WASHINGTON — The House on Monday overwhelmingly approved legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime, moving to formally outlaw a brutal act that has become a symbol of the failure by Congress and the country to reckon with the history of racial violence in America.
Passage of the anti-lynching bill, named in honor of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black teenager brutally tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, came after more than a century of failed attempts. Lawmakers estimated they had tried more than 200 times to pass a measure to explicitly criminalize a type of attack that has long terrorized Black Americans. This bill was approved 422 to 3, and was expected to pass the Senate, where it enjoys broad support.
“The House today has sent a resounding message that our nation is finally reckoning with one of the darkest and most horrific periods of our history, and that we are morally and legally committed to changing course,” said Representative Bobby L. Rush, Democrat of Illinois, who had vowed to see the legislation become law before retiring at the end of his term.
In a statement, Mr. Rush, who was a civil-rights leader and founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party, recalled when, as an 8-year-old boy, he first saw a photograph of Emmett’s battered body, an image that he said “shaped my consciousness as a Black man in America, changed the course of my life, and changed our nation.”
Like other lawmakers who spoke in support of the bill, he invoked Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old Black man shot and killed in Georgia while out for a jog, calling his death a “modern-day lynching” and further evidence that the measure was urgently needed. A week ago, a jury found three white Georgia men guilty of a federal hate crime in connection with Mr. Arbery’s murder.
The measure passed on Monday would categorize lynching as a federal hate crime, carrying a penalty of up to 30 years in prison.
Democrats and Republicans alike hailed the action as historic. Representative Andy Biggs, Republican of Arizona and one of the House’s most conservative members, made a point of requesting a recorded vote, saying all members should have their positions memorialized “for posterity, and for all Americans to know and recognize that the United States House of Representatives can come together as yet.”
“We may disagree on so many things,” said Mr. Biggs, who voted against certifying Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory in the aftermath of the Jan. 6 riot at the …….
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/28/us/politics/house-lynching-hate-crime.html