WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Joe Biden on Tuesday will sign into law the first federal legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime after the U.S. Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent this month.
The legislation is named for 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was brutally murdered in a racist attack in Mississippi in 1955 – an event that drew national attention to the atrocities and violence that African Americans faced in the United States and became a civil rights rallying cry.
The bill would make it possible to prosecute a crime as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury.
“After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress is finally succeeding in taking a long overdue action by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said when the chamber passed the bill.
The bill passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 422-3.
(Reporting by Nandita Bose in Washington; Editing by Howard Goller)
