Detroit Evening Report, March 29, 2022: Biden signs Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act

This Mississippi Freedom Trail Marker in Money, Mississippi, recounts the events leading up to the murder of Emmett Till.

 

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President Joe Biden has signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. The legislation makes lynching a federal hate crime.  The NAACP and others have been working for more than a century to make lynching a federal crime. Emmett Till was killed in August 1955 in Money, Mississippi. His body was dumped into a nearby river. The trial of his killers garnered national attention. Till’s mother held an open casket funeral for her teenage son to show the world how horribly he died. His death was a pivotal moment in the modern civil rights movement. Tuskegee University says more than 3,400 African-Americans were lynched in the South between 1882 and 1968. President Biden says some forms of racial terror continue to exist in the U.S., justifying the need for this legislation.

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Author

  • Jerome Vaughn
    Jerome Vaughn is News Director at 101.9 WDET. His interest in news reporting began when he was five years old, after his mom bought him a yellow Panasonic ball and chain radio.