After a Century of Delays, the Senate Finally Votes to Outlaw Lynching

In December, a week before the end of the congressional session, they joined their Senate colleagues in a unanimous bipartisan vote to approve a bill that declares lynching a federal crime in the United States, adding it to the list of federal hate crimes. The bill describes lynching as “the ultimate expression of racism in the United States following Reconstruction.” (The House didn’t have time to vote on the bill, so it will be introduced again once Congress begins work this month.)

Presiding over the proceedings was Senator Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Mississippi Republican, who, during her run-off election in November against former congressman Mike Espy, an African American, was caught on camera praising a supporter by saying, “If he invited me to a public hanging, I’d be on the front row.” (Mississippi led the nation in the number of recorded lynchings.)

It only took 100 years for the Senate to vote against mob killings that take place without legal authority. In 1918, Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer, a Missouri Republican, introduced another bill to make lynching a federal crime. The bill passed the House but did not to make it through the Senate.

https://www.thenation.com/article/senate-lynching-congress-racism/

WE REALLY ARE A THIRD WORLD COUNTRY Y’KNOW!?