Anti-lynching law overdue

Though past efforts have failed, Congress must stand up for justice now

Passing a federal anti-lynching bill may be more of a symbolic achievement than a substantive measure that balances the scales of justice. It comes about a century too late to provide the protection that Black Americans deserved under the Constitution.

Still, even a symbolic measure against this abhorrent practice has meaning, especially if it comes with broad bipartisan support from federal lawmakers. That should make it a Congressional priority when members return to Washington next week.

The fight to enact a federal statute against lynching has a long history, one with local resonance.

On the eve of Houston welcoming the Democratic National Convention in 1928, the lynching death of Robert Powell elicited the passionate condemnation of Louis Jaffe, then the editorial page editor of the Norfolk Virginian-Pilot.

A crusader against the vigilante mob violence of the era, Jaffe has successfully advocated for an anti-lynching law in the commonwealth, which was approved by the General Assembly in March 1928. Powell’s murder in Houston called for something stronger: A federal statute that would bring Washington’s weight to bear on perpetrators.

“An Unspeakable act of savagery” is how Jaffe described the death of Powell, a 24-year-old accused of killing a police detective. Wounded in an exchange of gunfire, Powell was taken from the hospital by the mob and hanged from a bridge outside the city.

Jaffe’s editorial won the Pulitzer Prize, lending considerable national attention to the outrage of lynching still happening across the country. But his efforts did not translate into federal action. Congress never passed the anti-lynching bill Jaffe championed.

Fast forward to 2018.

The National Memorial for Peace and Justice opened that year in Birmingham, Alabama, providing a striking and solemn tribute to the victims of racist violence between 1877 and 1950. The Equal Justice Initiative, the nonprofit organization which organized the project, documented more than 4,400 acts of lynching in that period.

The memorial features 800 hanging steel columns, each representing a county where American lives were extinguished by racist terror. There are installations paying homage to the estimated 6 million Black Americans who fled the South to escape the violence and to those who lifted their voices in an effort to stop the killing.

This attempt to catalog the victims of racial violence, to tell the stories of those who died, who were terrorized or who fled for their lives, helps the nation confront its ugly past. It compels us to consider the human cost of inaction — the price of staying silent in the face of obvious injustice.

Lynching is no longer as prevalent as it was during the days of Jim Crow. Racial discrimination tends to be more covert. It wears a kinder face and conceals itself in plain sight, rather than cloaking itself in a white hood under the cover of night.

Still, civil rights leaders continue to press for Congress to adopt a federal anti-lynching statute which, unbelievably, is still far from certain.

In December 2018, the U.S. Senate gave its unanimous consent to a measure introduced by Sens. Kamala Harris, D-California; Cory Booker, D-New Jersey; and Tim Scott, R-South Carolina. The bill would add lynching to the federal criminal code, making it punishable with life in prison.

The House did not act before the Congress adjourned, requiring the

Senate to again give its consent — again, unanimously — in February 2019. The House followed this February, finally passing the bill by a 410-4 vote.

Slight differences in the bill require the Senate to vote again, opening the door for Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky, to block the measure, which he decided to do in June. He never misses an opportunity to be opportunistic.

By standing in the way of this legislation, however, Paul blocks a law more than a century in the making and overdue for nearly as long. Now is the time to see this law through, finally holding to account those who would deprive Black Americans of their right to life and liberty.