WASHINGTON — The House on Monday overwhelmingly passed legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime, moving to formally ban a brutal act that has become a symbol of Congress and the country’s failure to reckon with history. of racial violence in America.
The passage of the anti-lynching law, named in honor of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black teenager who was brutally tortured and murdered in Mississippi in 1955, came after more than a century of failed attempts. Lawmakers estimate that they had attempted a measure more than 200 times to explicitly criminalize a type of attack that has long terrorized black Americans. This bill passed 422 to 3 and was expected to pass the Senate, where it enjoys broad support.
“The House sent a resounding message today that our nation is finally reckoning with one of the darkest and most horrific periods in our history, and that we are morally and legally obligated to change course,” said Representative Bobby L. Rush, Illinois Democrat, who had vowed the legislation would become law before retiring at the end of his term.
In a statement, Mr Rush, who was a civil rights leader and founder of the Illinois branch of the Black Panther Party, recalled seeing a photo of Emmett’s battered body for the first time as an 8-year-old boy, an image that said “my consciousness as a black man in America, changed the course of my life and changed our nation.”
Like other lawmakers who supported the bill, he cited Ahmaud Arbery, a 25-year-old black man who was shot to death while jogging in Georgia, calling his death a “modern lynching” and further evidence that the measure was urgently needed. A week ago, a jury found three white Georgia men guilty of a federal hate crime in connection with the murder of Mr. arbery.
The measure passed Monday would categorize lynching as a federal hate crime, with a prison term of up to 30 years.
Democrats and Republicans alike hailed the move as historic. Representative Andy Biggs, Arizona Republican and one of the most conservative members of the House, called for a registered vote, saying that all members should have their views remembered “for posterity, and for all Americans to know and recognize.” that the United States House of Representatives can still meet now.”
“We can disagree on so many things,” said Mr. Biggs, who opposed confirmation of Joseph R. Biden Jr.’s victory. voted in the aftermath of the January 6 riots at the Capitol. But the vote, he added, would show “we can come together in unity”.
Three Republicans — Representatives Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky and Chip Roy of Texas — opposed the anti-lynching bill.
The legislation now goes to the Senate, where the chamber formally apologized in 2005 for not responding to the issue, including during the Jim Crow era, when Southern senators successfully blocked attempts to include it.
In 2018, there were three black senators: New Jersey Democrat Cory Booker; Tim Scott, Republican from South Carolina; and Kamala Harris of California — tried to revive the effort to make lynching a federal hate crime. The legislation was passed by the Senate in December 2018, just weeks before Congress was adjourned.
It resurfaced in the summer of 2020 amid a wave of protests against racial justice following the murder of black men and women by white people, sparking a battle on the Senate floor after Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul objected. made against its rapid passage, called it excessively wide.
On Monday, Mr Paul said in a statement that he would support the measure, which Mr Booker and Mr Scott reintroduced on Monday evening.
“I am pleased to have worked with Senators Booker and Scott to amplify the final product and ensure that the language of this bill defines lynching as the absolutely heinous crime that it is,” said Mr. Paul.
The House vote took place on the last day of Black History Month, when House leaders also tried and failed to pass another bill that would eliminate racial discrimination based on natural hair and hairstyles, including cornrows, twists, and plaiting, would prohibit. The measure received bipartisan support but fell short of the two-thirds it would have taken to push it through a special process reserved for consensus laws.
That measure, passed by vote in 2020, would argue that “discrimination based on race and national origin can and does occur because of longstanding prejudices about race and national origin and stereotypes associated with hair texture and style.”
Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat and a campaigner for the law, urged her colleagues to support it, stating that “our natural hair is as innate in black people as the presence of melanin in our skin. “
“No one should have to sacrifice their time, their money and the health of their hair to live up to the racist standards of professionalism,” she added.
But a majority of Republicans opposed the measure. Ohio Representative Jim Jordan, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, called it “unnecessary and duplication” given existing anti-discrimination laws.
Colorado Republican Representative Lauren Boebert, reading a proxy vote aloud, mockingly referred to the legislation as the “bad hair bill.”
House Democrats pledged to bring the legislation up for discussion again through the regular process, which would see it passed by a simple majority.
It would take a much more difficult path in the Senate, where it has no Republican sponsors and where it would take 60 votes to pass most legislation.
Several states have passed similar bills, including in New Jersey after a black high school wrestler had to cut his dreadlocks to compete. On Monday, the Minnesota House approved its own version in a bipartisan vote.
