Sixty-five years after 14-year-old Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi, US Congress has approved legislation designating lynching as a hate crime under federal law.
The bill, introduced by US Representative Bobby Rush and named after Till, comes 120 years after Congress first considered anti-lynching legislation and after dozens of similar efforts were defeated.
The measure on Wednesday was approved 410-4 in the US House of Representatives and now goes to the White House, where US President Donald Trump is expected to sign it.
The US Senate unanimously passed the legislation last year.
It designates lynching as a federal hate crime punishable by up to life in prison, a fine or both.
Rush, whose Chicago district includes Till’s former home, said that the bill would belatedly achieve justice for Till and more than 4,000 other lynching victims, most of them African Americans.
Till, who was black, was brutally tortured and killed in 1955 after a white woman accused him of grabbing her and whistling at her in a Mississippi grocery store.
The killing shocked the nation and stoked the civil rights movement.
“The importance of this bill cannot be overstated,” said Rush, a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. “From Charlottesville to El Paso, we are still being confronted with the same violent racism and hatred that took the life of Emmett, and so many others. The passage of this bill will send a strong and clear message to the nation that we will not tolerate this bigotry.”
US Representative Bennie Thompson, who represents the area where Till was abducted and murdered, called the anti-lynching bill long overdue, but said: “No matter the length of time, it is never too late to ensure justice is served.”
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer used similar language to urge the bill’s passage.
“It is never too late to do the right thing and address these gruesome, racially motivated acts of terror that have plagued our nation’s history,” Hoyer said, urging lawmakers to “renew our commitment to confronting racism and hate.”
US Representative Karen Bass, the Congressional Black Caucus chair, called lynching a lasting legacy of slavery.
“Make no mistake, lynching is terrorism,” Bass said. “While this reign of terror has faded, the most recent lynching [in the US] happened less than 25 years ago.”
US senators Kamala Harris and Cory Booker applauded the House passage of the bill, which they cosponsored along with US Senator Tim Scott.
The three are the Senate’s only black members.
“Lynchings were horrendous, racist acts of violence,” Harris said in a statement. “For far too long Congress has failed to take a moral stand and pass a bill to finally make lynching a federal crime. This justice is long overdue.”
US Congress has failed to pass anti-lynching legislation nearly 200 times, starting with a bill introduced in 1900 by then-US representative George Henry White, the only black member of Congress at the time.
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