Obama signs federal hate-crimes expansion named for Shepard and Byrd

President Barack Obama signs the Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act into law on October 28, 2009, as part of a defense authorization law. The statute expands federal hate-crimes authority and strengthens enforcement for crimes motivated by race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability.\n\nThe law is named for Matthew Shepard, a gay college student murdered in Wyoming in 1998, and James Byrd Jr., a Black man murdered by white supremacists in Texas the same year.\n\nFor the racism timeline, the law matters because it modernizes federal hate-crimes enforcement after one of the most notorious anti-Black murders of the late twentieth century.