Last week President Biden signed a bill making lynching a federal crime. Similar bills had been introduced over 100 years ago. More than 3000 Black men and women were lynched between 1865 and the present. Lynching was often not confined to hanging, but involved burning, sexual mutilation, and removal of limbs. It was sometimes accompanied by crowds snapping pictures and keeping grisly souvenirs.
Journalist Ida B. Wells did a study of the victims of lynchings and found they were often wealthier and more successful Black citizens, evidently seen as a threat to whites.
When anti-lynching bills were brought up in Congress, the southern members of the House and Senate voted as a block to prevent passage. The bill that Biden signed may seem anti-climatic. It isn’t. It is long overdue.
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