{"id":4635,"date":"2022-04-07T15:01:17","date_gmt":"2022-04-07T15:01:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/?p=4635"},"modified":"2022-04-07T15:01:17","modified_gmt":"2022-04-07T15:01:17","slug":"biden-signs-emmett-till-act-making-lynching-a-federal-hate-crime","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/2022\/04\/07\/biden-signs-emmett-till-act-making-lynching-a-federal-hate-crime\/","title":{"rendered":"Biden Signs Emmett Till Act Making Lynching a Federal Hate Crime"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Chanel Cain
\n<\/strong><\/em>Howard University News Service<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

President Joe Biden, surrounded by civil rights leaders, descendants of Ida B. Wells and cousins of Till, officially signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law today. After more than 100 years of failed efforts, this act formally makes lynching a hate crime punishable for up to 30 years.<\/p>\n

\u201cLynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone belongs in America and not everyone is created equal,\u201d Biden said while addressing the crowd in the Rose Garden.<\/p>\n

The bill is named after the 14-year-old who was killed by two white men after allegedly whistling at a white woman. Till is one of 3,446 Black men, women and children lynched between 1882 and 1968, according to the\u00a0NAACP.<\/a><\/p>\n

Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., Till\u2019s cousin who witnessed the abduction, was in attendance. Through the work of the\u00a0Till Institute<\/a>, Parker and another cousin, Ollie Gordon, Till\u2019s story has been a force for change.\u00a0 The act shows that the years of fighting finally paid off.<\/p>\n

\u201cEmmett speaks 60 years later,\u201d Parker said, \u201cHe still speaks from the grave. And to name it after him, it shows he didn\u2019t die in vain.\u201d<\/p>\n

The men who killed Till in\u00a01955,\u00a0Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam, were found not guilty by an all-white jury. In 1956, they admitted to the crime in an interview with Look magazine. Carolyn Bryant, the woman who accused Till of making an advance on her, confessed that her statement was in part false in \u201cThe Blood of Emmett Till\u201d by Timothy Tyson. None of the three served any prison time.<\/p>\n

Recent killings, such as the murder of Ahmaud Arbery, have been labeled as modern-day lynchings, drawing comparisons to Till\u2019s story.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur past must not and cannot be forgotten, that the truth must be spoken no matter how difficult it is to speak, and certainly no matter how difficult it is to hear,\u201d said Vice President Kamala Harris.<\/p>\n

Variations of this act have reached Congress numerous times, each time being shut down. Ida B. Wells, whose work as an investigative journalist exposed the horrors of lynching during her time, met with President William McKinley in 1898, urging him to make lynching a federal crime.<\/p>\n

More than a century later, Michelle Duster, Well\u2019s great-granddaughter, notes the \u201cover 200 attempts to get legislation enacted\u201d as she highlights the efforts of generations of pushback coming to a head.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are here today because of the tenacity of the Civil Rights leaders and commitment of members of Congress,\u201d Duster said.<\/p>\n

Harris was instrumental to the bill\u2019s trajectory; she sponsored the bill in 2019 along with Sen. Bobby Rush while still serving in the Senate. Rush and Sen. Cory Booker later sponsored the bill in 2021.<\/p>\n

During her address, Harris broke script to speak to \u201cthe importance of the Black press and \u2026 making sure that we have the storytellers always in our community who we will support to tell the truth when no one else is willing to tell it.\u201d<\/p>\n

This bill serves as another step forward in addressing the country\u2019s long-standing racial issues, with hopes that the bill will help to finally heal some of the wounds of the past.<\/p>\n

\u201cLynching is not a relic of the past,\u201d Harris said. \u201cRacial acts of terror still occur in our nation. And when they do, we must all have the courage to name them and hold the perpetrators to account.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chanel Cain is co-editor of\u00a0<\/em>HUNewsService.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Chanel Cain Howard University News Service President Joe Biden, surrounded by civil rights leaders, descendants of Ida B. Wells and cousins of Till, officially signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law today. After more than 100 years of failed efforts, this act formally makes lynching a hate crime punishable for up to 30 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,17],"tags":[],"wf_post_folders":[114],"class_list":["post-4635","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-headline","category-local"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4635"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4636,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4635\/revisions\/4636"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4635"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4635"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4635"},{"taxonomy":"wf_post_folders","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/wordpress.thetruthtoledo.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wf_post_folders?post=4635"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}