New Delhi: The US Congress Monday approved legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime in the country, reported news agency The Associated Press (AP). The bill has now been sent to the White House for President Joe Biden to sign into a law.
The long pending bill was passed in the Senate by a unanimous consent. After the bill is signed into a law, lynching as a hate crime will become punishable by up to 30 years in prison.
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is among some 200 bills that have been introduced in the Senate over the last several years trying to ban lynching in America.
“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, D-NY was quoted by AP.
The bill's champion, Rep. Bobby Rush, D-Ill while speaking to AP said, "Lynching is a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy.”
"Anti-Lynching Act sends a clear and emphatic message that our nation will no longer ignore this shameful chapter of our history and that the full force of the U.S. federal government will always be brought to bear against those who commit this heinous act,” he further added.
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is named after the Black teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, sparking immense outrage in the US and the international community.
Emmett Till's mother had insisted on an open funeral casket to show the world and human rights activists what had been done to her child.