Emmett Till.Photo: Getty
The House of Representatives on Wednesday overwhelmingly passed a bill named afterEmmett Tillwhich will make lynching a federal hate crime. The legislation is expected to pass in the Senate and head to PresidentDonald Trumpfor a signature.
TheEmmett Till Anti-Lynching Actis named after the 14-year-old who was kidnapped, brutally beaten and lynched in 1955 in Mississippi after he was accused of whistling at and harassing a white woman.
Rush introduced the bill last year and named it after Till, who was from the representative’s 1st District in Illinois. He said the legislation will finally outlaw “an American evil.”
Amash explained his decision to vote against the bill ina lengthy Twitter threadin which he maintained the bill was redundant and expanded hate crime punishment to include pursuing the death penalty, which he opposes.
But Georgia Rep. Doug Collins said the bill ensures “that those who engage in mob violence are held accountable.”
“We cannot deny that racism, bigotry and hate still exist in America,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, citing a number of incidents, including the deadly 2017 white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, according toThe Washington Post.
“At least 4,742 people, predominantly African Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968,” the bill states, noting that 99 percent of lynching perpetrators escaped punishment. Congress has tried and failed to pass anti-lynching laws nearly 200 times since 1900, according to the bill.
The two men responsible for killing Till — Roy Bryant, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam — were acquitted of their punishment.
More than 60 years later, Carolyn Bryant Donham, the woman who accused Till of harassing her then, revealed that was false.
“Now he’s put in another light. That means a lot to me,” Wheeler Parker, Till’s cousin,told PEOPLE in 2017. “That’s a godsend to me for her to say that.”
source: people.com
