It’s a bill that seems like common sense– name lynching as the racism it is and outlaw it.
But America has never successfully passed an anti-lynching bill at the federal level, thanks to political efforts to shut it down.
This Thursday, the “Justice for Victims of Lynching” bill advanced in the Senate, as a result of efforts from three Black Senators: Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Republican Tim Scott.
The senators first introduced the bill in June, and at Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee meeting, it received unanimous support.
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“From 1882 to 1986 there have been 200 attempts that have failed to get Congress to pass federal anti-lynching legislation, it’s time for that to change,” Senator Harris previously wrote.
According to Countable.US, the bill “would make lynching a federal crime that automatically warrants an enhanced sentence under existing federal hate crime statutes punishable by up to life imprisonment.”
It also recognizes the nearly 5,000 people who were lynched on U.S. soil between 1882 and 1968.
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As recently as April 2018, two African-American men, Jarron Moreland and Alize Smith, were brutally killed, dismembered and chained to cinderblocks by their white neighbors, in an act considered by many to be a modern day lynching.
“This piece of legislation sends a message that together, as a nation, we condemn the actions of those that try to divide us with violence and hate,” said Sen. Scott.