I 
116TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 3536 
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 
JUNE 27, 2019 
Mr. BACON (for himself, Mr. MOULTON, Mr. CISNEROS, and Mr. TAYLOR) in-
troduced 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-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Justice for Victims 
of Lynching Act of 2019’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) The crime of lynching succeeded slavery as 
the ultimate expression of racism in the United 
States following Reconstruction. 
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(2) Lynching was a widely acknowledged prac-
tice in the United States until the middle of the 
20th century. 
(3) Lynching was a crime that occurred 
throughout the United States, with documented inci-
dents in all but 4 States. 
(4) At least 4,742 people, predominantly Afri-
can Americans, were reported lynched in the United 
States between 1882 and 1968. 
(5) Ninety-nine percent of all perpetrators of 
lynching escaped from punishment by State or local 
officials. 
(6) Lynching prompted African Americans to 
form the National Association for the Advancement 
of Colored People (referred to in this section as the 
‘‘NAACP’’) and prompted members of B’nai B’rith 
to found the Anti-Defamation League. 
(7) Mr. Walter White, as a member of the 
NAACP and later as the executive secretary of the 
NAACP from 1931 to 1955, meticulously inves-
tigated lynchings in the United States and worked 
tirelessly to end segregation and racialized terror. 
(8) Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were intro-
duced in Congress during the first half of the 20th 
century. 
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(9) Between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents peti-
tioned Congress to end lynching. 
(10) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of 
Representatives passed 3 strong anti-lynching meas-
ures. 
(11) Protection against lynching was the min-
imum and most basic of Federal responsibilities, and 
the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynch-
ing legislation despite repeated requests by civil 
rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Rep-
resentatives to do so. 
(12) The publication of ‘‘Without Sanctuary: 
Lynching Photography in America’’ helped bring 
greater awareness and proper recognition of the vic-
tims of lynching. 
(13) Only by coming to terms with history can 
the United States effectively champion human rights 
abroad. 
(14) An apology offered in the spirit of true re-
pentance moves the United States toward reconcili-
ation and may become central to a new under-
standing, on which improved racial relations can be 
forged. 
(15) Having concluded that a reckoning with 
our own history is the only way the country can ef-
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fectively champion human rights abroad, 90 Mem-
bers of the United States Senate agreed to Senate 
Resolution 39, 109th Congress, on June 13, 2005, 
to apologize to the victims of lynching and the de-
scendants of those victims for the failure of the Sen-
ate to enact anti-lynching legislation. 
(16) The National Memorial for Peace and Jus-
tice, which opened to the public in Montgomery, Ala-
bama, on April 26, 2018, is the Nation’s first memo-
rial dedicated to the legacy of enslaved Black people, 
people terrorized by lynching, African Americans hu-
miliated by racial segregation and Jim Crow, and 
people of color burdened with contemporary pre-
sumptions of guilt and police violence. 
(17) Notwithstanding the Senate’s apology and 
the heightened awareness and education about the 
Nation’s legacy with lynching, it is wholly necessary 
and appropriate for the Congress to enact legisla-
tion, after 100 years of unsuccessful legislative ef-
forts, finally to make lynching a Federal crime. 
(18) Further, it is the sense of Congress that 
criminal action by a group increases the likelihood 
that the criminal object of that group will be suc-
cessfully attained and decreases the probability that 
the individuals involved will depart from their path 
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of criminality. Therefore, it is appropriate to specify 
criminal penalties for the crime of lynching, or any 
attempt or conspiracy to commit lynching. 
(19) The United States Senate agreed to unani-
mously Senate Resolution 118, 115th Congress, on 
April 5, 2017, ‘‘[c]ondemning hate crime and any 
other form of racism, religious or ethnic bias, dis-
crimination, incitement to violence, or animus tar-
geting a minority in the United States’’ and taking 
notice specifically of Federal Bureau of Investigation 
statistics demonstrating that ‘‘among single-bias 
hate crime incidents in the United States, 59.2 per-
cent of victims were targeted due to racial, ethnic, 
or ancestral bias, and among those victims, 52.2 
percent were victims of crimes motivated by the of-
fenders’ anti-Black or anti-African American bias’’. 
(20) On September 14, 2017, President Donald 
J. Trump signed into law Senate Joint Resolution 
49 (Public Law 115–58; 131 Stat. 1149), wherein 
Congress ‘‘condemn[ed] the racist violence and do-
mestic terrorist attack that took place between Au-
gust 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, 
Virginia’’ and ‘‘urg[ed] the President and his admin-
istration to speak out against hate groups that 
espouse racism, extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semi-
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tism, and White supremacy; and use all resources 
available to the President and the President’s Cabi-
net to address the growing prevalence of those hate 
groups in the United States’’. 
(21) Senate Joint Resolution 49 (Public Law 
115–58; 131 Stat. 1149) specifically took notice of 
‘‘hundreds of torch-bearing White nationalists, 
White supremacists, Klansmen, and neo-Nazis [who] 
chanted racist, anti-Semitic, and anti-immigrant slo-
gans and violently engaged with counter-demonstra-
tors on and around the grounds of the University of 
Virginia in Charlottesville’’ and that these groups 
‘‘reportedly are organizing similar events in other 
cities in the United States and communities every-
where are concerned about the growing and open 
display of hate and violence being perpetrated by 
those groups’’. 
(22) Lynching was a pernicious and pervasive 
tool that was used to interfere with multiple aspects 
of life—including the exercise of federally protected 
rights, as enumerated in section 245 of title 18, 
United States Code, housing rights, as enumerated 
in section 901 of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 
U.S.C. 3631), and the free exercise of religion, as 
enumerated in section 247 of title 18, United States 
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Code. Interference with these rights was often effec-
tuated by multiple offenders and groups, rather than 
isolated individuals. Therefore, prohibiting conspir-
acies to violate each of these rights recognizes the 
history of lynching in the United States and serves 
to prohibit its use in the future. 
SEC. 3. LYNCHING. 
(a) OFFENSE.—Chapter 13 of title 18, United States 
Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘§ 250. Lynching 
‘‘Whoever conspires with another person to violate 
section 245, 247, or 249 of this title or section 901 of 
the Civil Rights Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3631) shall be 
punished in the same manner as a completed violation of 
such section, except that if the maximum term of impris-
onment for such completed violation is less than 10 years, 
the person may be imprisoned for not more than 10 
years.’’. 
(b) TABLE OF SECTIONS AMENDMENT.—The table of 
sections for chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, 
is amended by inserting after the item relating to section 
249 the following: 
‘‘250. Lynching.’’. 
Æ 
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