The crime of lynching, the hanging and butchering of a human being by a mob, most often utilized against African Americans, and particularly in the Southern States, but sadly against other groups, including Jews, Catholics, and Hispanics, and in other parts of America, has existed since the Reconstruction period after the Civil War.
But finally, Congress has passed Lynching legislation, making it a federal crime punishable by 30 years in prison, and the law is named after Emmett Till, the 14 year old lynched in Mississippi in 1955, for the supposed crime of flirting with a white woman, with his body desecrated, and causing shock around the nation.
The vote in the US Senate was unanimous, and only three Republican Congressmen voted against the legislation.
The white woman who lied about Emmett Till making a pass at her is still alive, and she should face prosecution for what became a heinous crime, perpetrated by her now dead husband and another man, both of whom were found not guilty in a disgraceful mockery of a trial in Mississippi in 1955!
The Emmett Till lynching helped to motivate the Civil Rights Movement in the 1950s and 1960s.
And there is a museum which commemorates the Lynching issue, located in Montgomery, Alabama, the heart of the “Old South”, named the Legacy Museum: From Enslavement To Mass Incarceration!