Jack Yesner Week 18- Congress Passes Anti-Lynching Bill
On Monday, March 7, 2022, the United States Congress passed the first ever bill that would criminalize the act of lynching. The bill, which many members of Congress have stated to be long overdue, marks a key turning point into officially banning the violent practice. Lynching occurs when a hate crime, typically against an African-American, results in the victim incurring severe injuries or dying. Lynching became prevalent in the United States following the emancipation of African-Americans after the Civil War, and between the years of 1877 to 1950, over 4,000 lynchings have documented in the United States by a report from the Equal Justice Initiative.
There have been over two hundred attempts to pass a bill that criminalizes lynching in the past, of which all but the most recent bill have failed. The first attempt to criminalize lynching was over one hundred years ago, in 1900, due to efforts of Black representative George Henry White, but failed to advance in the almost entirely White Congress. Even recent efforts to pass an anti-lynching bill have failed, such as when Senator Rand Paul objected to a similar bill on the grounds that it was “too broad”.
Due to Congressman Bobby Rush, who has advocated for the bill for over thirty years, with the key support of senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott, the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, named after the murdered African-American teenager, passed unanimously in the Senate. However, in the House of Representatives, while the bill shared bipartisan support, three representatives, Republicans Chip Roy, Thomas Massie, and Andrew Clyde voted against the bill. While the exact reason for their dissent is not entirely clear, the presence of “nay” votes on the legislation shows there is still more work to be done on educating the country about Black history and lynching.
Do you support this bill? Why do you think it took so long to pass?
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