President Joe Biden, on Tuesday, signed a landmark bill that would now make lynching a federal hate crime.
After multiple failed attempts in the past twelve decades, the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was signed into law at a White House ceremony.
“Racial hate isn't an old problem. It’s a persistent problem,” Biden said. “Hate never goes away, it only hides under the rocks. If it gets a little bit of oxygen, it comes roaring back out, screaming. What stops it? All of us.”
According to the legislation, when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in serious injury or death, the perpetrators could receive up to 30 years in prison.
The bill was co-sponsored by Harris when she was serving as a US senator from California. Harris is also the country's first Black and Asian American vice president.
Who was Emmett Till?
Emmett Till, a Black 14-year-old boy was brutally murdered in Mississippi in 1955 for allegedly whistling at Carolyn Bryant, a white woman working at a store.
Just weeks later, two white men, Roy Bryant and J.W. Milam were put on trial for Till’s murder, but they were acquitted by an all-white, male jury.
