*On this date in 2022, The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was passed. This legislation was a landmark United States federal law that makes lynching a federal hate crime. The bill was named after 14-year-old Emmett Till, lynched in Mississippi in 1955, sparking national and international outrage.
Representative Bobby Rush introduced H.R. 35 on January 3, 2019, during the 116th United States Congress. A federal antilynching bill had been discussed over a century and proposed hundreds of times. Past attempts that passed at least one legislative chamber include the Dyer Antilynching Bill, the Costigan-Wagner Bill, and the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act.
The act amends the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act and prior hate crime laws to define lynching as any conspired bias-motivated offense that results in death or serious bodily injury. The U.S. House of Representatives passed it on February 28, 2022, and the U.S. Senate on March 7, 2022, signed into law on March 29, 2022, by President Joe Biden.
