US Congress passes bill to make lynching federal hate crime

Congress has given final approval to legislation that for the first time would make lynching a federal hate crime in the United States, sending the bill to President Joe Biden to sign into law.

Years in the making, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, passed late on Monday, is among some 200 bills that have been introduced over the past century that have tried to ban lynching in America.

It is named for the Black teenager whose brutal killing in Mississippi in 1955 — and whose mother’s insistence on an open funeral casket to show the world what had been done to her child — became a pivotal moment in the Civil Rights era.

Load More