Senate unanimously passes historic anti-lynching bill


With a unanimous vote, the Senate on Monday passed The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which makes lynching a federal hate crime.
The bill is named in honor of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black teenager who was brutally tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, after a white woman falsely claimed he propositioned her. Lynchings have been used to instill fear in Black and Mexican-American communities, and Congress attempted to pass anti-lynching legislation more than 200 times prior to Monday, with efforts going back to the early 1900s.
The measure was introducing in the House by Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Ill.) and in the Senate by Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.); it now heads to President Biden's desk for his signature. In a statement, Rush said lynching is "a long-standing and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy. Perpetrators of lynching got away with murder time and time again — in most cases, they were never even brought to trial. ... Today, we correct this historic and abhorrent injustice."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Between 1882 and 1968, more than 4,000 people, most of them Black, were reported lynched in the United States, and 99 percent of the perpetrators went unpunished, Rush's office said.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
-
Bluetoothing: the phenomenon driving HIV spike in Fiji
Under the Radar ‘Blood-swapping’ between drug users fuelling growing health crisis on Pacific island
-
Marisa Silver’s 6 favorite books that capture a lifetime
Feature The author recommends works by John Williams, Ian McEwan, and more
-
Book reviews: ‘We the People: A History of the U.S. Constitution’ and ‘Will There Ever Be Another You’
Feature The many attempts to amend the U.S. Constitution and Patricia Lockwood’s struggle with long Covid
-
Court allows Trump’s Texas troops to head to Chicago
Speed Read Trump is ‘using our service members as pawns in his illegal effort to militarize our nation’s cities,’ said Gov. J.B. Pritzker
-
Judge bars Trump’s National Guard moves in Oregon
Speed Read In an emergency hearing, a federal judge blocked President Donald Trump from sending National Guard troops into Portland
-
Museum head ousted after Trump sword gift denial
Speed Read Todd Arrington, who led the Dwight D. Eisenhower Presidential Library and Museum, denied the Trump administration a sword from the collection as a gift for King Charles
-
Trump declares ‘armed conflict’ with drug cartels
speed read This provides a legal justification for recent lethal military strikes on three alleged drug trafficking boats
-
Supreme Court rules for Fed’s Cook in Trump feud
Speed Read Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook can remain in her role following Trump’s attempts to oust her
-
Judge rules Trump illegally targeted Gaza protesters
Speed Read The Trump administration’s push to arrest and deport international students for supporting Palestine is deemed illegal
-
Trump: US cities should be military ‘training grounds’
Speed Read In a hastily assembled summit, Trump said he wants the military to fight the ‘enemy within’ the US
-
US government shuts down amid health care standoff
Speed Read Democrats said they won’t vote for a deal that doesn’t renew Affordable Care Act health care subsidies