmaker in Congress at the time, introduced a federal anti-lynching bill that died in committee, according to the Post. Years later, Missouri Republican Rep. Leonidas C. Dyer introduced a similar bill that passed in the House but was filibustered by Southern Democrats in the Senate.
In 2019, Rep. Bobby L. Rush, an Illinois Democrat, introduced the Emmett Till Antilynching Act in the House, and New Jersey’s Democratic Sen. Cory Booker and Sen. Tim Scott, a South Carolina Republican, introduced it as a bipartisan effort in the Senate. Vice President Kamala Harris, who was then a senator, co-sponsored the bill.
“Lynchings were acts of violence—they were horrendous acts of violence, and they were motivated by racism,” Harris said in 2019. “With this bill, we finally have a chance to speak the truth about our past and make clear that these hateful acts should never happen again. We can finally offer some long-overdue justice and recognition to the victims of lynching and their families.”
“Antilynching legislation will not heal the pain experienced by the more than 4,000 African American men, women, and children who were lynched during the 19th and 20th centuries. It will not reverse the fear and suffering that Black communities endured during those years as this shameful instrument of terror was wielded by white supremacists to intimidate and oppress. But signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law is a necessary step that signals our nation is willing to confront the darkness of its past to move towards a brighter future,” said Booker in a statement following the President’s signing the Act into law.
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It’s impossible to know the exact number of lynching victims in the United States. The NAACP recorded 4,743 of the extrajudicial killings from 1882 to 1968. The highest number of lynchings happened in Mississippi with 581, followed by Georgia (531) and Texas (493). Black victims accounted for 72 percent of these incidents.
Chicago’s Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot, who is a member of the African American Mayors Association, said in a statement that “Chicago-native Emmett Till was just 14 years old when he was kidnapped, tortured, and brutally murdered by white vigilantes while visiting family in Mississippi. Over six decades later, our nation is still reckoning with racial violence and systemic racism, as well as broader systems of injustice. This law is a step forward toward righting our nation’s wrongs and protecting people—especially children— from acts of hatred.”
Black people like Anthony Crawford were lynched just for being successful businessmen, noted Bryan Stevenson, founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative, a human rights organization in Montgomery, Ala. Octavius Catto was lynched in 1871 because he voted and encouraged others to register to vote in Philadelphia. Mary Turner was lynched because she wanted law enforcement to hold the people who lynched her husband to be held accountable.
“Our nation failed, our courts failed, and Congress failed to intervene when the rule of law was mocked by violent mobs that pulled people out of jails to brutally torture and lynch them on the courthouse lawn,” Stevenson added.
At the White House signing ceremony, Michelle Duster, the great-granddaughter of journalist and activist Ida B. Wells, spoke about Wells’ efforts to chronicle lynchings and effort to urge then President William S. McKinley in 1898 to make lynching a federal crime.
“We finally stand here today, generations later, to witness this historic moment of President Biden signing the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill into law,” the Times quoted Duster.
