Emmett Till Antilynching Act
Floor Speech
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 35) to amend section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act, as amended.
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows: H.R. 35
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Emmett Till Antilynching Act''. SEC. 2. FINDINGS.
Congress finds the following:
(1) The crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the ultimate expression of racism in the United States following Reconstruction.
(2) Lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the United States until the middle of the 20th century.
(3) Lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States.
(4) At least 4,742 people, predominantly African Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1968.
(5) Ninety-nine percent of all perpetrators of lynching escaped from punishment by State or local officials.
(6) Lynching prompted African Americans to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (referred to in this section as the ``NAACP'') and prompted members of B'nai B'rith to found the Anti-Defamation League.
(7) Mr. Walter White, as a member of the NAACP and later as the executive secretary of the NAACP from 1931 to 1955, meticulously investigated lynchings in the United States and worked tirelessly to end segregation and racialized terror.
(8) Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
(9) Between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching.
(10) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures.
(11) Protection against lynching was the minimum and most basic of Federal responsibilities, and the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Representatives to do so.
(12) The publication of ``Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America'' helped bring greater awareness and proper recognition of the victims of lynching.
(13) Only by coming to terms with history can the United States effectively champion human rights abroad.
(14) An apology offered in the spirit of true repentance moves the United States toward reconciliation and may become central to a new understanding, on which improved racial relations can be forged.
(15) Having concluded that a reckoning with our own history is the only way the country can effectively champion human rights abroad, 90 Members of the United States Senate agreed to Senate Resolution 39, 109th Congress, on June 13, 2005, to apologize to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti- lynching legislation.
(16) The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which opened to the public in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26, 2018, is the Nation's first memorial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary presumptions of guilt and police violence.
(17) Notwithstanding the Senate's apology and the heightened awareness and education about the Nation's legacy with lynching, it is wholly necessary and appropriate for the Congress to enact legislation, after 100 years of unsuccessful legislative efforts, finally to make lynching a Federal crime.
(18) Further, it is the sense of Congress that criminal action by a group increases the likelihood that the criminal object of that group will be successfully attained and decreases the probability that the individuals involved will depart from their path of criminality. Therefore, it is appropriate to specify criminal penalties for the crime of lynching, or any attempt or conspiracy to commit lynching.
(19) The United States Senate agreed to unanimously Senate Resolution 118, 115th Congress, on April 5, 2017, ``[c]ondemning hate crime and any other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to violence, or animus targeting a minority in the United States'' and taking notice specifically of Federal Bureau of Investigation statistics demonstrating that ``among single- bias hate crime incidents in the United States, 59.2 percent of victims were targeted due to racial, ethnic, or ancestral bias, and among those victims, 52.2 percent were victims of crimes motivated by the offenders' anti-Black or anti-African American bias''.
(20) On September 14, 2017, President Donald J. Trump signed into law Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 115- 58; 131 Stat. 1149), wherein Congress ``condemn[ed] the racist violence and domestic terrorist attack that took place between August 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, Virginia'' and ``urg[ed] the President and his administration to speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy; and use all resources available to the President and the President's Cabinet to address the growing prevalence of those hate groups in the United States''.
(21) Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 115-58; 131 Stat. 1149) specifically took notice of ``hundreds of torch- bearing White nationalists, White supremacists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis [who] chanted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti- immigrant slogans and violently engaged with counter- demonstrators on and around the grounds of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville'' and that these groups ``reportedly are organizing similar events in other cities in the United States and communities everywhere are concerned about the growing and open display of hate and violence being perpetrated by those groups''.
(22) Lynching was a pernicious and pervasive tool that was used to interfere with multiple aspects of life--including the exercise of Federally protected rights, as enumerated in section 245 of title 18, United States Code, housing rights, as enumerated in section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631), and the free exercise of religion, as enumerated in section 247 of title 18, United States Code. Interference with these rights was often effectuated by multiple offenders and groups, rather than isolated individuals. Therefore, prohibiting conspiracies to violate each of these rights recognizes the history of lynching in the United States and serves to prohibit its use in the future. SEC. 3. LYNCHING.
(a) Offense.--Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: ``Sec. 250. Lynching
``Whoever conspires with another person to violate section 245, 247, or 249 of this title or section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) shall be punished in the same manner as a completed violation of such section, except that if the maximum term of imprisonment for such completed violation is less than 10 years, the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 years.''.
(b) Table of Sections Amendment.--The table of sections for chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 249 the following:
``250. Lynching.''. SEC. 4. DETERMINATION OF BUDGETARY EFFECTS.
The budgetary effects of this Act, for the purpose of complying with the Statutory Pay-As-You-Go Act of 2010, shall be determined by reference to the latest statement titled ``Budgetary Effects of PAYGO Legislation'' for this Act, submitted for printing in the Congressional Record by the Chairman of the House Budget Committee, provided that such statement has been submitted prior to the vote on passage.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Madam Speaker, H.R. 35, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act is long overdue legislation that would criminalize lynching for the first time under Federal law.
The term ``lynching'' generally refers to premeditated acts of violence often resulting in death carried out by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor or to strike fear among a targeted group.
H.R. 35 is named in honor of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American youth from Chicago, who was lynched in particularly gruesome fashion while visiting an uncle in Mississippi in 1955. His murder and the antilynching movement that followed set the stage for the creation of the civil rights movement that we recognize today.
Generally, they could not rely on law enforcement to protect them, because they understood that the lynchings occurring throughout the South were a very deliberate campaign to subjugate our Black population. And this very deliberate campaign was started in the 1870s by the Ku Klux Klan and carried on right up to the present day through terrorism and forced Jim Crow.
Because they realized this, African Americans mobilized their own efforts to combat the terror of lynching and the threat of racial violence through grassroots activism and the founding of integrated social justice organizations.
During the period between the Civil War and World War II, thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United States, mostly in the South, but not entirely, as a means of racial subordination and enforcing white supremacy. These violent incidents were largely tolerated by State and Federal officials, in fact, often promoted by State and Federal officials. They profoundly impacted race relations and shaped the geographic, political, social, and economic conditions of African American communities in ways that are still evident today.
Although the civil rights conspiracy statute does not specify the offense of lynching as a Federal crime, this section has been used by the Department of Justice to prosecute civil rights-era crimes and hate crimes that were described as lynching in public discourse.
It remains important, however, to enact Federal antilynching legislation to acknowledge this shameful chapter in American history and to send a clear message that such violations, such violent actions motivated by hatred and bigotry will never again be tolerated in this country.
The first Federal antilynching legislation was introduced in 1900, almost 120 years ago, by Congressman George Henry White, the only African American member of Congress at that time. Unfortunately, neither his bill nor any other antilynching bills managed to pass the Congress. Antilynching bills were routinely defeated on this floor.
Today, we act to correct this historical injustice that should rest heavily on the conscience of Members of Congress. I thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush) for his leadership on this important issue and for his attention to history. I also thank the gentleman from Nebraska (Mr. Bacon) for his support of this legislation and the many cosponsors of this bill who helped pave the way for its passage today.
Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Rush), the sponsor of this bill.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Bass).
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield an additional 1 minute to the gentlewoman.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Green).
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Maryland (Mr. Hoyer), the distinguished majority leader of the House.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Mississippi (Mr. Thompson).
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 1 minute.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Danny K. Davis).
Mr. DANNY K. DAVIS of Illinois. Madam Speaker, let me thank the gentleman for yielding, and, of course, I come to join with all of those who have extolled the virtues of this bill and urge its passage. I also reflect on the fact that I grew up in the State of Arkansas.
My father, who was a tremendous historian, would often point to places and show us sites in trees where lynchings were supposed to have taken place. The fact that we are now saying that any lynching activity should be a Federal crime is one that I concur with.
I want to thank the Reverend Jesse Jackson because that is really who called me one day and said: You know, we need to do something about this.
So I was pleased to interact with Congressman Rush and say: Let's do something about this.
I want to thank Congressman Rush for taking the leadership on this bill. I want to thank the Judiciary Committee for passing it.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
In his farewell address to Congress, Representative George Henry White lamented the failure of his antilynching bill of 1900 to pass by observing that: ``During the last session of this Congress, I took occasion to address myself in detail to this particular measure, But with all of my efforts, the bill still sweetly sleeps in the room of the committee to which it was referred. The necessity of legislation along this line is daily being demonstrated. The arena of the lyncher no longer is confined to Southern climes, but is stretching its hydra head over all parts of the Union.''
Lynching no longer terrorizes African American communities as it once did, but we owe it to the memory of its thousands of victims to outlaw this racist and gruesome practice once and for all.
Madam Speaker, I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, the gentleman is talking too fast. I can't understand him.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman very much. I certainly agree with the distinguished ranking member, and I appreciate his support for this bill.
Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), the distinguished Speaker of the House.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
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Mr. NADLER. Madam Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
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