House passes anti-lynching bill after 120 years of failure

Since at least 1900, members of the House and Senate have tried to pass a law making lynching a federal crime. The bills were blocked, shelved or ignored, and the passage of time has rendered anti-lynching legislation increasingly symbolic.

But Wednesday, a measure to add lynching to the U.S. criminal code passed in the House. The Senate passed a version of the bill last year.

Once the bills are reconciled, the legislation can be sent to the Oval Office, where President Donald Trump is expected to sign it into law.

The House bill, called the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, was introduced by Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill. The Senate bill, which passed unanimously last year, was introduced by Sens. Kamala Harris, D-Calif.; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; and Tim Scott, R-S.C.

“Today brings us one step closer to finally reconciling a dark chapter in our nation’s history,” Booker said.

The bill makes lynching a hate crime and describes it as “a pernicious and pervasive tool” that often was carried out “by multiple offenders and groups rather than isolated individuals.”

“We are one step closer to finally outlawing this heinous practice and achieving justice for over 4,000 victims of lynching,” Rush said.

He cited Emmett Till, one of thousands of lynching victims during the Jim Crow era. Emmett was brutally tortured and killed in 1955, when he was 14, after a white woman accused him of grabbing her and whistling at her in a grocery store in Mississippi. Emmett’s mother, Mamie Till Mobley, fought against a quick burial so her son’s mutilated body could be viewed and photographed to “let the world see what I have seen.”

The two white men who were charged with killing Emmett were acquitted by an all-white jury. At the time, it was often the case that perpetrators of racist violence were either acquitted or not prosecuted at all.

“The importance of this bill cannot be overstated,” Rush said.

“From Charlottesville to El Paso, we are still being confronted with the same violent racism and hatred that took the life of Emmett and so many others,” he said, referring to white supremacist rallies in Virginia in 2017 and a mass shooting in Texas last year in which authorities said Mexicans were targeted. “The passage of this bill will send a strong and clear message to the nation that we will not tolerate this bigotry.”

Murder is typically prosecuted at the state or local level, but the House and Senate bills would make lynching a federal crime. It fits a long-standing pattern: Civil rights legislation often has been passed at the federal level after individual states did not act.

Researchers have documented more than 4,000 lynchings in the United States between 1877 and 1950, mostly — although not exclusively — in the South.