New Delhi: President Joe Biden on Wednesday (March 30, 2022) signed a bill into law to make lynching a federal hate crime in the US, more than 100 years after such legislation was first proposed.
"I just signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law — making lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in American history," Biden tweeted.
I just signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law — making lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in American history.
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 29, 2022
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is named after the Black teenager whose killing in Mississippi in 1955 had become a galvanising moment in the civil rights era.
"Over the years, several federal hate crime laws were enacted, including one I signed last year to combat COVID-19 hate crimes. But no federal law — no federal law expressly prohibited lynching. None. Until today," Biden said.
"Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone — not everyone belongs in America and not everyone is created equal; terror to systematically undermine hard — hard-fought civil rights; terror not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight," he stated.
This afternoon, I’m signing the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law. https://t.co/JonhvqASWk
— President Biden (@POTUS) March 29, 2022
The new law makes it possible to prosecute a crime as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime leads to death or serious bodily injury. The law lays out a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison and fines.
Congress first considered anti-lynching legislation more than 120 years ago and had failed to pass such legislation nearly 200 times, beginning with a bill introduced in 1900 by North Carolina Rep George Henry White, the only Black member of Congress at the time.
(With agency inputs)
