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House Passes Law Making Lynching a Federal Hate Crime

VOA News

   After 120 years and nearly 200 failed efforts, the U.S. House of
   Representatives finally passed a bill Wednesday making lynching a
   federal hate crime.

   The vote was 210 to 4. The Senate unanimously passed similar
   legislation last year. It now goes to President Donald Trump for his
   signature.

   A number of House members took to the floor before the vote to point
   out how long overdue the law is, but saying it is never too late to do
   the right thing.

   White mobs used lynching to terrorize African-Americans from the 1800s
   to well into the 20th century. In some towns, whites would treat
   lynchings as a family outing and social gathering. People young and old
   would sometimes pose next to the victim hanging from a tree.

   The anti-lynching law was named for Emmett Till,the 14-year-old African
   American from Chicago who was kidnapped, torturedand murdered in 1955
   by two white men who accused him of whistling at a white woman in a
   Mississippi grocery store.

   Till's coffin was left open at his funeral because his mother said she
   wanted the world to see what racism looks like.

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