Biden signs Emmett Till Antilynching Act after more than a century of failed bills

President Joe Biden signs the Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law on March 29, 2022. The law makes lynching a federal hate crime when a conspiracy to commit a hate crime results in death, serious bodily injury, kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill. The bill is named for Emmett Till, the 14-year-old Black boy lynched in Mississippi in 1955, and follows more than a century of failed federal anti-lynching bills. Congress.gov records show the bill became Public Law 117-107 on the day Biden signed it. Federal law finally names lynching as a hate-crime offense, formally recognizing a method of racial terror that enforced white supremacy for generations.