Emmett Till and Will Brown Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2021

I 117TH CONGRESS 1ST SESSION H. R. 1727 To amend title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a deprivation of civil rights, and for other purposes. IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES MARCH 10, 2021 Mr. BACON (for himself, Mr. TAYLOR, and Mr. MOULTON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary A BILL To amend title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching as a deprivation of civil rights, and for other purposes. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa- 1 tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2 SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3 This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Emmett Till and Will 4 Brown Justice for Victims of Lynching Act of 2021’’. 5 SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 6 Congress finds the following: 7 (1) The crime of lynching succeeded slavery as 8 the ultimate expression of racism in the United 9 States following Reconstruction. 10 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 2 •HR 1727 IH (2) Lynching was a widely acknowledged prac- 1 tice in the United States until the middle of the 2 20th century. 3 (3) Lynching was a crime that occurred 4 throughout the United States, with documented inci- 5 dents in all but 4 States. 6 (4) At least 4,742 people, predominantly Afri- 7 can Americans, were reported lynched in the United 8 States between 1882 and 1968. 9 (5) Ninety-nine percent of all perpetrators of 10 lynching escaped from punishment by State or local 11 officials. 12 (6) Lynching prompted African Americans to 13 form the National Association for the Advancement 14 of Colored People (referred to in this section as the 15 ‘‘NAACP’’) and prompted members of B’nai B’rith 16 to found the Anti-Defamation League. 17 (7) Mr. Walter White, as a member of the 18 NAACP and later as the executive secretary of the 19 NAACP from 1931 to 1955, meticulously inves- 20 tigated lynchings in the United States and worked 21 tirelessly to end segregation and racialized terror. 22 (8) Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were intro- 23 duced in Congress during the first half of the 20th 24 century. 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00002 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 3 •HR 1727 IH (9) Between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents peti- 1 tioned Congress to end lynching. 2 (10) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of 3 Representatives passed 3 strong anti-lynching meas- 4 ures. 5 (11) Protection against lynching was the min- 6 imum and most basic of Federal responsibilities, and 7 the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynch- 8 ing legislation despite repeated requests by civil 9 rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Rep- 10 resentatives to do so. 11 (12) The publication of ‘‘Without Sanctuary: 12 Lynching Photography in America’’ helped bring 13 greater awareness and proper recognition of the vic- 14 tims of lynching. 15 (13) Only by coming to terms with history can 16 the United States effectively champion human rights 17 abroad. 18 (14) An apology offered in the spirit of true re- 19 pentance moves the United States toward reconcili- 20 ation and may become central to a new under- 21 standing, on which improved racial relations can be 22 forged. 23 (15) Having concluded that a reckoning with 24 our own history is the only way the country can ef- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00003 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 4 •HR 1727 IH fectively champion human rights abroad, 90 Mem- 1 bers of the United States Senate agreed to Senate 2 Resolution 39, 109th Congress, on June 13, 2005, 3 to apologize to the victims of lynching and the de- 4 scendants of those victims for the failure of the Sen- 5 ate to enact anti-lynching legislation. 6 (16) The National Memorial for Peace and Jus- 7 tice, which opened to the public in Montgomery, Ala- 8 bama, on April 26, 2018, is the Nation’s first memo- 9 rial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, 10 people terrorized by lynching, African Americans hu- 11 miliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and 12 people of color burdened with contemporary pre- 13 sumptions of guilt and police violence. 14 (17) Notwithstanding the Senate’s apology and 15 the heightened awareness and education about the 16 Nation’s legacy with lynching, it is wholly necessary 17 and appropriate for the Congress to enact legisla- 18 tion, after 100 years of unsuccessful legislative ef- 19 forts, finally to make lynching a Federal crime. 20 (18) Further, it is the sense of Congress that 21 criminal action by a group increases the likelihood 22 that the criminal object of that group will be suc- 23 cessfully attained and decreases the probability that 24 the individuals involved will depart from their path 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00004 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 5 •HR 1727 IH of criminality. Therefore, it is appropriate to specify 1 criminal penalties for the crime of lynching, or any 2 attempt or conspiracy to commit lynching. 3 (19) The United States Senate agreed to unani- 4 mously Senate Resolution 118, 115th Congress, on 5 April 5, 2017, ‘‘[c]ondemning hate crime and any 6 other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, dis- 7 crimination, incitement to violence, or animus tar- 8 geting a minority in the United States’’ and taking 9 notice specifically of Federal Bureau of Investigation 10 statistics demonstrating that ‘‘among single-bias 11 hate crime incidents in the United States, 59.2 per- 12 cent of victims were targeted due to racial, ethnic, 13 or ancestral bias, and among those victims, 52.2 14 percent were victims of crimes motivated by the of- 15 fenders’ anti-Black or anti-African American bias’’. 16 (20) On September 14, 2017, President Donald 17 J. Trump signed into law Senate Joint Resolution 18 49 (Public Law 115–58; 131 Stat. 1149), wherein 19 Congress ‘‘condemn[ed] the racist violence and do- 20 mestic terrorist attack that took place between Au- 21 gust 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, 22 Virginia’’ and ‘‘urg[ed] the President and his admin- 23 istration to speak out against hate groups that 24 espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semi- 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 6 •HR 1727 IH tism, and White supremacy; and use all resources 1 available to the President and the President’s Cabi- 2 net to address the growing prevalence of those hate 3 groups in the United States’’. 4 (21) Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 5 115–58; 131 Stat. 1149) specifically took notice of 6 ‘‘hundreds of torch-bearing White nationalists, 7 White supremacists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis [who] 8 chanted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant slo- 9 gans and violently engaged with counter-demonstra- 10 tors on and around the grounds of the University of 11 Virginia in Charlottesville’’ and that these groups 12 ‘‘reportedly are organizing similar events in other 13 cities in the United States and communities every- 14 where are concerned about the growing and open 15 display of hate and violence being perpetrated by 16 those groups’’. 17 (22) Lynching was a pernicious and pervasive 18 tool that was used to interfere with multiple aspects 19 of life—including the exercise of federally protected 20 rights, as enumerated in section 245 of title 18, 21 United States Code, housing rights, as enumerated 22 in section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 23 U.S.C. 3631), and the free exercise of religion, as 24 enumerated in section 247 of title 18, United States 25 VerDate Sep 11 2014 01:51 May 07, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00006 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6201 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS 7 •HR 1727 IH Code. Interference with these rights was often effec- 1 tuated by multiple offenders and groups, rather than 2 isolated individuals. Therefore, prohibiting conspir- 3 acies to violate each of these rights recognizes the 4 history of lynching in the United States and serves 5 to prohibit its use in the future. 6 SEC. 3. LYNCHING. 7 (a) OFFENSE.—Chapter 13 of title 18, United States 8 Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 9 ‘‘§ 250. Lynching 10 ‘‘Whoever conspires with another person to violate 11 section 245, 247, or 249 of this title or section 901 of 12 the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) shall be 13 punished in the same manner as a completed violation of 14 such section, except that if the maximum term of impris- 15 onment for such completed violation is less than 10 years, 16 the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 17 years.’’. 18 (b) TABLE OF SECTIONS AMENDMENT.—The table of 19 sections for chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, 20 is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 21 249 the following: 22 ‘‘250. Lynching.’’. Æ VerDate Sep 11 2014 19:29 May 03, 2021 Jkt 019200 PO 00000 Frm 00007 Fmt 6652 Sfmt 6301 E:\BILLS\H1727.IH H1727 pamtmann on DSKBC07HB2PROD with BILLS