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# Lynching Is Bad: Says Country That Did It Over 4,000 Times For 100 Years
March 09 2022
Written by ABBY ZIMET.
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SAY WHAT? - Over 400 years after trafficking African slaves to the New World and through a century of nearly 200 failed efforts during seven U.S. presidential administrations, Congress has at long last [**rendered ](https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/politics/senate-passes-antilynching-law/index.html)it a hate crime to hang from the limb of a tree until dead the overwhelmingly innocent African-American descendants of those slaves. Named for the 14-year-old black boy savagely [**murdered**](https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/09/barn-emmett-till-murder/619493/) 67 years ago for allegedly whistling at a white woman, the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act makes lynching a federal hate crime punishable by up to 30 years in prison. It [**passed**](https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/03/07/senate-unanimously-passes-anti-lynching-bill-after-century-failure/) the Senate Monday night by almost-unheard-of unanimous consent, and now goes to Biden to be signed. Not long ago, the grotesquerie of lynching was such a popular crowdpleaser that enterprising capitalists sold[ postcards ](https://www.npr.org/2022/02/08/1078977454/race-racism-lynching-postcards-ahmaud-arbery-george-floyd)of the events: "Token of A Great Day." The[ Equal Justice Initiative ](https://lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report/)has documented at least 4,081 lynchings in 12 Southern states from 1877 to 1950; the [**NAACP,**](https://naacp.org/find-resources/history-explained/history-lynching-america)looking even closer to the here and now, reports at least 4,743 lynchings, with almost all black victims, between 1882 and 1968. Still, it's taken over 100 years for America to agree black lives should matter at least enough to stop the grisly carnage.
The [**first anti-lynching bill ](https://www.npr.org/2020/02/25/809368340/u-s-house-to-vote-on-anti-lynching-act-finally)was introduced in 1900 by North Caroline's Rep. George Henry White, the body's only Black lawmaker; it failed to get out of committee. In 1918, after St. Louis race riots killed up to 150 Black Americans, GOP (yes) Missouri Rep. Leonidas Dyer [**tried ](http://werehistory.org/the-history-of-american-anti-lynching-legislation/)again; her bill was filibustered in the Senate by ole boys [**arguing ](https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1922/12/03/109338699.pdf)the "good negroes of the South" didn't need such protections. After years of efforts stalled by "states rights" fans, the most recent anti-lynching bill passed the House in 2020 after the [**murder ](https://www.wonkette.com/ahmaud-arberys-killers-indicted-take-first-step-to-hell)of Ahmaud Arbery; it was stopped by Rand Paul of Kentucky - [**205 lynchings -**](https://www.statista.com/statistics/1175147/lynching-by-race-state-and-race/) who nonsensically claimed it could be used against someone causing "minor bruising." Having added the shiny new words “death or serious bodily injury,” black Senators Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Tim Scott introduced the new bill in June. Its passage was [**hailed ](https://theweek.com/congress/1011027/senate-unanimously-passes-historic-anti-lynching-bill)by Illinois Rep. and former civil rights activist Bobby Rush for correcting the "abhorrent injustice" of a "uniquely American [**weapon ](https://twitter.com/search?q=%23lynching&f=live)of racial terror that has for decades been used to maintain the white hierarchy" - and to allow perpetrators, including Emmett Till's killers, to "get away with murder time and time again." Hallelujah, said many, and we agree. Still, that's one goddamn long arc of the moral universe, and grisly evidence [**abounds**](https://www.vox.com/2015/2/10/8012149/lynching-report-nyt-white) Cory Booker's "dark [**chapter ](https://twitter.com/SenBooker/status/1500985590774435846)in our history" is far from over.
*([**Abby Zimet**](https://www.commondreams.org/author/abby-zimet) has written Common Dream's **[Further](https://www.commondreams.org/further)** column since 2008. A longtime, award-winning journalist, involved in women's, labor, anti-war, social justice and refugee rights issues. Email: )*
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