Washington, D.C. – Today, U.S. Rep. Terri Sewell (AL-07) will join President Biden at the White House for the signing of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law. The bill, which passed the House of Representatives on February 28 and the Senate on March 7, will designate lynching as a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history.

“Earlier this month, I welcomed a delegation of Members of Congress and civil rights leaders to Montgomery’s National Memorial for Peace and Justice to memorialize the shameful legacy of racial terror and lynching that stains our nation’s history,” said Rep. Sewell. “Once again, we were reminded that confronting the past with eyes wide open is the only way we as a community can heal and move forward.”

“Today, we mark a truly historic milestone in our ongoing fight for racial justice,” continued Sewell. “For the first time, lynching is now a federal hate crime thanks to this Congress and the leadership of President Biden. While this legislation is long overdue, there is no time like the present to address injustices of the past. I’m proud to stand with President Biden and my congressional colleagues as we move forward from this painful chapter in our history and affirm the value of Black lives in America.”

From Reconstruction to the Civil Rights Movement, nearly 4,000 African Americans were murdered by lynching in the United States. Despite more than 200 attempts to codify antilynching legislation since 1900, it has never been successfully done until today. The legislation is named in honor of Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African American boy who was brutally lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman in a grocery store.

The bill will make it possible to prosecute a crime as a lynching when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death or serious bodily injury.