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Anti-Lynching Legislation Is A Good First Step. Here's What We Need Next
Let's celebrate, then pass the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act
The road towards equal rights and justice is a long, winding path, so we should stop to smell the roses. Over 244 years, White Americans have maintained a racial caste system contributing to anti-Black violence. Racism and a reluctance to see Black people as fully human-led to widespread lynchings, primarily in the South. Lynchings are extrajudicial killings committed by individuals with no reverence for the law. Finally, at long last, Congress passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which, once President Biden signs into law, will make lynching someone in America a federal hate crime.
Senators had to submit the legislation 200 times, a testament to the stubborn anti-Black racism in this country. Ultimately, George Henry White, a Black Republican, became the first to introduce anti-lynching legislation in Congress in 1900. His move was in stark contrast to America's first woman senator Rebecca Felton, who advocated for lynchings to continue. Three years before White introduced anti-lynching legislation, Felton proclaimed, "if it takes lynching to protect women's dearest possession from drunken, ravening human beasts, then I say lynch a thousand…
