After 100 years and 200 failed attempts by US legislators, a US President has finally signed legislation criminalizing lynching.
Lynching is the act of a mob killing someone without due process or the rule of law. Thousands of people, mostly African Americans, were lynched by white mobs across the United States in the 19th and 20th centuries, frequently by hanging or torture.
According to the Equal Justice Initiative, around 4,400 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950. Those who took part in lynchings were frequently praised and acted without consequence.
On Tuesday, March 29, Vice President Joe Biden signed legislation designating lynching as a federal hate crime. The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is named after the black adolescent whose lynching in Mississippi in 1955 sparked the civil rights movement.
Lynching perpetrators now face up to 30 years in prison if they kill or injure someone as a consequence of a hate crime.
“Thank you for never giving up, never ever giving up,” Biden said after signing the bill. “Lynching was sheer horror to enforce the fiction that not everyone, not everyone, belongs in America, that not everyone is created equal,” says the author.
On Tuesday, March 29, Vice President Joe Biden signed legislation designating lynching as a federal hate crime. The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is named after the black adolescent whose lynching in Mississippi in 1955 sparked the civil rights movement.
Lynching perpetrators now face up to 30 years in prison if they kill or injure someone as a consequence of a hate crime.
“Thank you for never giving up, never ever giving up,” Biden said after signing the bill. “Lynching was sheer horror to enforce the fiction that not everyone, not everyone, belongs in America, that not everyone is created equal,” says the author.