April 06, 2022
Page 5
Biden Signs Emmett Till Act
Emmett Till's photo is seen on his grave marker in Alsip, Ill. (AP file
photo)
After 100 years,
lynching made a
hate crime
By Chanel Cain
Howard University
News Service
President Joe Biden, sur-
rounded by civil rights leaders,
descendants of Ida B. Wells and
cousins of Emmett Till, official-
ly signed the Emmett Till An-
ti-Lynching Act into law Tues-
day. After more than 100 years
of failed efforts, this act formal-
ly makes lynching a hate crime
punishable for up to 30 years.
“Lynching was pure terror to
enforce the lie that not everyone
belongs in America and not ev-
eryone is created equal,” Biden
said while addressing the crowd
in the Rose Garden.
The bill is named after the
14-year-old who was killed by
two white men after alleged-
ly whistling at a white woman.
Till is one of 3,446 Black men,
women and children lynched be-
tween 1882 and 1968, according
to the NAACP.
Rev. Wheeler Parker Jr., Till’s
cousin who witnessed the ab-
duction, was in attendance for
the bill signing.
“Emmett speaks 60 years lat-
er,” Parker said, “He still speaks
from the grave. And to name it
after him, it shows he didn’t die
in vain.”
The men who killed Till in
1955, Roy Bryant and J.W. Mi-
lam, were found not guilty by
an all-white jury. In 1956, they
admitted to the crime in an in-
terview 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 “The Blood of Emmett Till”
by Timothy Tyson. None of the
three served any prison time.
Recent killings, such as the
murder of Ahmaud Arbery, have
been labeled as modern-day
lynchings, drawing comparisons
to Till’s story.
“Our past must not and can-
not be forgotten, that the truth
must be spoken no matter how
difficult it is to speak, and cer-
tainly no matter how difficult it
is to hear,” said Vice President
Kamala Harris.
Variations of this act have
reached Congress numerous
times, each time being shut
down. Ida B. Wells, whose work
as an investigative journalist ex-
posed the horrors of lynching
during her time, met with Presi-
dent William McKinley in 1898,
urging him to make lynching a
federal crime.
More than a century lat-
er, Michelle Duster, Well’s
great-granddaughter, notes the
“over 200 attempts to get legis-
lation enacted” as she highlights
the efforts of generations of
pushback coming to a head.
“We are here today because of
the tenacity of the Civil Rights
leaders and commitment of mem-
bers of Congress,” Duster said.
Harris was instrumental to the
bill’s 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.
During her address, Harris
broke script to speak to “the im-
portance of the Black press and
… making sure that we have the
storytellers always in our com-
munity who we will support to
tell the truth when no one else is
willing to tell it.”
This bill serves as another
step forward in addressing the
country’s long-standing racial
issues, with hopes that the bill
will help to finally heal some of
the wounds of the past.
“Lynching is not a relic of the
past,” Harris said. “Racial 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.”
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