(NewsReady.com) – Thousands of Americans were lynched in the US between the end of the Civil War and the passage of the Civil Rights bill. More than 50 years after the passage of the Act, signaling the end of the Civil Rights movement, an anti-lynching bill has finally passed Congress.
On Monday, February 28, Congress passed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act (HR 55). The legislation passed the House of Representatives by an overwhelming 422-3 majority. The law will allow prosecutors to seek charges when a person dies or is seriously injured as the result of a conspiracy to commit a hate crime. People convicted under the law could serve a maximum of 30 years in prison.
The House passed a bill named for Emmett Till to make lynching a federal hate crime.
3 GOP Reps. voted against: Clyde, Massie, Roy.
▪️ Lynchings have killed over 4,000 mostly Black people
▪️ 99% of killers never punished
▪️ Congress failed to pass anti-lynching bills 200 times pic.twitter.com/Yh44R995Xr— AJ+ (@ajplus) March 1, 2022
According to Rep. Bobby Rush (D-IL), there have been more than 200 attempts to pass an anti-lynching law; the most recent was in 2020 after the murder of Ahmaud Arbery. The lawmaker said it was a “day of enormous consequence for our nation.”
The legislation is named after a 14-year-old black child who was murdered by a mob of white people for allegedly whistling at a white woman in 1955. His death is often cited as the catalyst that began the Civil Rights movement.
Do you support the anti-lynching legislation, or do you think it’s unnecessary given that hate crime legislation already exists?
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