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Bill
Notes

H.R. 35 — what changed

Emmett Till Antilynching Act

From Reported in House to Engrossed in House. 2 sections amended and 1 added between Reported in House and Engrossed in House.

Sec. 2 Findings

Congress finds the following:

(1)
changed In the 20th century The crime of lynching occurred mostly succeeded slavery as the ultimate expression of racism in southern the United States by White southerners against Black southerners.following Reconstruction.
(2)
changed In 1892, Lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the Tuskegee Institute began to record statistics of lynchings and reported that 4,742 reported lynchings had taken place by 1968, of which 3,445 United States until the middle of the victims were Black.20th century.
(3)
changed Most of the lynchings Lynching was a crime that occurred in throughout the South were mass moblike lynchings.United States, with documented incidents in all but four States.
(4)
changed Mass moblike lynchings At least 4,742 people, predominantly African Americans, were barbaric by nature characterized by members of reported lynched in the mob, mostly White southerners, shooting, burning, United States between 1882 and mutilating the victim’s body, alive.1968.
(5)
changed In “Anatomy Ninety-nine percent of a Lynching: The Killing all perpetrators of Claude Neal”, community papers readily advertised mob lynchings, as evidenced lynching escaped from punishment by a Florida State or local paper headline: “Florida to Burn Negro at Stake: Sex Criminal Seized from Brewton Jail, Will be Mutilated, Set Afire in Extra-Legal Vengeance for Deed.”officials.
(6)
changed Civil rights groups documented Lynching prompted African Americans to form the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (referred to in this section as the “NAACP”) and presented Congress evidence prompted members of vigilante moblike lynchings.B'nai B'rith to found the Anti-Defamation League.
(7)
changed Evidence by Mr. Walter White, as a member of the NAACP investigator Howard Kester documented and later as the extreme brutality of these lynchings. An excerpt from “Anatomy executive secretary of a Lynching” further illustrates this point: “After taking the nigger to the woods about four miles NAACP from Greenwood, they cut off his penis. He was made 1931 to eat it. Then they cut off his testicles 1955, meticulously investigated lynchings in the United States and made him eat them worked tirelessly to end segregation and say he liked it.”racialized terror.
(8)
changed Many civil rights groups, notably the Anti-Lynching Crusaders, also known as the ALC, operating under Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress during the umbrella first half of the NAACP, made numerous requests to Congress to make lynching a Federal crime.20th century.
(9)
removed Congressman George Henry White, an African American, introduced the first Federal an­ti­lynch­ing bill and subsequently nearly 200 an­ti­lynch­ing bills were introduced in the Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
(9)
renumbered was (12) Between 1890 and 1952, seven Presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching.
(10)
added Between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives passed three strong anti-lynching measures.
(11)
changed Between 1920 Protection against lynching was the minimum and 1940, 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 passed three strong antilynching measures, of which Congress came closest to enacting antilynching legislation sponsored by Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer in 1922.do so.
(12)
changed On all three occasions, opponents The publication of antilynching legislation, argued States’ rights “Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America” helped bring greater awareness and used the filibuster, or the threat proper recognition of it, to block the Senate from voting on the measures.victims of lynching.
(13)
changed The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the closest Congress ever came in the post-Reconstruction era Only by coming to enacting antilynching legislation.terms with history can the United States effectively champion human rights abroad.
(14)
changed In 2005, An apology offered in the Senate passed a resolution, sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu and George Allen, apologizing for spirit of true repentance moves the Senate’s failure United States toward reconciliation and may become central to enact antilynching legislation as a Federal crime, with Senator Landrieu saying, “There may be no other injustice in American history for new understanding, on which the Senate so uniquely bears responsibility.”improved racial relations can be forged.
(15)
changed To heal past and present racial injustice, Congress must make lynching Having concluded that a Federal crime so reckoning with our Nation own history is the only way the country can begin reconciliation.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)
added 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)
added 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)
added 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)
added 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)
added 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)
added 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)
added 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)
added Offense— Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following:

added “250. Lynching

added “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.”

removed Section 249(a) of title 18, United States Code, is amended—

(b)
changed Table of sections amendment— The table of sections for chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by redesignating paragraph (4) as paragraph (5); andinserting after the item relating to section 249 the following:
(2)
removed by inserting after paragraph (3) the following:

removed “(4) Offenses involving lynching—Whoever, whether or not acting under color of law, willfully, acting as part of any collection of people, assembled for the purpose and with the intention of committing an act of violence upon any person, causes death to any person, shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life, fined under this title, or both.”

Sec. 4 Determination of budgetary effects

added

added 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.