Biden signs bill making lynching a federal hate crime
CBSN
President Biden on Tuesday signed a bill to make lynching a federal hate crime, which came after Congress failed more than 200 times to pass anti-lynching legislation. Both Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris delivered remarks in the White House Rose Garden to mark the signing.
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act is named after Emmett Till, the 14-year-old who was beaten and killed in Mississippi in 1955. The Senate passed the bill by unanimous consent March 7, one month after the House passed it.
"It was over a hundred years ago in 1900, a North Carolina representative named George Henry White, the son of a slave, the only Black lawmaker in Congress at that time, who first introduced legislation to make lynching a crime," Mr. Biden said. "Hundreds, hundreds of similar bills have failed to pass. 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."
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