What to know about the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act that President Joe Biden signed Tuesday.
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed into law the first bill that specifies lynching as a federal hate crime., which Congress passed on March 7, enables the prosecution of crimes as lynchings if they are done during a hate crime in which the victim is injured or slain.
“Today, I am thinking of Emmett Till and the countless other victims of this brutal crime whose names we do not know. Emmett Till would have been 80 years old today,” Rush said in a statement. “His lynching ignited the civil rights movement and a generation of civil rights activists. It had a ripple effect that we still feel today; it began a movement to reckon with freedom, justice, and equality all around the world.
The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act is “clearly symbolic,” in addition to having teeth, said Damon T. Hewitt, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law. —The 2015 fatal shootings of the Black pastor and eight other Black congregants at Emmanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, by Dylann Roof.
“What the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act does is nationally acknowledge what Black folks have always known, and that is that racialized violence is endemic to America’s way of life,” said Ersula Ore, associate professor of African and African American studies and rhetoric at Arizona State University and author of “Lynching: Violence, Rhetoric, & American Identity.
United States Latest News, United States Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
President Biden to sign Emmett Till anti-lynching bill into lawThe Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act will be the first bill to define lynching as a hate crime. The bill is named for Emmett Till, a Black teenager who was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955.
Read more »
President Biden signs anti-lynching legislation named after Emmett TillBREAKING NEWS: President Joe Biden has signed anti-lynching legislation named after Emmett Till. The bill makes lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history.
Read more »
Biden Signs Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act Into LawUntil now, Congress failed more than 200 times to make lynching a federal hate crime.
Read more »
Biden signs Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into lawPresident Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law to make lynching a federal hate crime, more than 100 years after such legislation was first proposed. “Racial hate isn’t an old problem — it’s a persistent problem,” Biden said.
Read more »
Biden to sign Emmett Till bill, make lynching a hate crimePresident Joe Biden will sign the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law on Tuesday.
Read more »