Many Americans may be surprised that lynching is not a federal crime. But that will soon change, if a bill approved Thursday by the Senate becomes law.
“The legislation, approved on a [unanimous] voice vote, would ensure that lynching triggers an enhanced sentence under federal law, like other hate crimes,” reported the Washington Post. “The measure was sponsored by the Senate’s three African American members: Kamala Harris (D-CA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Tim Scott (R-SC).”
Introducing the bill, Harris described 200 previous failed attempts by Congress to pass such legislation, going back nearly a century.
Proponents expect the Democratic-led House to pass the legislation and send it to President Trump for his signature. The same bill sponsored by the same three Senators, was approved in December, but the House — then in Republican control — never acted on the measure.
The NAACP says lynching emerged in the late 19th century as a “popular way of resolving some of the anger that whites had in relation to free blacks.”
Some 3,450 black people were lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968, reported the Post, citing the NAACP. That’s about three-quarters of the total number of people lynched. Only five states had no lynchings during that period.
