The story goes on under the ad “For a long time, lynching was a pure terror to impose the lie that not everyone belongs, not everyone belongs to America, not everyone is equal,” Biden said. “Innocent men, women and children were hanged from tree trunks, bodies burned, drowned and castrated. Their crimes? Trying to vote, trying to go to school, trying to get a business or preaching the gospel. False accusations of murder, arson and robbery. “Just be black.” Lawmakers have tried, and failed, to pass anti-lynching bills almost 200 times. The first such attempt was made in 1900, when MP George Henry White (RN.C.), then the only black member of Congress, stood on the floor of Parliament and read the text of his unprecedented measure, which would be prosecuted for lynching. at the federal level. The bill later died in committee. Years later, MP Leonidas C. Dyer (R-Mo.) Introduced an anti-lynching bill that passed the House, but was tabled in the Senate by Southern Democrats, many of whom opposed the name “state rights.” The story goes on under the ad The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was introduced in 2019 by MP Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) in Parliament and Senators Cory Booker (DN.J.) and Tim Scott (RS.C.) in the Senate. It’s named after a 14-year-old black boy whose brutal torture and murder in Mississippi in 1955 sparked the civil rights movement. On Tuesday, Biden paid tribute to the Till family who found “purpose through your pain” – and stressed that the law was not just about past crimes but also about those who remain victims of racial hatred. “Racist hatred is an old problem. “It’s a persistent problem,” Biden said. “Hatred never goes away. It only hides, it hides under the rocks. Receiving only a little oxygen, he comes out, growls and screams “. Biden and Vice President Harris also paid tribute to Ida B. Wells, a black investigative journalist who documented the barbaric nature of lynching in great detail in the late 1800s and early 1900s. (In 2020, Wells was posthumously honored with a special mention of the Pulitzer Prize for her work.) Michelle Duster, Wells’ great-granddaughter, who spoke at the ceremony Tuesday, noted that Wells had visited President William S. McKinley at the White House in 1898 to urge him to make lynching a federal crime, although efforts to establish such a legislation would fail for 124 more years. The story goes on under the ad Shortly after taking the podium, Duster said it took a while for her to make it. “We are finally here today, generations later, to witness this historic moment,” Duster said. “We are here today because of the persistence of civil rights leaders and the commitment of members of Congress who are here today.” Harris, who co-sponsored the law when she was a senator, said they gathered on Tuesday to do “unfinished business” to declare that lynching is and always has been a hate crime. The victims of the lynching were business owners, teachers, activists, Harris said – and for their families, the stories of these crimes “were not lines in a history book, but vivid memories.” The story goes on under the ad “As we recognize them, as we recognize our history,” Harris said. Earlier this month, more than three years after its introduction, the Senate unanimously passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Booker tweeted that he was “welcomed” by the passage of the law. “The time has come to reckon with this dark chapter in our history and I am proud of the bipartisan support for the passage of this important piece of legislation,” he said. In a statement, Russ called the lynching “a long-standing and uniquely American weapon of tribal terror used for decades to maintain the white hierarchy.”
