After More Than a Century, the U.S. Passed Anti-Lynching Legislation, but it Still Wasn’t Unanimous
On March 7, 2022, after passing through the U.S. House of Representatives a week prior, the U.S. Senate passed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. Upon the president’s signature, the act will make lynching a federal hate crime.[1] Named after 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955, the bill’s passing seems a long-awaited response to the national outcry sparked by Till’s murder more than sixty years ago. However, this historic legislation, in fact, comes after the persistent efforts of civil rights activists and being proposed more than 200 times over more than a century.
Sponsor of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Bill, Representative Bobby L. Rush, described lynching as “a longstanding and uniquely American weapon of racial terror.”[2] As a means to maintain white supremacy, the lynching of African Americans was a widespread occurrence in the pre-Civil War and Reconstruction eras and a type of violence that continued into the 20th century, with the re-emergence of the Ku Klux Klan in 1915, the Red Summer of 1919, and the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre. At the same time, the U.S. saw a rise in civil rights activism, which included the formation of the NAACP and, later, its establishment of a special committee in 1916 to focus on anti-lynching campaigns.
The NAACP employed many methods to call attention to the issue of lynching. For example, in 1916, co-founder and editor of the organization’s newsletter The Crisis, W.E.B. Du Bois published the essay “The Waco Horror,” which featured gruesome images of the lynching of 17-year-old Jesse Washington.[3] Particularly disturbing, the images were sourced from photographs printed on common trading postcards of the time.[4]
Another moving show of resistance against racial violence was the Silent Parade in 1917 when NAACP leaders organized more than 10,000 African Americans who, led by children, marched silently through the streets of New York City. Some held signs that made bold remarks about the ongoing racial issues plaguing American society, such as one that asked, “Mother, do lynchers go to heaven?” and another that pointed out “The great contradiction — love of God and hatred of man.”[5]
Having brought the issue to light, in 1918, the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill was introduced.[6] Additionally, the NAACP’s 1919 report Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1919, which reported thousands of lynchings of African Americans, helped create momentum for legislative action.[7]
However, despite activists’ best efforts, though the legislation passed the House in 1922, it was ultimately blocked in the Senate, as Southern Senators claimed a federal ban on lynching was a violation of states’ rights.[8] Nevertheless, the NAACP was not deterred; the small victory had created an impetus. In a statement regarding the bill’s failure to pass, Bishop P.A. Wallace of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church wrote, “Defeated, it still made a contribution to our thinking, and served as an eye-opener to Negro people in particular. Lynching is now formally adopted as an American institution…”[9]
Likewise, a 1922 broadside published by the District of Columbia Anti-Lynching Committee, North Eastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs, asserted the NAACP’s stance with the headline, “A Terrible Blot on American Civilization.” Below, it listed the Congressmen from each state who had voted against the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill.[10]
Still, nearly a century later, and amid the George Floyd protests in 2020, Senator Rand Paul found a way to justify blocking the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Bill when it was first introduced, even as he cited W.E.B. Du Bois’ work and described the horrific nature of the country’s history of lynching.[11] Persistently, however, on the first day of the 117th Congress, Representative Bobby L. Rush reintroduced the measure. Then, throughout the year, working together with both the House and Senate, Representative Rush helped reach an agreement on the text of the legislation.
On the afternoon of March 7, 2022, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer spoke on the Senate floor, praising the bill’s passage. However, seeming to echo the Anti-Lynching Committee’s statement made so long ago, he went on to describe Congress’ more than a century’s long delay as “a bitter stain on America.”[12] Nevertheless, Senator Schumer failed to point out that day that, despite the ever-raging culture war and enduring racial tensions in American society today, the votes to finally pass anti-lynching legislation in the U.S. were, in the House, still divided, as it was voted against by Republican Representatives Andrew Clyde of Georgia, Thomas Massie of Kentucky, and Chip Roy of Texas.[13]
Bibliography
[1] “H.R.55–117th Congress, 2021–2022, Emmett Till Antilynching Act.” https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/55/text.
[2] “Rep. Bobby Rush’s Emmett Till Antilynching Act Passes U.S. Senate Unanimously.” Congressman Bobby L. Rush, Representing the 1st District of Illinois, March 8, 2022. https://rush.house.gov/media-center/press-releases/rep-bobby-rushs-emmett-till-antilynching-act-passes-us-senate.
[3] W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Waco Horror,” The Crisis (July 1916). https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/pageturn/mums312-b163-i124/#page/1/mode/1up.
[4] James Allen, ed. “Without Sanctuary : Lynching Photography in America,” Internet Archive. Santa Fe, New Mexico: Twin Palms (January 1, 1970). https://archive.org/details/without_xxx_2000_00_7106/page/4/mode/2up.
[5] “The Negro Silent Protest Parade,” The Making Of African American Identity: Vol. II, 1865–1917 — Primary Source Collection, National Humanities Center. https://nationalhumanitiescenter.org/pds/maai2/forward/text4/silentprotest.pdf.
[6] “Anti-Lynching Legislation Renewed,” U.S. House of Representatives: History, Art & Archives, United States Office of the Historian. https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-Essays/Temporary-Farewell/Anti-Lynching-Legislation/.
[7] “Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889–1918: Lynching Record for 1919,” Yale University Library, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, 1919. https://collections.library.yale.edu/catalog/2077126.
[8] Steven J. Jager, “Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill (1922) ,” Black Past (August 19, 2012). https://www.blackpast.org/african-american-history/dyer-anti-lynching-bill-1922/.
[9] “Letter from P. A. Wallace to W. E. B Du Bois, Statement on the Defeat of the Dyer-Anti-Lynching Bill, December 30, 1922,” Credo, UMass Amherst Libraries’ Department of Special Collections and University Archives. https://credo.library.umass.edu/view/full/mums312-b167-i104.
[10] “‘A Terrible Blot on American Civilization,’ Issued by District of Columbia Anti-Lynching Committee North Eastern Federation of Colored Women’s Clubs,” The Library of Congress, 1922. https://www.loc.gov/resource/rbpe.20803600/?st=text.
[11] “U.S. Senate Session, June 4, 2020.” C-Span. https://www.c-span.org/video/?472729-1/us-senate.
[12] “Majority Leader Schumer Floor Remarks on Senate Passage of the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act, March 7, 2022,” Senate Democratic Leadership. https://www.democrats.senate.gov/news/press-releases/majority-leader-schumer-floor-remarks-on-senate-passage-of-the-emmett-till-antilynching-act.
[13] Steve Benen, “House passes Anti-Lynching Bill, but the vote wasn’t unanimous,” Maddowblog, from the Rachel Maddow Show. MSNBC (March 1, 2022). https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/house-passes-anti-lynching-bill-vote-wasnt-unanimous-rcna18092.
