On Wednesday, December 19, the Senate unanimously passed a bill that stated lynching would be a federal crime. This long, overdue bill is the first time a bill has explicitly stated lynching as a federal crime and is still necessary despite the current infrequency of such horrific instances.
Across social media, especially Facebook (where adults are always SO educated on the politics they discuss), I've seen many comments dismissing the bill because they think in this day and age it is irrelevant. While lynchings were most prevalent between the late 1870s and through the 1950s, it is an issue that persists yet is often lost in the noise of other contemporary issues.
While hangings typically come to mind when thinking of lynchings, the term applies to any killing of an individual by a mob.
These instances have occurred as recently as 2011, when James Craig Anderson, a black male, was killed by a group of ten white teenagers in Mississippi for no apparent reason other than his race. These teenagers not only beat him but ran him over with a truck, leaving behind his lifeless body. Only four of the perpetrators were sentenced to jail.
Our nation's history of hate crimes and lynching is disgusting and it is embarrassing that this is the first time, after 200 attempts, that such a bill has successfully passed through the Senate.
Previous attempts at passing a similar bill have been met with opposition from legislators, particularly in the South, claiming that its passage would interfere with state's rights - an argument used to justify equally if not more horrific things in our nation's past, such as slavery.
While this bill cannot even begin to make up for the lives lost due to the heinous actions throughout the last 150 years, Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) acknowledges that it at least acknowledges our nation's wrongful past and honors the victims. Booker was among three of the black senators who introduced the bill, The Justice for Victims of Lynching Act, back in June.
One of the most outspoken creators of the bill, Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA), called the bill "history" on Twitter, and necessary in order to acknowledge history in order not to repeat it. She also mentioned that because of this bill, lynchings will never again go unpunished, and that "serious, severe and swift consequence and accountability" will now be assured.
This session was presided by Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-MS), which is greatly ironic considering remarks she made not long ago about going to a public hanging if invited, which she argues was taken out of context, though many argue that the comment was inappropriate given the state has the highest number of recorded lynchings.
This bill won't change that nearly all of the perpetrators of the more than 4,000 lynchings in our nation's history will go unpunished, but will denounce their actions in an attempt to head in the right direction and sentence individuals up to life in prison and no less than 10 years if the victim has bodily harm.
