[Congressional Record Volume 164, Number 200 (Wednesday, December 19, 2018)]
[Senate]
[Pages S7842-S7844]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




              JUSTICE FOR VICTIMS OF LYNCHING ACT OF 2018

  Ms. HARRIS. Madam President, over 2 months ago, the Senate Judiciary 
Committee unanimously voted to advance the Justice for Victims of 
Lynching Act of 2018, which I introduced proudly with Senators Booker 
and Scott. This is a historic piece of legislation that would 
criminalize lynching, attempts to lynch, and conspiracy to lynch, for 
the first time in America's history.
  Lynching is a part of the dark and despicable aspect of our country's 
history that followed slavery and outrageously continued unabated in 
our country. According to the Equal Justice Initiative, lynching was 
used as an instrument of terror and intimidation 4,084 times during the 
late 19th and 20th centuries. These lynchings were needless and 
horrendous acts of violence motivated by racism. We must acknowledge 
that fact, lest it be repeated.
  Lynching is a crime committed against innocent people. These crimes 
should have been prosecuted. There were victims who should have 
received justice, but they did not.
  With this bill we are finally able to change that and correct a 
burden on our history as a country. We finally have a chance to speak 
the truth about our past and make clear that these hateful acts should 
never happen again without serious, severe, and swift consequence and 
accountability.
  From 1882 to 1986, the U.S. Congress failed to pass anti-lynching 
legislation when it had an opportunity 200 times. We now have an 
opportunity to pass this bill and to offer some long overdue justice 
and recognition to the victims of lynching and their families--
recognition that these are crimes for which there should be severe 
consequence and accountability.
  I now yield to my friend, the Senator from the great State of New 
Jersey, Cory Booker.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Thank you, Madam President.
  I want to thank Senator Harris for her incredible partnership and 
leadership on this bill, and I want to thank Senator Tim Scott of South 
Carolina for his leadership and for the consistent examples of 
character and integrity they both have shown as my partners on this 
legislation in this body.
  As my colleague has said, it has been a very long time coming. For 
over a century, Members of Congress have attempted to pass some version 
of a bill that would recognize lynching for what it is--a biased, 
motivated act of terror.
  Today, Senator Harris and I have requested that after a century--
after 100 years and over 200 bills introduced in this body--we finally 
make lynching a Federal crime in the United States of America.
  Thanks to the work of incredible people around this country--truth 
tellers such as Brian Stevenson and the Equal Justice Initiative--
today, we have a more comprehensive understanding of just how 
widespread and purposefully lynching was used as a tool of racial 
terror and oppression in our history.
  We know that the Equal Justice Initiative was able to document 
thousands of cases--over 4,000 documented cases of racially motivated 
lynchings between 1877 and 1950. During that time, lynchings were used 
to terrorize communities. They weren't only vicious acts of murder 
against individuals, but in many cases bodies were hung trying to drive 
fear into communities to make them submit to second-class citizenship 
and inconsistent justice.
  The use of lynching as a larger part of terrorism is disturbing. It 
is a dark chapter of our past and part of our history. Its legacy 
doesn't just live in our history books. Despite activists and 
organizations that have dedicated themselves to studying and addressing 
the racial terror in our history, we have failed to correct for many of 
those past sins.
  We know that the passage of this bill will not undo the damage, the 
terror, and the violence that have been done and the lives that were 
brutally taken in our past. We do know that the passage of this bill, 
even though it cannot reverse the irrevocable harm caused by lynching 
used as terrorist oppression, is a recognition of that dark past. We 
know that when wrongs are ignored they fester underneath the skin of 
the body politic, and we know that justice delayed is justice denied. 
Today, this is a moment of potential justice in this body, a reckoning 
to the victims of lynching that for too long have been denied.
  I want to go back to a point in history in this body. The very first 
bill introduced by Congress to address the terror of lynching was by a 
man on the other side of the Capitol, Congressman George Henry White, 
in 1900. The year after it was introduced, in 1901, was the last year 
he would serve in Congress. That is because Congressman White was the 
very last Black Congressman of the group who had been elected to 
Congress during Reconstruction.
  Congressman White's departure in 1901 would be the last time an 
African-American Black southerner would serve in Congress for over 70 
years. Congressman White must have had an understanding of what was to 
come with the long dearth of time and the lack of diversity. He knew 
the terror of

[[Page S7843]]

Jim Crow laws and voter disenfranchisement that would stop the election 
of African-Americans.
  In his last speech in this body on January 29, 1901, 1 year after he 
introduced the bill to criminalize lynching, he delivered a farewell 
address he called ``The Negro's Temporary Farewell to the American 
Congress.''
  In that address to Congress over one century ago, he made the same 
request that Senator Harris and I are making right now--for the United 
States to officially criminalize lynching.
  Congressman White said:

       Mr. Chairman, permit me to digress for a few moments for 
     the purpose of calling the attention of the House to a bill 
     which I regard as important, introduced by me in the early 
     part of the first session of this Congress.
       [It was intended] to give the United States control and 
     entire jurisdiction over all cases of lynching and death by 
     mob violence.
       During the last session of this Congress I took occasion to 
     address myself in detail to this particular measure, but with 
     all my efforts, the bill still sweetly sleeps in the room of 
     the committee to which it was referred. The necessity of 
     legislation along this line is daily being demonstrated. The 
     arena of the lyncher no longer is confined to Southern 
     climes, but is stretching its hydra head over all parts of 
     the Union.

  Referring to the terror of lynching, Congressman White knew that 
``the evil peculiar to America, yes, to the United States, must be met, 
somehow, some day . . . ''
  Well, now in this moment in America, we have a chance to make some 
day today. We have the opportunity to recognize the wrongs of our 
history, to honor the memories of those brutally killed, and to leave a 
legacy that future generations can look back on, knowing that after 200 
attempts over the course of 100 years of trying, on this day in 
American history this body will do the right thing.
  So I would recognize my colleague from California for the historic 
calling up of this piece of legislation.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from California.
  Ms. HARRIS. Madam President, I thank my friend Senator Booker. It is 
truly an honor to be on the floor of the Senate with my colleague and 
friend proposing this legislation.
  Madam President, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on the 
Judiciary be discharged from further consideration of S. 3178 and the 
Senate proceed to its immediate consideration.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the bill by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A bill (S. 3178) to amend title 18, United States Code, to 
     specify lynching as a deprivation of civil rights, and for 
     other purposes.

  There being no objection, the committee was discharged and the Senate 
proceeded to consider the measure.
  Ms. HARRIS. I further ask unanimous consent that the substitute 
amendment be agreed to and that the bill, as amended, be considered 
read a third time.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The amendment (No. 4168) in the nature of a substitute was agreed to.
  (The amendment is printed in today's Record under ``Text of 
Amendments.'')
  The bill, as amended, was ordered to be engrossed for a third reading 
and was read the third time.
  Ms. HARRIS. I know of no further debate on the bill.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there further debate?
  Hearing none, and the bill having been read the third time, the 
question is, Shall the bill pass?
  The bill (S. 3178), as amended, was passed, as follows:

                                S. 3178

       Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives 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 2018''.

     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.
       (2) Lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the 
     United States until the middle of the 20th century.
       (3) Lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the 
     United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States.
       (4) At least 4,742 people, predominantly African 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 investigated lynchings in the United States and 
     worked tirelessly to end segregation and racialized terror.
       (8) Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in 
     Congress during the first half of the 20th century.
       (9) Between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned Congress 
     to end lynching.
       (10) Between 1920 and 1940, the House of Representatives 
     passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures.
       (11) Protection against lynching was the minimum and most 
     basic of Federal responsibilities, and the Senate considered 
     but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite 
     repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the 
     House of Representatives to do so.
       (12) The publication of ``Without Sanctuary: Lynching 
     Photography in America'' helped bring greater awareness and 
     proper recognition of the victims 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 repentance 
     moves the United States toward reconciliation and may become 
     central to a new understanding, 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 effectively champion human 
     rights abroad, 90 Members 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 descendants of 
     those victims for the failure of the Senate to enact anti-
     lynching legislation.
       (16) The National Memorial for Peace and Justice, which 
     opened to the public in Montgomery, Alabama, on April 26, 
     2018, is the Nation's first memorial dedicated to the legacy 
     of enslaved Black people, people terrorized by lynching, 
     African Americans humiliated by racial segregation and Jim 
     Crow, and people of color burdened with contemporary 
     presumptions 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 legislation, after 100 years of 
     unsuccessful legislative efforts, 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 successfully attained and 
     decreases the probability that the individuals involved will 
     depart from their path 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 unanimously Senate 
     Resolution 118, 115th Congress, on April 5, 2017, 
     ``[c]ondemning hate crime and any other form of racism, 
     religious or ethnic bias, discrimination, incitement to 
     violence, or animus targeting 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 percent 
     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 offenders' 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 domestic terrorist attack that took place 
     between August 11 and August 12, 2017, in Charlottesville, 
     Virginia'' and ``urg[ed] the President and his administration 
     to speak out against hate groups that espouse racism, 
     extremism, xenophobia, anti-Semitism, and White supremacy; 
     and use all resources available to the President and the 
     President's Cabinet 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 slogans and violently engaged with counter-
     demonstrators 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 everywhere are concerned 
     about the growing and open display of hate and violence being 
     perpetrated by those groups''.

     SEC. 3. LYNCHING.

       (a) Offense.--Chapter 13 of title 18, United States Code, 
     is amended by adding at the end the following:

     ``Sec. 250. Lynching

       ``(a) In General.--
       ``(1) Offenses involving actual or perceived race, color, 
     religion, or national

[[Page S7844]]

     origin.--If 2 or more persons willfully cause bodily injury 
     to any other person, because of the actual or perceived race, 
     color, religion, or national origin of any person--
       ``(A) each shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, 
     fined in accordance with this title, or both, if bodily 
     injury results from the offense; or
       ``(B) each shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for 
     life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if death 
     results from the offense or if the offense includes 
     kidnapping or aggravated sexual abuse.
       ``(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion, 
     national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, 
     or disability.--
       ``(A) In general.--If 2 or more persons, in any 
     circumstance described in subparagraph (B), willfully cause 
     bodily injury to any other person because of the actual or 
     perceived religion, national origin, gender, sexual 
     orientation, gender identity, or disability of any person--
       ``(i) each shall be imprisoned not more than 10 years, 
     fined in accordance with this title, or both, if bodily 
     injury results from the offense; or
       ``(ii) each shall be imprisoned for any term of years or 
     for life, fined in accordance with this title, or both, if 
     death results from the offense or if the offense includes 
     kidnapping or aggravated sexual abuse.
       ``(B) Circumstances described.--For purposes of 
     subparagraph (A), the circumstances described in this 
     subparagraph are that--
       ``(i) the conduct described in subparagraph (A) occurs 
     during the course of, or as the result of, the travel of the 
     defendant or the victim--

       ``(I) across a State line or national border; or
       ``(II) using a phone, the internet, the mail, or any other 
     channel, facility, or instrumentality of interstate or 
     foreign commerce;

       ``(ii) the defendant uses a phone, the internet, the mail, 
     or any other channel, facility, or instrumentality of 
     interstate or foreign commerce in connection with the conduct 
     described in subparagraph (A);
       ``(iii) in connection with the conduct described in 
     subparagraph (A), the defendant employs a firearm, dangerous 
     weapon, explosive or incendiary device, or other weapon that 
     has traveled in interstate or foreign commerce; or
       ``(iv) the conduct described in subparagraph (A)--

       ``(I) interferes with commercial or other economic activity 
     in which the victim is engaged at the time of the conduct;
       ``(II) otherwise affects interstate or foreign commerce; or
       ``(III) occurs within the special maritime or territorial 
     jurisdiction of the United States.

       ``(3) Offenses occurring in the special maritime or 
     territorial jurisdiction of the united states.--Whoever, 
     within the special maritime or territorial jurisdiction of 
     the United States, engages in conduct described in paragraph 
     (1) or in paragraph (2)(A) (without regard to whether that 
     conduct occurred in a circumstance described in paragraph 
     (2)(B)) shall be subject to the same penalties as prescribed 
     in those paragraphs.
       ``(b) Attempt.--Whoever attempts to commit any offense 
     under this section--
       ``(1) shall be imprisoned for not more than 10 years, fined 
     in accordance with this title, or both; or
       ``(2) if the offense includes kidnapping or an attempt to 
     kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to commit 
     aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill, shall be 
     imprisoned for any term of years of for life, fined in 
     accordance with this title, or both.
       ``(c) Conspiracy.--If 2 or more persons conspire to commit 
     any offense under this section, and 1 or more of such persons 
     do any act to effect the object of the conspiracy, each shall 
     be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the 
     offense the commission of which was the object of the 
     conspiracy.
       ``(d) Certification Requirement.--
       ``(1) In general.--No prosecution of any offense described 
     in this section may be undertaken by the United States, 
     except under the certification in writing of the Attorney 
     General, or a designee, that--
       ``(A) the State does not have jurisdiction;
       ``(B) the State has requested that the Federal Government 
     assume jurisdiction;
       ``(C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant to State 
     charges left demonstratively unvindicated the Federal 
     interest in eradicating bias-motivated violence; or
       ``(D) a prosecution by the United States is in the public 
     interest and necessary to secure substantial justice.
       ``(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection 
     shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal 
     officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate possible 
     violations of this section.''.
       (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.''.

  Ms. HARRIS. I ask unanimous consent that the motion to reconsider be 
considered made and laid upon the table.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. HARRIS. Madam President, I want to thank our colleagues for this 
incredibly important act of bipartisanship in the U.S. Congress.
  Thank you, Madam President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. BOOKER. Madam President, my friend, the Senator from Oregon, just 
came over. This is a very meaningful moment for this body.
  There was a speech by a man that I revere. His picture hangs in my 
office. His name is Martin Luther King. For many people who endured the 
pain and agony of our past, with lynchings that went on up to the 1970s 
in this country, and for those people who yearned for justice they 
would never experience, for those people who know the pain, agony, and 
hurt in their family's history and the trauma that is still felt by 
many people today, who remember lynching in this country that was so 
pervasive--Dr. King once spoke to those people who were hurting and 
seeking justice, and he asked at the end of his speech:

       How long? Not long, because ``the truth crushed to the 
     earth will rise again.''

  He asked:

       How long? Not long, because ``no lie can live forever.''

  He asked:

       How long? Not long, because the arc of the moral universe 
     is long, but it bends toward justice.

  This has been a long arc, a painful history and shameful history in 
this body--that at the height of lynchings across this country 
affecting thousands of people, this body did not act to make it a 
Federal crime. At least now, the U.S. Senate has acted--100 Senators, 
no objections.
  I just want to give gratitude to this body for what we have just 
done. Thank you.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Oregon.
  Mr. MERKLEY. Madam President, I praise my colleagues from the 
Atlantic coast of New Jersey and Pacific coast of California for today 
putting our entire Senate on record and on a pathway to recognizing the 
deep darkness of this national scar on our justice system and on our 
psyche.
  Work well done today in the U.S. Senate. Thank you.

                          ____________________