President will sign the first federal legislation to make lynching a federal hate crime into law on Tuesday.
The legislation is named for 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was murdered in a racist attack in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman. The brutal murder drew national attention to the violence faced by African Americans in America, and went on to become a civil rights rallying cry.
Anti-lynching legislation had been introduced in Congress over 200 times, and never before passed into law . But earlier this month the bill was unanimously passed by the Senate.
The bill would make it possible to prosecute a crime as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or a serious bodily injury. This also includes kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to kidnap, abuse or kill.
Over 4,000 people, mostly African Americans, were lynched in the US between 1882 and 1968 in a majority of states. Ninety-nine percent of perpetrators did not receive punishment at the local or state level, according to the office of Representative Bobby Rush, one of the Senators who introduced the bill.
Rush, an Illinois Democrat, introduced the legislation with Senators Cory Booker a Democrat from New Jersey, and Tim Scott, a Republican from South Carolina.
‘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,’ Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, said when the chamber passed the bill.
The bill passed in the House of Representatives by a vote of 422-3. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent.
A 2020 version of the bill set the maximum sentence as 10 years, but the version that will be signed into law comes with 30 years in prison and fines for anyone conspiring to commit and act of lynching.
Biden is expected to sign the bill into law at 4pm ET. Vice President Kamala Harris is expected to attend the signing as well, and both are expected to deliver remarks on the legislation from the Rose Garden at the White House.
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