Social Justice
President Biden signs Emmett Till anti-lynching bill into law
President Biden has signed the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill, more than a century after it was proposed.
President Biden has signed the Emmett Till anti-lynching bill, making lynching a federal hate crime.
Emmett Till anti-lynching bill
Biden signed the bill Tuesday which comes with 30 years in prison and fines for anyone conspiring to commit an act of lynching that causes death or injury.
A 2020 version of the bill set the maximum sentence for lynching at 10 years.
On March 7, Congress gave final approval to the bill which allows the prosecution of crimes as lynchings if they are done during a hate crime in which the victim is injured or slain.
The House unanimously approved the bill and the Senate passed it by unanimous consent.
The bill is named after 14 year-old Emmett Till, a Black teen from Chicago, who was kidnapped, brutally beaten, and lynched after being falsely accused of bothering and whistling at a white woman while visiting his family in Mississippi.
His murder sparked national outrage, becoming a catalyst of the civil rights movement.
Since 1900, lawmakers have tried more than 200 times to make lynching a federal hate crime. More than a century later, the plight has finally come to fruition.
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