I 
117TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION 
H. R. 55 
To amend section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify lynching 
as a hate crime act. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
JANUARY 4, 2021 
Mr. RUSH introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee 
on the Judiciary 
A BILL 
To amend section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to 
specify lynching as a hate crime act. 
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 ‘‘Emmett Till 
Antilynching Act’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
(1) In the 20th century lynching occurred most-
ly in southern States by White southerners against 
Black southerners. 
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(2) In 1892, the Tuskegee Institute began to 
record statistics of lynchings and reported that 
4,742 reported lynchings had taken place by 1968, 
of which 3,445 of the victims were Black. 
(3) Most of the lynchings that occurred in the 
South were mass moblike lynchings. 
(4) Mass moblike lynchings were barbaric by 
nature characterized by members of the mob, mostly 
White southerners, shooting, burning, and muti-
lating the victim’s body, alive. 
(5) In ‘‘Anatomy of a Lynching: The Killing of 
Claude Neal’’, community papers readily advertised 
mob lynchings, as evidenced by a Florida local paper 
headline: ‘‘Florida to Burn Negro at Stake: Sex 
Criminal Seized from Brewton Jail, Will be Muti-
lated, Set Afire in Extra-Legal Vengeance for 
Deed.’’ 
(6) Civil rights groups documented and pre-
sented Congress evidence of vigilante moblike 
lynchings. 
(7) Evidence by NAACP investigator Howard 
Kester documented the extreme brutality of these 
lynchings. An excerpt from ‘‘Anatomy of a Lynch-
ing’’ further illustrates this point: ‘‘After taking the 
nigger to the woods about four miles from Green-
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wood, they cut off his penis. He was made to eat it. 
Then they cut off his testicles and made him eat 
them and say he liked it.’’ 
(8) Many civil rights groups, notably the Anti- 
Lynching Crusaders, also known as the ALC, oper-
ating under the umbrella of the NAACP, made nu-
merous requests to Congress to make lynching a 
Federal crime. 
(9) Congressman George Henry White, an Afri-
can American, introduced the first Federal anti-
lynching bill and subsequently nearly 200 anti-lynch-
ing bills were introduced in the Congress during the 
first half of the 20th century. 
(10) Between 1890 and 1952, seven Presidents 
petitioned Congress to end lynching. 
(11) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of 
Representatives passed three strong anti-lynching 
measures, of which Congress came closest to enact-
ing anti-lynching legislation sponsored by Congress-
man Leonidas C. Dyer in 1922. 
(12) On all three occasions, opponents of anti- 
lynching legislation, argued States’ rights and used 
the filibuster, or the threat of it, to block the Senate 
from voting on the measures. 
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(13) The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 
1968 was the closest Congress ever came in the 
post-Reconstruction era to enacting anti-lynching 
legislation. 
(14) In 2005, the Senate passed a resolution, 
sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu and George 
Allen, apologizing for the Senate’s failure to enact 
anti-lynching legislation as a Federal crime, with 
Senator Landrieu saying, ‘‘There may be no other 
injustice in American history for which the Senate 
so uniquely bears responsibility.’’ 
(15) To heal past and present racial injustice, 
Congress must make lynching a Federal crime so 
our Nation can begin reconciliation. 
SEC. 3. SPECIFYING LYNCHING AS A HATE CRIME ACT. 
Section 249(a) of title 18, United States Code, is 
amended— 
(1) by redesignating paragraph (4) as para-
graph (5); and 
(2) by inserting after paragraph (3) the fol-
lowing: 
‘‘(4) OFFENSES INVOLVING LYNCHING.—Who-
ever, whether or not acting under color of law, will-
fully, acting as part of any collection of people, as-
sembled for the purpose and with the intention of 
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committing an act of violence upon any person, 
causes death to any person, shall be imprisoned for 
any term of years or for life, fined under this title, 
or both.’’. 
Æ 
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