[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 151 (2005), Part 9]
[Senate]
[Pages 12262-12287]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




         APOLOGIZING TO LYNCHING VICTIMS AND THEIR DESCENDANTS

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will report the resolution by title.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       A resolution (S. Res. 39) apologizing to the victims of 
     lynching and the descendants of those victims for the failure 
     of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the clerk 
proceed with the reading of the resolution.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The bill clerk read as follows:

       Whereas the crime of lynching succeeded slavery as the 
     ultimate expression of racism in the United States following 
     Reconstruction;
       Whereas lynching was a widely acknowledged practice in the 
     United States until the middle of the 20th century;
       Whereas lynching was a crime that occurred throughout the 
     United States, with documented incidents in all but 4 States;
       Whereas at least 4,742 people, predominantly African-
     Americans, were reported lynched in the United States between 
     1882 and 1968;
       Whereas 99 percent of all perpetrators of lynching escaped 
     from punishment by State or local officials;
       Whereas lynching prompted African-Americans to form the 
     National Association for the Advancement of Colored People 
     (NAACP) and prompted members of B'nai B'rith to found the 
     Anti-Defamation League;
       Whereas nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in 
     Congress during the first half of the 20th century;
       Whereas, between 1890 and 1952, 7 Presidents petitioned 
     Congress to end lynching;
       Whereas, between 1920 and 1940, the House of 
     Representatives passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures;
       Whereas 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;
       Whereas the recent publication of ``Without Sanctuary: 
     Lynching Photography in America'' helped bring greater 
     awareness and proper recognition of the victims of lynching;
       Whereas only by coming to terms with history can the United 
     States effectively champion human rights abroad; and
       Whereas 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: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) apologizes to the victims of lynching for the failure 
     of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation;
       (2) expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn 
     regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of 
     lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human 
     dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all 
     citizens of the United States; and
       (3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these 
     tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, tonight this body will take an important 
and extraordinary step. The Senate will, belatedly but most sincerely, 
issue a formal apology to the victims of lynching and their families, 
some of whom are with us tonight in this Chamber, for its failure to 
pass antilynching legislation.
  Without question, there have been other grave injustices committed in 
the noble exercise of establishing this great democracy. Some have 
already been acknowledged and addressed by this and previous 
Congresses, and our work continues. However, there may be no other 
injustice in American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears 
responsibility. In refusing to take up legislation passed by the House 
of Representatives on three separate occasions and requested by seven 
Presidents from William Henry Harrison to

[[Page 12263]]

Harry Truman, the Senate engaged in a different kind of culpability.
  Beginning in 1881, this tragic phenomenon of domestic terrorism was 
documented in large measure through the groundbreaking and heroic 
efforts of Ida B. Wells-Barnett and the independent newspapers and 
publications. From that year until 1964, 4,742 American citizens were 
lynched. These are the recorded numbers. Historians estimate the true 
number to be much higher.
  An apology alone can never suffice to heal the harm that was done, 
and for many victims justice is out of reach. Yet I believe, and this 
resolution lays forth the principle, that a sincere and heartfelt 
apology is a necessary first step toward real healing.
  It is important that the people of our country understand the true 
nature of this unprecedented rampage of terror. Many Americans have 
images from popular books and movies, like ``To Kill a Mockingbird,'' 
that cloud their understanding of lynching. A group of angry White men 
take an accused and presumed guilty Black man deep into the woods and 
hang him. Those are the images, although accurate and tragic, but they 
delude us from the true nature of lynching in this dark period of 
American history.
  The thought of a small, angry mob murdering Black prisoners in the 
dead of night ignores the reality of lynching in most respects. We are 
fortunate and grateful that a passionate and resolute independent 
scholar named James Allen saw something catalytic in the photographic 
evidence of lynching, and he began to collect these gruesome and 
horrific photographs. His work, ``Without Sanctuary,'' showed the real 
faces of lynching, and the images he unveiled began to change the way 
people viewed these tragic events and called to several of us in the 
Senate to issue this apology tonight. It is because of his work, this 
book, that the Committee for a Formal Apology and the families of the 
lynching victims--and some victims themselves who are here--are here 
today and that this important historic resolution is before the Senate.
  I would like to show some of these photographs now. This is one of 
the hundreds--thousands of photographs of men, women, and children who 
were lynched in this Nation, lynching that occurred--a citizen of our 
Nation, lynched. As your eyes look at this picture, they are 
immediately drawn to the victim. These hangings were sometimes--in most 
instances--very brutal events. Sometimes the hanging itself came after 
hours of torture and just excruciating fear and humiliation.
  After this book was published and these pictures came into more full 
view of the American public, what happens is your eyes leave the figure 
of the victim and move to the audience. This is part of the story that, 
in my mind, has not been completely told, and it needs to be told 
tonight and every day into the future.
  As you can see, there are children gathered here. These are children 
looking up at this man hanging from a tree. History will record that 
some of these children were let out of Sunday schools to attend the 
lynchings. History will record that some businesses closed down so that 
the whole town could attend these lynchings. History will record that 
these lynchings did not occur mostly at night or in the back woods or 
across the levees--lynchings were a community event. In many instances, 
it was a form of public entertainment. It was mass violence, an open 
act of terrorism directed primarily against African Americans and 
others who sympathized with their cause.
  If we are truly to understand the magnitude of this tragedy, we must 
study the stories behind this grim parade of death.
  In March of 1892, three personal friends of Ida B. Wells opened the 
``People's Grocery Company,'' a store located across the street from a 
White-owned grocery store that had previously been the only grocer in 
the area. Angered by the loss of business, a mob gathered to run the 
new grocers out of town. Forewarned about the attack on their store, 
the three owners armed themselves for protection, and in the riot that 
ensued, one of the businessmen injured a White man. All three were 
arrested and jailed. Days later, the mob kidnapped the men from jail 
and lynched them. This was the case that led Ida B. Wells to begin to 
speak out against this injustice.
  Her great grandson is with us today. He has told this story through 
the halls of Congress to give testimony to her life and to her courage 
and to her historic efforts. Without the work of this extraordinarily 
brave journalist, this story never really could have been told in the 
way it is being told now, today, and talked about here on the Senate 
floor. To her, we owe a great deal of gratitude. She knew these men 
personally. She knew they were businessmen. They were not criminals. 
She knew they were successful salespeople, not common thugs. And she 
wrote and she spoke and she tried to gather pictures to tell a story to 
a nation that simply refused to believe.
  Forty-two years and thousands of lynchings later is the case of 
Claude Neal of Marianna, FL. After 10 hours of torture, Claude Neal 
``confessed'' to the murder of a girl with whom he was allegedly having 
an affair. For his safety, he was transferred to an Alabama prison. A 
mob took him from there. They cut off his body parts. They sliced his 
side and stomach. People would randomly cut off a finger here, a toe 
there. From time to time, they would tie a noose around him, throw the 
rope over a tree limb. The mob would keep him there in that position 
until he almost died then lower him again to begin the torment all 
over.
  After several hours, and I guess the crowd exhausted themselves, they 
just decided to kill him. His body was then dragged by car back to 
Marianna, and 7,000 people from 11 States were there to see his body in 
the courthouse of the town square. Pictures were taken and sold for 50 
cents a piece.
  One might ask, how do we know all the grizzly details of Claude 
Neal's death? It is very simple. The newspapers in Florida had given 
advance notice. They recorded it one horrible moment after another. One 
of the members of the lynch mob proudly relayed all the details that 
reporters had missed in person. Yet, even with the public notice, 7,000 
people in attendance, and people bragging about the activity, Federal 
authorities were impotent to stop this murder. State authorities seemed 
to condone it, and the Senate of the United States refused to act.
  Time went on. In 1955, just 9 years before Congress passed the Civil 
Rights Act, the world witnessed the brutal lynching of Emmett Till. 
Fourteen years old, Emmett Till was excited about his trip from his 
home on Chicago's southside to the Mississippi Delta. Like many 
children during the summer, he was looking forward to visiting his 
relatives. Prior to his departure, his mother, Maimie Till Bradley, a 
teacher, had done her very best to advise him about how to behave while 
in Mississippi. With his mother's warning and wearing the ring that had 
belonged to his deceased father, on August 20, 1955, Till set off with 
his cousin, Curtis Jones, on a train to Mississippi.
  Once there, he and some friends went to buy some candy at the general 
store. According to his accusers, this young 14-year-old whistled at a 
store clerk as he left. She happened to be a white woman.
  Armed with pistols, the mob took Emmett from his uncle's home. His 
uncle is with us tonight. They took him in the middle of the night. 
Three days later his little body was discovered in the Tallahatchie 
River, weighed down by a 75-pound cotton gin fan tied around his neck 
with barbed wire. His face was so mutilated when Wright identified the 
body he could only do so based on the ring that he had been wearing.
  Coincidentally, through no asking of our own, but I guess it is 
appropriate, the trial of his accused murderer, Edgar Ray Killen, 
begins today in Mississippi.
  While the details that led to the lynching are not always clear from 
just these few that I have described, there is little doubt what took 
place at the lynchings themselves. In most instances, prelynching 
newspaper notices, school closings to allow children

[[Page 12264]]

to view the spectacle, special order trains to carry people to the 
event, are all part of a gruesome but true part of America's history.
  Jazz legend Billy Holiday provided real texture in her story and song 
``Strange Fruit.'' She defied her own record label and produced and 
published the song on her own, was threatened with her life because she 
continued to sing it. But like so many things, words can't always 
describe what is happening, even though speeches were given, words were 
written, newspapers were published.
  The words to the song are as follows:

     Southern trees bear a strange fruit
     Blood on the leaves and blood at the root,
     Black body swinging in the Southern breeze,
     Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees.

     Pastoral scene of the gallant South,
     The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth,
     Scent of magnolias sweet and fresh,
     And the sudden smell of burning flesh.

     Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck,
     For the rain to gather, for the wind to suck,
     For the sun to rot, for a tree to drop,
     Here is a strange and a bitter crop.

  Something in the way she sang this song, something in the pictures 
that described the event, must have touched the heart of Americans 
because they began to mobilize, and men and women, White and Black, 
people from different backgrounds, came to stand up and begin to speak. 
They spoke with loud voices and with moving speeches and with great 
marches.
  But the Senate of the United States, one of the most noble 
experiments in democracy, continued to pretend, to act like this was 
not happening in America and continued to fail to act.
  It would be a mistake to look at this ugly chapter in our democracy's 
development with pity and hopelessness, however. The truth is, today's 
apology should be seen as a tribute to the endurance and the triumph of 
African-American families.
  There is a particular family here, the Crawford family. I think there 
are over 150 of them. Earlier today I talked with some of the leaders 
of the family. I said: What doesn't kill you makes you stronger. They 
nodded because that is exactly what happened to this family. The town 
tried to kill this family, to run them out, and, in fact, ran them out 
of the town, but this family just grew stronger, and with their love 
and lack of bitterness, but with a determination to find justice some 
way, they are here today. In fact, it was the progress of African 
Americans that spurred this terrible reaction to them in the first 
place.
  As I stated earlier, the early lynchings were not of criminals. The 
early lynchings were of successful farmers, of successful businessmen, 
leaders in their communities because these lynchings were an act of 
terrorism to make American citizens feel they had no voice and no 
place.
  W.E.B. Du Bois summarized the motivation behind these slayings 
perfectly when he said:

        . . . [T]he South feared more than Negro dishonesty, 
     ignorance and incompetency, Negro honesty, knowledge, and 
     efficiency.

  With slavery abolished by the Civil War, a group of Americans had to 
mentally justify as inferior and subhuman those who suddenly were 
equals and competitors. Having lost the war throughout the South, 
watching the progress of former slaves was simply too much in that 
region and in other regions throughout the country, as well.
  As a senior Senator from the State of Louisiana, I feel compelled to 
spend just a few moments, before I acknowledge my friend and cosponsor 
in the Senate, Senator George Allen, who has brought this resolution to 
the attention of our Senate colleagues.
  Louisiana has a distinct history from much of the United States due 
to its long colonial ties with both France and Spain. One consequence 
of this history is that Louisiana had more free people of color than 
any other Southern State. Nearly 20,000 Louisianians who were largely 
concentrated in New Orleans formed a large and very prosperous African-
American community in the 1860s. They enjoyed more rights than most 
free men of color. A large percentage spoke only French and educated 
their children in Europe. The community, the records show, owned more 
than $2 million worth of property, which was quite a large sum in those 
days, and dominated skilled labor areas such as masonry, carpentry, 
cigar making, and shoemaking.
  That is why Louisiana's prominent role in lynchings is so bitter. It 
mars a long history of tolerance and integration that to this day 
distinguishes Louisiana from other places in the South.
  Still the difficult fact remains that only three States have had a 
higher incidence than Louisiana of these occurrences. The NAACP, which 
was founded over the issue of lynchings, recorded 391 such murders in 
my State.
  I ask unanimous consent that a list of all the Louisiana victims 
compiled by Professor Michael Pfeifer, author of ``Rough Justice, 
Lynching and American Society,'' be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                       List of Louisiana Victims

       April 24, 1878, Unidentified Man, Unidentified Sugar 
     Parish, Arson, Unknown, Unknown.
       July 30, 1878, Jim Beaty, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Private.
       July 30, 1878, Ples Phillips, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Private.
       July 30, 1878, Tom Ross, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Private.
       July 30, 1878, Henry Atkinson, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Private.
       September 14, 1878, Valcour St. Martin, Hahnville, St. 
     Charles Parish, Murder, Unknown, Unknown.
       October, 1878, Joshua Hall, Ouachita Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Mass.
       October, 1878, Sam Wallace, Ouachita Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Mass.
       November 5, 1878, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Unknown.
       November 5, 1878, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Unknown.
       November 5, 1878, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Unknown.
       November 5, 1878, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Unknown.
       November 5, 1878, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, 
     Unknown, Black, Unknown.
       December 3, 1878, Moustand, Franklin, St. Mary Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Private.
       December 15, 1878, Victor Bryan, New Roads, Pointe Coupee 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Private.
       September 1, 1879, George Williams, Ouachita Parish, 
     Threats Against White, Black, Private.
       August 20, 1879, Ed. Rabun, Shiloh, Union Parish, Attempt 
     to Rape, Black, Unknown.
       October 29, 1879, W.J. Overstreet, Farmerville, Union 
     Parish, Murder, White, Mass.
       December 28, 1879, Dick Smith, Amite City, Tangipahoa 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Private.
       December 28, 1879, Geo. Carroll, Amite City, Tangipahoa 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Private.
       December 28, 1879, Harrison Johnson, Amite City, Tangipahoa 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Private.
       December 28, 1879, Unknown, Amite City, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Private.
       November 20, 1880, Thornhill, Many, Sabine Parish, Horse 
     Theft, White, Private.
       November 20, 1880, Fields, Many, Sabine Parish, Horse 
     Theft, White, Private.
       January 6, 1880, James Brown, Lake Providence, East Carroll 
     Parish, Murder, White, Private.
       April 1, 1880, J. Tucker, Greensburg, St. Helena Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Private.
       December, 1880, Dr. Jones, East Carroll Parish, Political 
     Causes, Unknown, Unknown.
       December 20, 1880, Garnett Thompson, West Feliciana Parish, 
     Insulted and Shot White Man, Black, Unknown.
       May 15, 1881, Cherry Nickols, Mount Lebanon, Bienville 
     Parish, Murder and Rape, Black, Private (Mixed or Black).
       July 19, 1881, Unidentified Man, Kingston, De Soto Parish, 
     Murder and Robbery, Black, Private.
       July 20, 1881, Unidentified Man, Lincoln Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Unknown.
       July 17, 1881, Spence, Frog Level, Caddo Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       August 22, 1881, Alec Wilson, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       August 22, 1881, Perry Munson, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       August 31, 1881, Caleb Jackson, Vernon, Jackson Parish, 
     Arson, Black, Unknown.
       September 26, 1881, Ben Robertson, Jeanerette, Iberia 
     Parish, Theft, Black, Private.
       November 17, 1881, Stanley, Pointe Coupee Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, White, Private.
       May 15, 1882, Joseph Jenkins, St. Martinville, St. Martin 
     Parish, Murder, White, Unknown.
       May 15, 1882, Eugene Azar, St. Martinville, St. Martin 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Unknown.

[[Page 12265]]

       June 20, 1882, Ingram, St. Tammany Parish, Desperado, 
     Unknown, Unknown.
       June 20, 1882, Howard, St. Tammany Parish, Desperado, 
     Unknown, Unknown.
       June 20, 1882, Mack Taylor, Webster Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Mass.
       October 28, 1882, Wm. Harris, Lincoln Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Posse.
       November 7, 1882, Unidentified Man, Vienna, Lincoln Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       November 7, 1882, Unidentified Man, Vienna, Lincoln Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       November 18, 1882, N. David Lee, Holly Grove, Franklin 
     Parish, Hog Theft, Black, Private.
       December 8, 1882, Tim Robinson, Bastrop, Morehouse Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       December 8, 1882, Wm. Cephas, Bastrop, Morehouse Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       December 8, 1882, Wesley Andrews, Bastrop, Morehouse 
     Parish, Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       January 23, 1883, Henry Solomon, Bellevue, Bossier Parish, 
     Arson, Horse Theft, Black, Private.
       May 13, 1883, D.C. Hutchins, Bellevue, Bossier Parish, 
     Murder, White, Mass.
       July 9, 1883, Henderson Lee, Bastrop, Morehouse Parish, 
     Larceny, Black, Private.
       October 12, 1883, Louis Woods, Edgerly Station, Calcasieu 
     Parish, Rape, Black, Unknown.
       April 27, 1884, John Mullican, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, 
     Murder and Robbery, White, Mass.
       April 27, 1884, John Clark, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery/White, Mass.
       April 27, 1884, King Hill, Monroe, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Unknown, Mass.
       October 21, 1884, Charles McLean, Bellevue, Bossier Parish, 
     Arson, White, Private.
       October 24, 1884, Unidentified Man, St. Tammany Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       October 24, 1884, Unidentified Man, St. Tammany Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       October 24, 1884, Unidentified Man, St. Tammany Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       October 24, 1884, Unidentified Man, St. Tammany Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       December 22, 1884, Wm. Fleitas, Madisonville, St. Tammany 
     Parish, Murderous Assault, White, Unknown.
       January 1, 1885, Unidentified Man, Madison Parish, 
     Trainwrecking, Unknown, Unknown.
       January 1, 1885, Unidentified Man, Madison Parish, 
     Trainwrecking, Unknown, Unknown.
       March 5, 1885, Unidentified Man, St. Landry Parish, Murder, 
     Unknown, Private.
       March 5, 1885, Unidentified Man, St. Landry Parish, Murder, 
     Unknown, Private.
       April 22, 1885, Abe Jones, New Roads, Pointe Coupee Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       April 22, 1885, William Pierce Mabry, near Shiloh, Union 
     Parish, Defended Black Woman from Beating, White, Unknown.
       July 22, 1885, Cicero Green, Minden, Webster Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Mass.
       July 22, 1885, John Figures, Minden, Webster Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       September 30, 1885, Sampson Harris, Winn Parish, Threat to 
     Give Evidence against Whitecappers, Black Terrorist.
       February 16, 1886, George Robinson, Monroe, Onachita 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Mass.
       May 6, 1886, Robert Smith, St. Bernard Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       October 18, 1886, Reeves Smith, De Soto Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Mass.
       December 28, 1886, John Elia, Arcadia, Bienville Parish, 
     Murder, White, Private.
       January 8, 1887, Ike Brumfield, Tangipahoa Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Unknown.
       April 28, 1887, Gracy Blanton, Floyd, West Carroll Parish, 
     Arson and Robbery, Black, Private.
       April 28, 1887, Richard Goodwin, Floyd, West Carroll 
     Parish, Arson and Robbery, Black, Private.
       June 6, 1887, M.W. Washington, De Soto Parish, Burglary 
     with Intent to Rape, Black, Unknown.
       June 30, 1887, James Walden, Simsboro, Lincoln Parish, 
     Larceny, Black, Private.
       August 9, 1887, Thomas Scott, Morehouse Parish, Murder, 
     White, Private.
       August 11, 1887, Daniel Pleasants (alias Hoskins), Harding 
     Plantation, St. Mary Parish, Murder, Black, Posse (Mixed).
       August 13, 1887, Green Hosley, Union Parish, Asserted Self-
     Respect in Dispute with White, Black, Private.
       October 20, 1887, Perry King, Lamar, Franklin Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Mass.
       October 20, 1887, Drew Green, Lamar, Franklin Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Mass.
       November 7, 1887, Unidentified Man, Caddo Parish, 
     Miscegenation, Black, Unknown.
       December 9, 1887, Andrew Edwards, near Minden, Webster 
     Parish, Voodoism, Black, Private (Black).
       January 28, 1888, Ben Edwards, Amite City, Tangipahoa 
     Parish, Criminal Assault, Black, Mass.
       February 9, 1888, Unidentified Man, Ponchatoula, Tangipahoa 
     Parish, Attempted Rape, Black, Private.
       May 6, 1888, Dave Southall, Pointe Coupee Parish, Attempted 
     Murder and Political Causes, White, Private.
       September, 1888, Unidentified Woman, Breaux Bridge, St. 
     Martin Parish, Unknown, Black, Terrorist.
       September 17, 1888, Louis Alfred (Jean Pierre Salet), Ville 
     Platte, St. Landry (now Evangeline) Parish, Incendiary 
     Language, Black, Terrorist.
       September 17, 1888, Jno. Johnson (Sidairo), Ville Platte, 
     St. Landry (now Evangeline) Parish, Incendiary Language, 
     Black, Terrorist.
       November 9, 1888, Lulin, St. Landry Parish, Unknown, Black, 
     Terrorist.
       November 13, 1888, Unidentified Man, Donaldsonville, 
     Ascension Parish, Rape, Black, Mass.
       November 22, 1888, Jerry Taylor, St. Helena Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Private.
       January 25, 1889, Samuel Wakefield, New Iberia, Iberia 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Posse.
       January 29, 1889, James Rosemond, New Iberia, Iberia 
     Parish, Theft, Black, Private.
       February 8, 1889, Haygood Handy, near Bellevue, Bossier 
     Parish, Murder and Hog Stealing, Black, Unknown.
       April 14, 1889, Steve. McIntosh, Magenta Plantation, Bayou 
     Desiard, Ouachita Parish, Rape, Unknown, Unknown (Black).
       April 16, 1889, Hector Junior, near New Iberia, Iberia 
     Parish, Murderous Assault, Black, Posse.
       May 18, 1889, Unidentified Man, near Columbia, Caldwell 
     Parish, Burglary, Black, Unknown.
       July 11, 1889, Felix Keys, Lafayette Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Mass (Mixed).
       November 16, 1889, Ed Gray, Vidalia, Concordia Parish, 
     Arson, Black, Private.
       December 31, 1889, Henry Holmes, Bossier Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       January 8, 1890, Henry Ward, Bayou Sara, West Feliciana 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Private.
       February 18, 1890, R.F. Emerson, St. Joseph, Tensas Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, White, Unknown.
       May 13, 1890, Phillip Williams, Napoleonville, Assumption 
     Parish, Attempted Rape, Black, Mass.
       June 16, 1890, George Swayze, East Feliciana Parish, 
     Political Causes, White, Private (Possibly Black).
       June 26, 1890, John Coleman, Caddo Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Unknown (Black).
       August 21, 1890, Wml. Alexander, East Baton Rouge Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Private.
       October 12, 1890, Frank Wooten, Claiborne Parish, Arson, 
     Black, Unknown.
       November 20, 1890, Unidentified Man, southeastern East 
     Baton Rouge Parish, Bulldozing, Black, Terrorist.
       March 14, 1891, Antoino Scoffedi, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Joseph Macheca, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Pietro Monasterio, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, James Caruso, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, 
     Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Rocco Gerachi, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, 
     Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Frank Romero, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, 
     Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Antonio Marchesi, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Charles Traina, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Loretto Comitz, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Antonio Bagnetto, New Orleans, Orleans 
     Parish, Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       March 14, 1891, Manuel Politz, New Orleans, Orleans Parish, 
     Conspiracy to Murder, Italian, Mass (Mixed).
       May 21, 1891, Tennis Hampton, Gibsland, Bienville Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Private.
       May 23, 1891, William Anderson, Caddo Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       May 23, 1891, John Anderson, Caddo Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Posse.
       June 2, 1891, Samuel Hummell, Hermitage, Pointe Coupee 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Unknown.
       June 2, 1891, Alex Campbell, Hermitage, Pointe Coupee 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Unknown.
       June 2, 1891, Unidentified Man, Hermitage, Pointe Coupee 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Unknown.
       September 8, 1891, Unidentified Man, near Arcadia, 
     Bienville Parish, Rape, Black, Posse.
       October 19, 1891, John Rush, Caldwell Parish, Murder, 
     White, Private.
       October 28, 1891, Jack Parker, Covington, St. Tammany 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Mass (Black).
       October 29, 1891, Unidentified Man, ``the Poole place,'' 
     Bossier Parish, Outrageous Act, Black, Mass (Mixed).
       November 4, 1891, J.T. Smith, near Bastrop, Morehouse 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Mass.
       November 4, 1891, W.S. Felton, near Bastrop, Morehouse 
     Parish, Murder, Black, Mass.
       November 10, 1891, John Cagle, near Homer, Claiborne 
     Parish, ``Bad Negro,'' Black, Unknown.

[[Page 12266]]

       November 27, 1891, John Maxey, Many, Sabine Parish, 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Private.
       December 27, 1891, Unidentified Man, Black Water 
     Plantation, Concordia Parish, Accessory to Murder, Black, 
     Unknown.
       January 7, 1892, Horace Dishroon, Rayville, Richland 
     Parish, Murder, Robbery, Black, Mass.
       January 7, 1892, Eli Foster, Rayville, Richland Parish, 
     Murder, Robbery, Black, Mass.
       January 9, 1892, Nathan Andrews, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       January 11, 1892, Undentified Man, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private (Black).
       March 12, 1892, Ella, near Rayville, Richland Parish, 
     Attempted Murder, Black, Private.
       March 26, 1892, Dennis Cobb, Bienville Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Terrorist.
       March 27, 1892, Jack Tillman, Jefferson Parish, Argued with 
     and Shot White Men, Black, Terrorist.
       April 6, 1892, Unidentified Man, Grant Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       April 6, 1892, Unidentified Man, Grant Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       April 6, 1892, Unidentified Man, Grant Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       April 6, 1892, Unidentified Man, Grant Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       April 23, 1892, Free1an, Pointe Coupee Parish, Murder and 
     Extortion, White, Posse.
       May 28, 1892, Walker, Bienville Parish, Improper Relations 
     with White Girl, Black, Unknown.
       September 2, 1892, Edward Laurent, Avoyelles Parish, Aiding 
     Murderer, Black, Terrorist.
       September 5, 1892, Gabriel Magliore, Avoyelles Parish, 
     Threats to Kill, Black, Terrorist.
       September 7, 1892, Henry Dixon, Jefferson Parish, Murder, 
     Theft, Black, Private.
       September 13, 1892, Eli Lindsey, Morehouse Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown (Black).
       September 27, 1892, Benny Walkers, Concordia Parish, 
     Attempted Criminal Assault, Black, Mass.
       October 21, 1892, Thomas Courtney, Iberville Parish, Shot 
     Man, Black, Posse.
       November 1, 1892, Daughter of Hastings, Catahoula Parish, 
     Daughter of Murderer, Black, Private.
       November 1, 1892, Son of Hastings, Catahoula Parish, Son of 
     Murderer, Black, Private.
       Noevmber 4, 1892, John Hastings, Catahoula Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       November 29, 1892, Richard Magee, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       November 29, 1892, Carmichael, Bossier Parish, Complicity 
     in Murder, Black, Unknown.
       December 28, 1892, Lewis Fox, St. Charles Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       Decmber 28, 1892, Adam Gripson, St. Charles Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       January 8, 1893, Unidentified Man, Union Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       January 20, 1893, Robert Landry, St. James Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       January 20, 1893, Chicken George, St. James Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       January 20, 1893, Richard Davis, St. James Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       January 25, 1893, Wm. Fisher, Orleans Parish, Stabbing of 
     White Woman, Murder, Black, Posse.
       May 6, 1893, Israel Holloway, Assumption Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Unknown.
       July 13, 1893, Meredith Lewis, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private (Black).
       September 16, 1893, Valsin Julian, Jefferson Parish, 
     Brother of Murderer, Black, Private.
       September 16, 1893, Paul Julian, Jefferson Parish, Brother 
     of Murderer, Black, Private.
       September 16, 1893, Basile Julian, Jefferson Parish, 
     Brother of Murderer, Black, Private.
       September 29, 1893, Henry Coleman, Bossier Parish, 
     Attempted Assassination, Black, Mass.
       October 19, 1893, Unidentified Man, Bossier Parish, Stock 
     Theft, Black, Unknown (Mixed).
       October 19, 1893, Unidentified Man, Bossier Parish, Stock 
     Theft, Black, Unknown (Mixed).
       December 27, 1893, Tillman Green, Caldwell Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Private.
       January 18, 1894, Unidentified Man, West Feliciana Parish, 
     Arson and Murder, Black, Unknown.
       April 23, 1894, Samuel Slaughter, Madison Parish, Murder 
     and Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 23, 1894, Thomas Claxton, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 23, 1894, David Hawkins, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 27, 1894, Shell Claxton, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 27, 1894, Tony McCoy, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 27, 1894, Pomp Claxton, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       April 27, 1894, Scott Harvey, Madison Parish, Murder and 
     Insurrection, Black, Mass.
       May 23, 1894, George Paul, Pointe Coupee Parish, Offended 
     White Man, Black, Unknown.
       June 10, 1894, Mark Jacobs, Bienville Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Terrorist.
       June 14, 1894, John Day, Ouachita Parish, Arson, White, 
     Unknown.
       July 23, 1894, Vance McClure, Iberia Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Private.
       September 9, 1894, Link Waggoner, Webster Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, White, Private.
       September 10, 1894, Robert Williams, Concordia Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown (Black).
       November 9, 1894, Charlie Williams, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Robbery, Latino, Unknown.
       November 9, 1894, Lawrence Younger, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       December 23, 1894, George King, St. Bernard Parish, Threat 
     to Kill and Resisted Arrest and Shot at Whites, Black, Mass.
       December 28, 1894, Scott Sherman, Concordia Parish, Brother 
     of Murderer, Black, Posse (Possibly Black).
       June 24, 1895, John Frey, Jefferson Parish, Arson, White, 
     Private.
       July 19, 1895, Ovide Belizaire, Lafayette Parish, Shot at 
     Whites, Black, Terrorist.
       September 18, 1895, Unidentified Man, Bossier Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Mass.
       September 21, 1895, Edward Smith, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Black, Mass.
       September 25, 1895, Aleck Francis, Jefferson Parish, 
     Dangerous Character, Black, Private.
       January 10, 1896, Abraham Smart, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       January 12, 1896, Charlotte Morris, Jefferson Parish, 
     Miscegenation, Black, Private.
       January 12, 1896, Patrick Morris, Jefferson Parish, 
     Miscegenation, White, Private.
       February 28, 1896, Gilbert Francis, St. James Parish, Rape 
     and Burglary, Black, Private.
       February 28, 1896, Paul Francis, St. James Parish, Rape and 
     Burglary, Black, Private.
       March 11, 1896, Bud Love, Morehouse Parish, Theft, Black, 
     Private.
       March 24, 1896, Louis Senegal, Lafayette Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Private.
       May 17, 1896, Unidentified Man, Bossier Parish, Insulted 
     White Woman, Black, Posse.
       May 19, 1896, James Dandy, St. Bernard Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Private.
       June 9, 1896, Wallis Starks, St. Mary Parish, Rape and 
     Robbery, Black, Posse.
       July 11, 1896, James Porter, Webster Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Private.
       July 11, 1896, Monch Dudley, Webster Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Private.
       July 24, 1896, Isom McGee, Claiborne Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Unknown.
       July 31, 1896, Louis Mullens, Avoyelles Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, White, Private.
       August 4, 1896, Hiram Weightman, Franklin Parish, Murder 
     and Rape, Black, Mass.
       August 8, 1896, Lorenzo Saladino, St. Charles Parish, 
     Murder and Robbery, Italian, Mass.
       August 8, 1896, DeCino Sorcoro, St. Charles Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Italian, Mass.
       August 8, 1896, Angelo Marcuso, St. Charles Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Italian, Mass.
       September 12, 1896, Jones McCauley, Ouachita Parish, Sexual 
     Assault, Black, Unknown (Mixed or Black).
       September 24, 1896, Jim Hawkins, Jefferson Parish, 
     Assaulted Boy, Black, Private.
       October 1, 1896, Lewis Hamilton, Bossier Parish, Arson, 
     Black, Unknown.
       December 22, 1896, Jerry Burke, Livingston Parish, 
     Attempted Murder, Black, Posse.
       January 17, 1897, Unidentified Man, Iberville Parish, 
     Attempted Murder and Robbery, Black, Unknown.
       January 19, 1897, Gustave Williams, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       January 19, 1897, Archie Joiner, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       January 19, 1897, John Johnson, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       May 11, 1897, Charles Johnson, East Feliciana Parish, 
     Attempted Trainwrecking, Black, Private.
       July 21, 1897, Jack Davis, St. Mary Parish, Criminal 
     Assault, Black, Posse.
       September 28,1897, Wm. Oliver, Jefferson Parish, Ferry Law 
     Violation and Dangerous Weapon Charge, Black, Private.
       October 2, 1897, Wash Ferren, Ouachita Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Mass.
       October 15, 1897, Douglas Boutte, Jefferson Parish, 
     Violated Quarantine and Resisted Arrest, Black, Private.
       December 13, 1897, Joseph Alexander, Iberville Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       December 13, 1897, Charles Alexander, Iberville Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       Decmber 13, 1897, James Thomas, Iberville Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       April 2, 1898, Wm. Bell, Tangipahoa Parish, Accessory to 
     Murder, Black, Private.
       April 23, 1898, Columbus Lewis, Lincoln Parish, Impudence 
     to White Man, Black, Private.
       June 4, 1898, Wm. Steake, Webster Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Mass.
       June 11, 1898, Unidentified Man, Morehouse Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Posse.
       November 3, 1898, Charles Morrell, St. John Parish, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       December 5, 1898, Bedney Hearn, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       December 5, 1898, John Richardson, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       June 14, 1899, Edward Gray, St. John Parish, Burglary, 
     Black, Private.
       July 11, 1899, George Jones, St. Charles Parish, Horse 
     Theft, Black, Private (Black).

[[Page 12267]]

       July 21, 1899, Joseph Cereno, Madison Parish, Shooting Man, 
     Italian, Mass.
       July 21, 1899, Charles Defatta, Madison Parish, Shooting 
     Man, Italian, Mass.
       July 21, 1899, Frank Defatta, Madison Parish, Shooting Man, 
     Italian, Mass.
       July 21, 1899, Joseph Defatta, Madison Parish, Shooting 
     Man, Italian, Mass.
       July 21, 1899, Sy Defrroch, Madison Parish, Shooting Man, 
     Italian, Mass.
       August 2, 1899, Man Singleton, Grant Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Unknown.
       Augsut 8, 1899, Echo Brown, Tangipahoa Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Unknown.
       October 10, 1899, Basile LaPlace, St. Charles Parish, 
     Political Causes and Illicit Liaison, White, Private.
       October 15, 1899, James Smith, East Feliciana Parish, 
     Cattle Rustling and Desperadoism, White, Private.
       December 13, 1899, Unidentified Man, Morehouse Parish, 
     Rape, Unknown.
       April 21, 1900, John Humely, Bossier Parish, Conspiracy to 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       April 21, 1900, Edward Amos, Bossier Parish, Conspiracy to 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       May 12, 1900, Henry Harris, Rapides Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Mass.
       June 12, 1900, Ned Cobb, West Baton Rouge Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       June 23, 1900, Frank Gilmour, Livingston Parish, Murder, 
     White, Private.
       August 29, 1900, Thomas Amos, Rapides Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       September 21, 1900, George Beckham, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       September 21, 1900, Nathaniel Bowmam, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       September 21, 1900, Charles Elliot, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       September 21, 1900, Izaih Rollins, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       October 19, 1900, Melby Dotson, West Baton Rouge Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       January 24, 1901, Larkington, Webster Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       February 17, 1901, Thomas Jackson, St. John Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       February 21, 1901, Thomas Vital, Calcasieu Parish, Criminal 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       February 21, 1901, Samuel Thibodaux, Calcasieu Parish, 
     Defending Rapist, Black, Unknown.
       March 6, 1901, William Davis, Caddo Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Private.
       May 1, 1901, Grant Johnson, Bossier Parish, Desperate Negro 
     Gambler, Black, Private.
       May 3, 1901, Felton Brigman, Caddo Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Private (Black).
       June 19, 1901, F.D. Frank Smith, Bossier Parish, Complicity 
     in Murder, Black, Mass.
       June 19, 1901, F.D. McLand, Bossier Parish, Complicity in 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       July 15, 1901, Lewis Thomas, Richland Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       July 19, 1901, Unidentified Man, Acadia Parish, Homicide, 
     Shot Officer, Black, Posse.
       October 25, 1901, Wm. Morris, Washington Parish, Assault 
     and Robbery, Black, Unknown.
       November 2, 1901, Connelly, Washington Parish, Threats 
     Against Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Parker, Washington Parish, Threats 
     Against Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Low, Washington Parish, Threats Against 
     Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Connelly's Daughter, Washington Parish, 
     Threats Against Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Woman, Washington Parish, Threats Against 
     Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Child, Washington Parish, Threats Against 
     Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1901, Unidentified Person, Washington Parish, 
     Threats Against Whites, Black, Posse.
       November 24, 1901, Frank Thomas, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass (Black).
       December 8, 1901, Sol Paydras, Calcasieu Parish, Assault, 
     Black, Private.
       January 25, 1902, Unidentified Man, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Theft, Black, Posse.
       January 25, 1902, Unidentified Man, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Theft, Black, Posse.
       January 25, 1902, Unidentified Man, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Theft, Black, Posse.
       March 19, 1902, John Woodward, Concordia Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       March 31, 1902, George Franklin Carroll Parish, Murder 
     Black, Posse Unknown.
       April 12, 1902, Unidentified Man, Natchitoches Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       May 4, 1902, John Simms, Morehouse Parish, Complicity in 
     Murder, White, Unknown.
       May 9, 1902, Nicholas Deblanc, Iberia Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Posse.
       August 7, 1902, Henry Benton, Claiborne Parish, Criminal 
     Assault, Black, Posse.
       October 13, 1902, Unidentified Man, Calcasieu Parish, 
     Attempted Murder, Black, Posse.
       November 25, 1902, Joseph Lamb, West Feliciana Parish, 
     Attempted Robbery and Criminal Assault, Black, Private.
       January 26, 1903, John Thomas, St. Charles Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       February 24, 1903, Jim Brown, Bossier Parish, Attempted 
     Murder, Black, Posse.
       March 27, 1903, Frank Robertson, Bossier Parish, Arson, 
     Black, Unknown.
       June 12, 1903, Frank Dupree, Rapides Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Unknown.
       June 25, 1903, Lamb Whitley, Catahoula Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       July 26, 1903, Jennie Steer, Caddo Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Private.
       October 18, 1903, George Kennedy, Bossier Parish, Attempt 
     to Kill, Black, Posse.
       November 2, 1903, Joseph Craddock, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass (Black).
       November 30, 1903, Walter Carter, Caddo Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Mass.
       November 30, 1903, Phillip Davis, Caddo Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Mass.
       November 30, 1903, Clinton Thomas, Caddo Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Mass.
       January 14, 1904, Butch Riley, Madison Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       May 29, 1904, Frank Pipes, Rapides Parish, Shooting Man, 
     Black, Private.
       April 26, 1905, Richard Craighead, Claiborne Parish, 
     Murder, White, Mass.
       June 1, 1905, Henry Washington, Pointe Coupee Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Posse.
       August 12, 1905, Unidentified Man, Jackson Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Posse.
       November 26, 1905, Monroe Williams, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       February 24, 1906, Willis Page, Bienville Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Mass.
       March 18, 1906, Wm. Carr, Iberville Parish, Theft, Black, 
     Private.
       March 28, 1906, Cotton, West Carroll Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       May 6, 1906, George Whitner, East Feliciana Parish, 
     Insulted White Woman, Black, Unknown.
       May 22, 1906, Thomas Jackson, Caddo Parish, Robbery, Black, 
     Private.
       May 29, 1906, Robert Rogers, Madison Parish, Murder, White, 
     Private.
       July 11, 1906, Unidentified Man, Claiborne Parish, 
     Attempted Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       August 26, 1906, Alfred Schaufriet, Ouachita Parish, 
     Attempted Criminal Assault, Black, Posse.
       November 25, 1906, Antone Domingue, Lafayette Parish, 
     Fought Whitecappers, Black, Terrorist.
       March 15, 1907, Flint Williams, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Murderous Assault, Robbery, Black, Unknown.
       March 15, 1907, Henry Gardner, Ouachita Parish, Murder and 
     Murderous Assault and Robbery and Rape, Black, Unknown.
       April 16, 1907, Charles Straus, Avoyelles Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Private.
       April 18, 1907, Frederick Kilbourne, East Feliciana Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Mass.
       May 3, 1907, Silas Faly, Bossier Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Unknown.
       June 1, 1907, Henry Johnson, Rapides Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Private.
       June 8, 1907, James Wilson, Claiborne Parish, Attempted 
     Criminal Assault, Black, Unknown.
       June 27, 1907, Ralph Dorans, Rapides Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Unknown.
       June 28, 1907, Mathias Jackson, Rapides Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Private.
       December 5, 1907, Unidentified Man, Morehouse Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       December 15, 1907, Unidentified Man, Jackson Parish, Being 
     an Italian Worker, Italian, Unknown.
       December 15, 1907, Unidentified Man, Jackson Parish, Being 
     an Italian Worker, Italian, Unknown.
       February 6, 1908, Robert Mitchell, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       June 4, 1908, Bird Cooper, Claiborne Parish, Murder, Black, 
     Unknown.
       July 16, 1908, Miller Gaines, Catahoula Parish, Arson, 
     Black, Unknown.
       July 16, 1908, Sam Gaines, Catahoula Parish, Arson, Black, 
     Unknown.
       July 16, 1908, Albert Godlin, Catahoula Parish, Inciting 
     Arson, Black, Unknown.
       July 26, 1908, Andrew Harris, Caddo Parish, Attempted Rape, 
     Black, Private.
       September 16, 1908, John Miles, Pointe Coupee Parish, 
     Murderous Assault and Robbery, Black, Mass.
       July 30, 1909, Emile Antoine, St. Landry Parish, Robbery 
     and Shot White Man, Black, Private.
       July 30, 1909, Onezime Thomas, St. Landry Parish, Robbery 
     and Shot White Man, Black, Private.
       September 6, 1909, Henry Hill, Franklin Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Posse.
       October 7, 1909, Ap Ard, St. Helena Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       October 7, 1909, Mike Rodrigauez, Vernon Parish, Robbery, 
     White, Unknown.
       October 28, 1909, Joseph Gilford, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Theft, Black, Mass.
       October 28, 1909, Alexander Hill, West Carroll Parish, 
     Murder and Theft, Black, Mass.
       November 20, 1909, Wm. Estes, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       November 27, 1909, Simmie Thomas, Caddo Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Mass.
       July 10, 1910, J.C. Freeman, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     White, Private.
       January 20, 1911, Oval Poulard, Evangeline Parish, Shot 
     Deputy Sheriff, Black, Private.
       July 24, 1911, Miles Taylor, Claiborne Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       April 9, 1912, Thomas Miles, Caddo Parish, Insulted White 
     Woman in Letters, Black, Private.

[[Page 12268]]

       April 23, 1912, Unidentified Man, Richland Parish, Threats 
     Against Whites, Black, Mass.
       May 2, 1912, Ernest Allums, Bienville Parish, Writing 
     Insulting Letters to White Women, Black, Private.
       September 25, 1912, Samuel Johnson, De Soto Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       November 28, 1912, Mood Burks, Bossier Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Private.
       November 28, 1912, Jim Hurd, Bossier Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Private.
       November 28, 1912, Silas Jimmerson, Bossier Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Private.
       December 23, 1912, Norm Cadore, West Baton Rouge Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Private.
       February 14, 1913, Charles Tyson, Caddo Parish, Unknown, 
     Unknown (Possibly Black).
       August 27, 1913, James Comeaux, Jefferson Davis Parish, 
     Assault, Black, Private.
       October 22, 1913, Warren Eaton, Ouachita Parish, Improper 
     Proposal, Black, Private.
       December 16, 1913, Ernest Williams, Caddo Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Black, Private.
       December 16, 1913, Frank Williams, Caddo Parish, Murder and 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       May 8, 1914, Sylvester Washington, St. James Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Posse.
       May 12, 1914, Earl Hamilton, Caddo Parish, Rape, Black, 
     Mass.
       August 5, 1914, Oli Romeo, St. Tammany Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Mass.
       August 6, 1914, Henry Holmes, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Robbery, Black, Private.
       August 7, 1914, Dan Johnson, Ouachita Parish, Complicity in 
     Murder, Black, Mass.
       August 7, 1914, Louis Pruitt, Ouachita Parish, Complicity 
     in Murder, Black, Mass.
       August 9, 1914, Unidentified Man, Ouachita Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       December 2, 1914, Jobie Lewis, Caddo Parish, Murder and 
     Robbery and Arson, Black, Private.
       December 2, 1914, Elijah Durden, Caddo Parish, Murder and 
     Robbery and Arson, Black, Private.
       December 11, 1914, Charles Washington, Caddo Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Black, Private.
       December 11, 1914, Beard Washington, Caddo Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Black, Private.
       December 12, 1914, Watkins Lewis, Caddo Parish, Murder and 
     Robbery, Black, Mass.
       July 15, 1915, Thomas Collins, Avoyelles Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Posse.
       August 21, 1915, Bob, Red River Parish, Attempted Rape, 
     Black, Unknown.
       August 26, 1916, Jesse Hammett, Caddo Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Mass.
       November 15, 1916, James Grant, St. Landry Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       December 28, 1917, Emma Hooper, Tangipahoa Parish, 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Unknown.
       July 29, 1917, Daniel Rout, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       July 29, 1917, Jerry Rout, Tangipahoa Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       January 26, 1918, James Nelson, Bossier Parish, Living with 
     White Woman, Black, Private.
       February 26, 1918, James Jones, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       February 26, 1918, Wm. Powell, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       February 26, 1918, James Lewis, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       March 16, 1918, George McNeal, Ouachita Parish, Rape, 
     Black, Private.
       April 22, 1918, Clyde Williams, Ouachita Parish, Murderous 
     Assault and Robbery, Black, Private.
       June 18, 1918, George Clayton, Richland Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       August 7, 1918, Bubber Hall, Morehouse Parish, Criminal 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       January 18, 1919, Henry Thomas, Red River Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Posse.
       January 29, 1919, Sampson Smith, Caldwell Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       February 14, 1919, Will Faulkner, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       April 29, 1919, George Holden, Ouachita Parish, Wrote 
     Insulting Note to White Woman, Black, Unknown.
       August 26, 1919, Jesse Hammett, Caddo Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Mass.
       August 31, 1919, Lucius McCarty, Washington Parish, 
     Attempted Rape, Black, Mass.
       September 6, 1919, Unidentified Man, Morehouse Parish, 
     Attempted Criminal Assault, Black, Private.
       September 13, 1919, Unidentified Man, Catahoula Parish, 
     Hiding Under Bed, Black, Unknown.
       January 31, 1921, George Werner, Iberville Parish, Shot 
     Man, Black, Unknown.
       September 14, 1921, Gilmon Holmes, Caldwell Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       March 11, 1922, Brown Culpeper, Franklin Parish, Unknown, 
     White, Unknown.
       July 6, 1922, Joe Pemberton, Bossier Parish, Murderous 
     Assault, Black, Unknown.
       August 24, 1922, F. Watt Daniel, Morehouse Parish, Angered 
     Klan, White, Unknown.
       August 24, 1922, Thomas F. Richards, Morehouse Parish, 
     Angered Klan, White, Unknown.
       August 26, 1922, Thomas Rivers, Bossier Parish, Attempted 
     Rape, Black, Private.
       January 3, 1923, Leslie Leggett, Caddo Parish, Intimate 
     with White Girl, Black, Private.
       February 26, 1925, Joseph Airy, Bossier Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Unknown.
       August 4, 1926, Johnny Norris, De Soto Parish, Improper 
     Advances to Girl, Black, Posse.
       April 16, 1927, Willie Autrey, Calcasieu Parish, Peeping 
     Tom, Black, Private.
       June 2, 1928, Lee Blackman, Rapides Parish, Brother of 
     Murderer, Black, Private.
       June 2, 1928, David Blackman, Rapides Parish, Brother of 
     Murderer, Black, Private.
       February 19, 1933, Nelson Cash, Bienville Parish, Murder 
     and Robbery, Black, Unknown.
       August 26, 1933, John White, St. Landry Parish, Unknown, 
     Black, Unknown.
       September 11, 1933, Freddy Moore, Assumption Parish, 
     Murder, Black, Unknown.
       July 21, 1934, Jerome Wilson, Washington Parish, Murder, 
     Black, Private.
       October 13, 1938, W.C. Williams, Lincoln Parish, Murder and 
     Murderous Assault, Black, Mass.
       August 8, 1946, John Jones, Webster Parish, Intent to Rape, 
     Black, Private.

  Ms. LANDRIEU. It is also true that members of the Senate delegation 
from Louisiana participated in the actions that led us to not act.
  However, I am very proud to stand here with my colleague from 
Virginia and to note that the other Senator from Louisiana, a 
Republican, stands with me. We are united in our support of this 
resolution to offer the sincere apology to try to bring to light the 
facts about lynching, to encourage people to seek the truth.
  I said earlier today people are entitled to their own opinions. But 
they are not entitled to their own facts. And the facts about this 
terrible domestic terrorism and rash of terrorism stand today and will 
not be pushed aside. It is with humility but with pride that I support 
and put forth before the Senate today, with the Senator from Virginia, 
this resolution.
  The junior Senator from Louisiana is an original cosponsor of this 
resolution, as are a number of sons of the South. Furthermore, in 
Louisiana's legislature in Baton Rouge, a very similar resolution 
passed today. Thus, the people of Louisiana can truly say we are trying 
to open a dialogue, and bring closure to a bitter history.
  This is a particularly important step for the South. For while 
lynchings occurred in 46 of the 50 States, and people of all races were 
affected, it would be a mischaracterization to suggest that this was 
not a weapon of terror most often employed in the South, and most often 
against African Americans. That is why I am so glad to be joined in 
this endeavor by the junior Senator from Virginia, Mr. Allen. He has 
been instrumental in getting us to this point of consideration, and I 
truly appreciate his hard work and dedication to our joint effort.
  It is also important to acknowledge the bravery of those who took 
personal risks long before this day in opposition to lynching. First 
and foremost, we must acknowledge the pioneering journalism of Ida B. 
Wells. Though personally threatened with death, Ms. Wells continued to 
document these outrages before justice, so that future generations 
might know the history of this era. It should be noted that it was her 
example that led other women, such as Jane Adams, to join in her fight 
against lynching. In fact, women, generally, are viewed as having 
played a major role in the antilynching campaign.
  There was tremendous political courage shown in Georgia. Georgia was 
the first State to adopt antilynching legislation in 1893. Yet, the 
State continued to experience a disproportionate share of lynching 
attacks. However, starting with Governor Northen in 1890, several of 
Georgia's Governors fought lynch violence in their State resolutely. In 
many cases it came at personal cost. Gov. William Atkinson, having left 
the Governor's mansion, personally challenged a lynch mob of 2,000 
people in his home town. It is a record of political leadership upon 
which Georgia can now proudly reflect.
  Another great voice in the anti-
lynching crusade was Congressman George White of Tarboro, NC. He was 
the last former slave to serve in Congress--ending his congressional 
career in 1901. He introduced an anti-lynching bill to stem the rising 
tide of violence, with 107 attacks having occurred in 1899. While his 
bill was defeated in the House of Representatives, he initiated one of 
its first political considerations.

[[Page 12269]]

  Finally, we cannot ignore the Senate's own passionate voices to end 
the practice of lynching. Senator Champ Clark of Missouri famously 
posted photos of a recent Mississippi lynching in the Democratic 
cloakroom with the caption: There have been no arrests, no indictments, 
and no convictions of any one of the lynchers. This is not a rape case. 
Regrettably, those photos and his convictions could not bring these 
terrible events to a close. We also salute the efforts of Senators 
Robert Wagner of New York and Edward Costigan of Colorado. The Wagner-
Costigan bill was yet another noble effort to inject Federal resources 
into combating lynching. While it was again filibustered, it was 
another noble effort that demonstrated that people of good will 
remained the majority.
  Because of the courage of these and other individuals, by the 1930s 
public opinion had turned against lynching. In 1938, a national survey 
showed that 70 percent of Americans supported the enactment of an 
antilynching statute. Even in the South, at least 65 percent of these 
surveyed favored its passage. In short, even if southern Senators had 
the political latitude to endorse Federal antilynching legislation, 
most seemed to be too mired in personal prejudice to accept that fact. 
Where these southern Senators were concerned, justice was mostly deaf, 
but never color blind.
  In closing, I would like to acknowledge several members of my staff: 
Jason Matthews, Kathleen Strottman, Nash Molphus, Sally Richardson, and 
many others, who have helped, along with others, put this resolution 
before the Senate today.
  I want to end with one of the most moving comments that I read in the 
book ``Without Sanctuary,'' as I have read excerpts from publications 
and magazines and newspapers about this situation, and have been 
reading them now for months on this issue. It is taken from McClure's 
Magazine, in 1905, by Ray Stannard Baker, who wrote about one of the 
lynchings--I think it was of a Mr. Curtis. I will submit that for the 
Record. He says:

       So the mob came finally, and cracked the door of the jail 
     with a railroad rail. The jail is said to be the strongest in 
     Ohio, and having seen it, I can well believe the report is 
     true. But steel bars have never yet kept out a mob; it takes 
     something much stronger: human courage backed up by the 
     consciousness of being right.

  Mr. President, the Senate was wrong not to act. It was wrong to not 
stand in the way of the mob. We lacked courage then. We perhaps do not 
have all the courage we need today to do everything we should do, but I 
know we can apologize today. We can be sincere in our apology to the 
families, to their loved ones, and perhaps now we can set some of these 
victims and their families free and, most of all, set our country free 
to be better than it is today. However great it is, we can most 
certainly improve.
  I yield the floor for my colleague, Senator Allen, from Virginia.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I rise today to speak in support of the 
resolution of apology that Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and I have 
submitted. I thank the Senator from Louisiana for her leadership on 
this matter. It has been a pleasure to work with her on this and other 
matters, but this is undoubtedly the most historic.
  I got involved in this because I received a letter from Dick Gregory. 
I know Members of the Senate received thousands of letters and e-mails 
and phone calls. He asked me to join with Senator Landrieu last year on 
this. He was signing this letter on behalf of Dr. E. Faye Williams, 
Martin Luther King III, Dr. C. DeLores Tucker, and others. But he asked 
me. He said:

       I respectfully ask you to serve as an original cosponsor of 
     the Landrieu resolution. . . . We realize life will go on and 
     your world will not be affected if you choose to do nothing.

  That struck me as: Well, I am going to choose to do something. He 
asked me to sponsor this on the Republican side ``because it is the 
right thing to do.''
  That says it all, really, when we see an affront to the basic 
principles that were enunciated in the spirit of this country in the 
Declaration of Independence. When we seceded from Britain, we talked 
about freedom, liberty, and justice, trying to constitute that here in 
this country, fighting for so many years to free ourselves from the 
monarch to construct a free and just society, with freedom of religion, 
freedom of expression, due process of law, equal protection, as well as 
the rule of law.
  In so many of those key pillars of a free and just society, when one 
looks at what happened with the lynchings, the torchings, the whippings 
to death of people because of their race, because of their religion, 
because of their ethnicity, the cold-hearted hatred of it, and the 
countenance of it--and the fact that this wonderful Senate, with these 
historic desks where you can pull out drawers and see some of the great 
minds, the great orators of our history who had argued magnificently 
and inspiringly things on this Senate floor--you see there were times 
in our history when Senators ended up looking the other way. They did 
not take a stand. They turned their eyes, they turned their heads when 
something positive could have been done to disapprove, deplore, and 
obviously pass a law to make lynching a Federal crime.
  This Chamber is part of our representative democracy. We are to 
represent the ``Will of the People.'' We are also to represent those 
foundational principles of our country. Unfortunately, that has not 
always occurred.
  Daniel Webster, standing in the Old Senate Chamber, told his 
colleagues in 1834 that a ``representative of the people is a sentinel 
on the watchtower of liberty.'' Indeed, the Senate has been a great 
watchtower of liberty. Many individuals have been outstanding orators, 
brilliant men and women in the world's greatest deliberative body. 
Unfortunately, this August body has a stain on its history, and that 
stain is lynching. Americans died from hangings, from whippings, from a 
torch, from evil hearts outside of this Chamber.
  Three-fourths of the victims of these injustices--and these have been 
documented and researched by the respected archives of the Tuskegee 
Institute--were perpetrated against African Americans. Mr. President, 
4,749 Americans died by lynching, whipping, torturing, and mutilation, 
starting in 1882. Many times these lynchings were not lone acts by a 
few white men. Rather, they were angry gangs, as Senator Landrieu 
talked about. They were occasions, they were events, mobs who were 
whipped into frenzies by the skewed mentalities of what is right and 
what is wrong.
  These cruel and unjust acts are so contrary to the rule of law, due 
process, and equal protection that we pride ourselves on in the United 
States. Again, three-quarters of the victims were African Americans. 
But this hatred also was perpetrated against those who are Asian, 
primarily Chinese; against American Indians; against Latinos; against 
Italians; and against people who are Jewish; and others who found 
themselves unprotected.
  Mr. President, Senator Landrieu and I, as well as my colleagues who 
are joining us right now in the Chamber--Senator Kerry and Senator 
Pryor--are rising this evening to make history, to try to right 
history. We are standing to give our heartfelt and formal apology, not 
for what anybody here presently in the Senate had done, but what this 
body, this continuous body, failed to do in the past. And it is an 
apology to all the victims and descendants of those who were lynched, 
who were whipped to death, who were torched to death, who were 
mutilated to death.
  Many of the victims' descendants are currently watching in our 
gallery. This is a somber, not happy time but also one of reflection. 
It is one of the failures of the Senate to take action when action was 
most needed. It was a time where we were trying to make sure all 
Americans had equal opportunity. However, that clearly was not the 
case.
  Senator Landrieu showed those photographs. These were vile killings. 
They captivated front-page headlines. They drew crowds with morbid 
curiosity and left thousands and thousands,

[[Page 12270]]

mostly African Americans, hanging from trees or bleeding to death from 
the lashing of whips. By not acting, this body failed to protect the 
liberty of which Daniel Webster spoke.
  One of those who suffered this awful fate was an African American 
named Zachariah Walker, from Coatsville, VA. In 1911, Walker was 
dragged from a hospital bed where he was recovering from a gunshot 
wound. Accused of killing a white man--which he had claimed was in 
self-defense--Walker was burned alive at the stake without trial.
  Such horrendous acts were not just a regional phenomenon of the 
South. States such as Illinois, Ohio, Michigan, and even the 
Washington, DC area experienced this sort of mob violence and 
injustice. Lynching was not just a regional problem; it was a crime 
throughout our Nation, which occurred in 46 States of our country. It 
was because of the national scope of these atrocities that the Senate 
should act.
  The Senate, of course, failed to pass any of the nearly 200 
antilynching bills introduced in Congress during the first half of the 
20th century. Three bills passed the House of Representatives, but they 
were filibustered on the Senate floor. In addition, seven Presidents 
had asked that such laws be passed.
  One might ask: What impact would such a Federal law have had? Would 
that have saved all 4,749 people who were lynched, torched, mutilated, 
or whipped to death? Probably not in all cases because some had 
occurred before such bills were passed.
  However, it would have sent a message, as it was read in newspapers 
across the land--whether in small towns, big cities, or in the 
country--that as a nation, we must stop such horrendous injustices 
being perpetrated on people, that we stand for the rule of law and 
equal protection and due process. By the Senate not acting, guess what 
message was sent. It sent the message that there are some people who 
may not think this is a good idea, that the Senate apparently condones 
it because they failed to act, notwithstanding the request of 
Presidents and the passage of such bills in the House of 
Representatives.
  Why was Federal legislation needed? Because out of these 4,749 
injustices of lynching, torching, and whipping, only 1 percent were 
prosecuted. In many cases, local authorities were complicit and 
involved in these cruel acts of injustice. Virginia was one of the 
States that actually passed an antilynching law which means that while 
there were 100 such lynchings, torchings, and burnings--and 100 is too 
many--compared to other States in the South, that was less. I have 
learned a lot since we introduced this bill. North Carolina's 
Governors, in the early 1900s, protested against such mob violence in 
their State and, therefore, they had less than in other States.
  Another reason I got involved is to carry on the tradition of a man 
named Champ Clark, a Senator from Missouri whose son was actually one 
of my mentors when I first became involved in organized politics. He 
moved to the Charlottesville area when I was Governor, and I appointed 
him to the University of Virginia Board of Visitors. Sadly, he died a 
few years ago.
  I found that his father, Senator Champ Clark of Missouri, posted 
photos--similar to those Senator Landrieu had--in our cloakrooms, of 
mutilated bodies. I will read from a document entitled, ``The U.S. 
Senate Filibusters Against Federal Anti-Lynching Legislation: The Case 
For A Formal Apology.'' It states:

       Unlike in 1935, when senators killed anti-lynching 
     legislation in just six days, the 1937-38 filibuster took six 
     weeks. One reason: in April 1937, a Mississippi mob, in 
     collusion with local law enforcement, removed two African 
     Americans from their jail cells, whipped them with chains, 
     gouged out their eyes with ice picks, and put them to death 
     with acetylene blowtorches. Senator Champ Clark of Missouri 
     posted photos of these victims' mutilated bodies in the 
     Senate cloakroom with a caption, ``There have been No 
     arrests, No indictments and No convictions for any one of the 
     lynchers. This is NOT a rape case.
       One month later, a mob in Georgia, consisting partly of 
     women and teenage girls, forced its way into a funeral home 
     and seized the body of a lynched twenty-four-year-old African 
     American. After dumping the body into the trunk of a car and 
     carrying it through town in a horn-blowing motorcade, the mob 
     took it to a baseball field and burned it.
       Horror-struck by these incidents, Senators sought to invoke 
     cloture. If nothing else, they recognized that not only were 
     African Americans in high lynch states at risk, but their own 
     constituents were unprotected if they were black and 
     traveling through these areas. Sadly, after courageously 
     battling on the Senate floor for six weeks, they abandoned 
     their effort to obtain cloture.

  Six weeks with all this and no action. Historians will no doubt 
disagree as to a single reason why Senators blocked antilynching 
legislation in the 1920s through the 1940s. My desire is not to get 
into motivations. Regardless of their reasoning, one reason that I can 
see from all this is that there is no reason. There is no rationale. 
They were clearly wrong. They turned their eyes. They turned their 
heads. That is why it is so important that we set aside these hours to 
apologize for this lack of action by the Senate--because there was no 
reason. There was no tolerance. There was an acceptance and a 
condonation of vile, hate-filled activity.
  Thankfully, justice in our Nation has moved forward and left such 
despicable acts history. In ignoring the protections of our Founding 
Fathers, that everyone is innocent until proven guilty, the Senate 
turned its back on our foundational principles of justice and freedom.
  I look around the Chamber and note that all of us serve with a great 
deal of honor and integrity, and many have throughout our history.
  As Ephesians teaches us: All things that are reproved are made 
manifest by light. This apology has been a long time in coming.
  I thank my colleague, Senator Landrieu, for her tireless efforts in 
getting this resolution agreed to. I thank also leader Frist for making 
the legislation a priority and taking time on the Senate schedule to 
recognize the significance of the moment.
  I thank the cosponsors. We have nearly 80 cosponsors and will most 
likely have more by the end of the day. They recognized the importance 
of a resolution and knew that the Senate owed an apology to the victims 
of lynching, their families and descendants. I also thank James Allen, 
as Senator Landrieu has, for his authorship of ``Without Sanctuary: 
Lynching Photography in America,'' for bringing to us these horrendous, 
but important, issues and making us react, recognizing how violent and 
hate-filled they were.
  I also thank Janet Langhart Cohen and Mark Planning for their 
spirited leadership and teamwork in getting support for this 
resolution. I want to share with my colleagues some excerpts from Ms. 
Cohen's comments.

       While some members of the Senate question why so many of us 
     have been seeking the passage of this official expression of 
     apology at this time, the real question is why the Senate 
     action was not forthcoming decades ago.

  This is important for us to understand the meaning for those who are 
descendants of victims of lynching and torture and whipping.
  She continues:

       Consider the scope and depth of the crimes committed 
     against humanity: more than four thousand men and women were 
     hung from trees, many of them disembowled, their limbs and 
     organs amputated, and then set on fire. These heinous acts . 
     . . were designed to terrify African American citizens, 
     remind them that they have fewer rights and protections than 
     animals, and drive them from their land--all while serving as 
     entertainment for white society.

  The point is, this was to intimidate people.
  Ms. Cohen says that she comes to the Senate today--she is in the 
gallery with many other descendants--for many reasons. She writes:

       As a Black woman, as the spouse of a former Senator, and as 
     one who had a family member lynched, I need to bear witness 
     to an act of decency that has been deferred, indeed 
     filibustered, for far too long.

  We know she is here with many others and recognize that it has been 
filibustered far too long.
  She also states that:

       It's important to remind the American people about the evil 
     chapters in our history. It is the reason we construct 
     museums in Washington and beyond, to hold up for all to see 
     how capable we are of descending into the heart of darkness. 
     It's important for us

[[Page 12271]]

     to look back into the past so that we can pledge never again 
     to allow racial hatred to consume our ideals or humanity.

  President Bush, in his second inaugural address, stated:

       Our country must abandon all habits of racism because we 
     cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of 
     bigotry at the same time.

  She concludes with these statements:

       An apology, I concede, will do nothing for the thousands of 
     people who perished during what has been called ``the Black 
     Holocaust.'' It cannot repair the battered souls of their 
     survivors. It is, after all, only a symbolic act. Our 
     symbols, however, the Eagle, Old Glory, Lady Liberty, to 
     mention but a few, are but short hand narratives of who we 
     are as Americans.
       It is through an acknowledgment of the Senate's abdication 
     of its duty to protect and defend the rights of all American 
     citizens that, perhaps, we can begin to understand the pain 
     and anger that still lingers in the hearts and minds of so 
     many who have been deprived of the equality promised in our 
     Constitution.
       My friend and mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., once 
     said that ``the arc of history bends toward justice.''
       Today, as the Senate Members cast their historic votes, 
     that arc dips closer to its destination.

  Signed, Janet Langhart Cohen.
  Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the full letter be 
printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                                    June 13, 2005.
       First, I want to commend Senators George Allen and Mary 
     Landrieu for their leadership in introducing Senate 
     Resolution 39 and for their persistence in bringing it to a 
     vote today. I also wish to express my profound gratitude to 
     Mark Planning who has been indefatigable in his quest for the 
     passage of this measure.
       While some members of the Senate question why so many of us 
     have been seeking the passage of this official expression of 
     apology at this time, the real question is why Senate action 
     was not forthcoming decades ago.
       Consider the scope and depth of the crimes committed 
     against humanity: more than four thousand men and women were 
     hung from trees, many of them disemboweled, their limbs and 
     organs amputated, and then set on fire. These heinous acts, 
     carried out and protected under the claim of ``states 
     rights'' were designed to terrify African-American citizens, 
     remind them that they had fewer rights and protections than 
     animals, and drive them from their land--all while serving as 
     entertainment for white society.
       Picnics were even held by white communities so that those 
     who claimed to be decent, law abiding citizens could witness 
     and rejoice in the mutilation of those whose ancestors had 
     been ripped from their homeland, separated from their 
     families, sheared of their identities, brought in chains to 
     America, and sold on the auction block as sub-human chattels.
       It is inconceivable that any person of reason or 
     conscience, of any faith, Christian or non-Christian, could 
     possibly tolerate such barbarism, such a display of pure 
     evil. But people did, of course. They tolerated it and 
     sanctioned it, not during the Dark Ages, but during my 
     lifetime. And those who sanctioned it were not uneducated 
     barbarians; they included men who held positions of office 
     and honor at all levels of government, including the United 
     States Senate. The parliamentary delaying tactics that 
     currently are the subject of so much debate took place in the 
     nation's Capital, on the floor of this hallowed institution.
       I have come to the United States Senate today for many 
     reasons. As a Black woman, as the spouse of a former Senator, 
     and as one who had a family member lynched, I need to bear 
     witness to an act of decency that has been deferred, indeed 
     filibustered, for far too long.
       I am told that some members of the Senate are not prepared 
     to support this measure because they think that an official 
     apology is too trivial, meaningless and irrelevant to the 
     times in which we live.
       The passage of time can never remove the stain of 
     institutionalized terrorism from our history or permit any 
     public official to dismiss the pain of those who have lost 
     family members to the savagery of lynch mobs as something 
     unworthy of the Senate's agenda and deliberations.
       It's important to remind the American people about the evil 
     chapters in our history. It is the reason we construct 
     museums in Washington and beyond, to hold up for all to see 
     how capable we are of descending into the heart of darkness. 
     It's important for us to look back into the past so that we 
     can pledge to never again allow racial hatred to consume our 
     ideals or humanity.
       In his Second Inaugural Address, President Bush stated 
     that, ``Our country must abandon all habits of racism because 
     we cannot carry the message of freedom and the baggage of 
     bigotry at the same time.'' These are noble words and they 
     deserve to be acted upon as well as invoked.
       Finally, let me say that this Resolution is but a first 
     step in the process of educating the American people about 
     our history; of not allowing this part of our past to be 
     reduced to a footnote, or glossed over and air brushed into 
     oblivion.
       An apology will not erase the criminality that was once 
     considered a cultural or regional privilege. An apology does 
     not purport to serve as an absolution for the sins of the 
     past.
       An apology, I concede, will do nothing for the thousands of 
     people who perished during what has been called, ``the Black 
     Holocaust. It cannot repair the battered souls of their 
     survivors. It is, after all, only a symbolic act. Our 
     symbols, however, the Eagle, Old Glory, Lady Liberty, to 
     mention but a few, are but short hand narratives of who we 
     are as Americans.
       It is through an acknowledgement of the Senate's abdication 
     of its duty to protect and defend the rights of all of 
     America's citizens, that, perhaps, we can begin to understand 
     the pain and anger that still lingers in the hearts and minds 
     of so many who have been deprived of the equality promised in 
     our Constitution.
       My friend and mentor, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said 
     that, ``The arc of history bends towards justice.''
       Today, as the Senate members cast their historic votes, 
     that arc dips closer to its destination.
                                             Janet Langhart Cohen.

  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. President, I am proud that this resolution will pass 
tonight. The Senate is going to be on record condemning the brutal 
atrocities that plagued our great Nation for over a century.
  I will close with the words of our resolution:

       Whereas, 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. Now, therefore, be it 
     Resolved, That the Senate--
       (1) apologizes to the victims of lynching for the failure 
     of the Senate to enact anti-lynching legislation;
       (2) expresses the deepest sympathies and most solemn 
     regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of 
     lynching, the ancestors of whom were deprived of life, human 
     dignity, and the constitutional protections accorded all 
     citizens of the United States; and
       (3) remembers the history of lynching, to ensure that these 
     tragedies will be neither forgotten nor repeated.

  My colleagues, I ask you to join all of us in examining our history, 
learn from history, never again sit quietly, and never again turn one's 
head away when the ugly specter of racism, antisemitism, hate, and 
intolerance rises again. It is our responsibility to stand strong for 
freedom and justice.
  In the future, I am confident that this Senate will perform better 
than it has in the past. We will protect the God-given blessings of all 
people to life and liberty, regardless of their race, their ethnicity, 
or their religious beliefs. The Senate can do better; we have done 
better tonight. But the real measure of what we have learned when such 
acts occur in the future is, will this Senate rise and condemn it to 
protect those God-given liberties? I know that Senator Landrieu and I 
believe the Senate will rise appropriately.
  Mr. President, with that, I ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding the previous agreement, the Senate now proceed to the 
vote on the pending resolution; I further ask unanimous consent that 
notwithstanding adoption of the resolution, the remaining time under 
the previous agreement remain available for Senators who wish to make 
statements, provided that any statements relating to the resolution 
appear prior to its adoption in the Congressional Record.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Bennett). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. ALLEN. I thank the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The question is on agreeing to the resolution.
  The resolution (S. Res. 39) was agreed to.
  The preamble was agreed to.
  Mr. ALLEN. Thank you, Mr. President.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KERRY. What is the status of the time? Is it under control, or is 
it just open?
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Virginia and the Senator from 
Louisiana control the time.

[[Page 12272]]


  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I will be happy to yield to the Senator 
from Massachusetts in just a moment. He has been very patient. As a 
cosponsor of the resolution that just passed, it is a privilege and it 
is appropriate for Senator Kerry to be one of the first Senators to 
speak upon its passage.
  I wish to just mention very briefly, because I am not sure he is 
going to be able to stay with us much longer, Mr. James Cameron has 
been with us all day. Mr. Cameron is 91 years old. He lives in Marion, 
IN. In 1930, when he was 16 years old, a mob dragged him from a cell at 
Grant County Jail and put a rope around his neck. He was accused of a 
murder and a rape. He was nowhere around when it occurred. His 
associates, Abe Smith and Thomas Schipp, were both lynched that night. 
A man in the crowd spared him by proclaiming that he, in fact, was 
innocent and should be let go. He then went on to live an extraordinary 
life without bitterness, with a lot of love. He has been married for 67 
years, has 4 children and multiple grandchildren. Senator Evan Bayh, 
who serves in this body--when he was Governor of Indiana, he pardoned 
Mr. Cameron. But he is really the one who has forgiven us for what was 
done against him.
  I yield the floor to Senator Kerry.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I start by thanking Senator Landrieu and 
Senator Allen for their leadership on this effort and for all those 
descendants of families who have been absolutely extraordinary in the 
way in which they relived their pain, brought it to the public view, 
kind of laid their hearts out on the table in a very real and emotional 
way--that has been a wonderful part of this process--and the way in 
which the book Jimmy Allen put together has helped to unleash a pain 
that was never lost, never forgotten by anybody, but never quite had a 
place to play itself out--until this public effort that is being made 
by the Senate.
  There is no small irony, I suspect, in the fact that the Senate is 
here sort of making good on what the Senate failed to do. I personally 
am struck by even, at this significant moment, the undeniable and 
inescapable reality that there are not 100 Senators as cosponsors. 
Maybe by the end of the evening there will be, but as we stand here 
with this resolution passed by voice vote, there are not.
  Moreover, all the people in the Senate and the press understand how 
we work here. It is critical that we take the step we are taking and 
have taken, but at the same time wouldn't it have been just that much 
more extraordinary and significant if we were having a recorded vote 
with all 100 Senators recording their votes? We are not.
  So even today, as we take this gigantic step, we are also saying to 
America that there is a journey still to travel. I don't want to 
diminish one iota--and I don't mean to because I believe what is 
happening here today is so significant, but at the same time, it has to 
give all of us a kind of kick in the rear end to get us out there to do 
that which is necessary, which gives fuller meaning to the words that 
are going to be expressed here and have been expressed here--most 
important, to give fuller meaning to the emotions that have been laid 
bare for all of America to understand better by the families who have 
come here to share this with us.
  I also join not just in thanking Mr. Cameron and Ms. Johnson, and 
others, but Janet Langhart, who is here with our former colleague and 
the former Secretary of Defense, Bill Cohen. We certainly appreciate 
her commitment to this effort and the meaning of this to her and to all 
of the families who have come here together.
  It is pretty incredible to think about it. Lynchings really replaced 
slavery. They came in the aftermath of slavery, around the 1880s. 
Between the 1880s and 1968--I have to pause when I think about that 
because I was already a young officer in the military. I had left 
college. I remember the early part of the 1960s devoted to the civil 
rights movement, the Mississippi voter registration drive. We were 
still recording lynchings during that period of time, but I did not 
know it, not in the sense that we know it today.
  I thought I knew history pretty well, but I will tell you, until I 
saw this array of photographs which then sparked my curiosity to read 
more about it, I had always thought, like most Americans, that a 
lynching was just slinging a rope over a branch of a tree and that was 
it. The story is so much more gruesome than that, so much more dark and 
horrendous as a moment in American history that it is really hard to 
believe it happened at all in our country, which is another reason it 
is so important that we are taking this step to remember.
  We have seen revisionism in almost every part of history, including 
the Holocaust. So it is good we are taking this step today, and it is 
good we have these photographs now brought together as a compilation of 
history, and it is good that the Senate is taking this effort tonight.
  It is extraordinary to think that 99 percent of the perpetrators of 
lynch-
ings escaped any reach of the law whatsoever. It is incredible to think 
that almost 5,000 people are recorded as incidents, and how many are 
not recorded? How many went without the local authorities in each of 
those communities--who were already complici-
tous in what happened, standing by, permissive, turning away from basic 
human rights--how many of those incidents were not recorded?
  A lot of us have read a lot about World War II and the Holocaust and 
other moments of history where there is a knock on the door and life 
changes. But you have to stop and really think what it was like in all 
but four States in our country, not just for African Americans but for 
new people, for folks who had come here from other places to live the 
American dream. In some cases, they were not knocks, they were just 
angry mobs screaming and yelling with torches and running rampant 
through a household, dragging out people screaming. In other cases, 
there was a pretext, more polite, but it was never polite in what it 
ended up as.
  Lynchings were not just lynchings; they were organized torture. They 
were incidents of kinds of torture that defied imagination, about which 
you do not even want to talk, the kinds of things that any decent 
society ought to stand up against. People were literally tortured for 
sport in front of people, and crowds would cheer--bedlam. Children were 
brought to be spectators. Some of these photographs show kids standing 
there with their eyes wide open and adults standing beside them, who 
were supposed to be more responsible, glued to the horror they were 
witnessing.
  In the first half of the last century alone, in the 20th century, 
over 200 antilynching bills were introduced in the Congress--200. Three 
times, the House of Representatives passed antilynching legislation. 
Seven Presidents asked for this legislation to be passed. The Senate 
said no.
  So it is important that we are here today to apologize. Some people 
wonder what the effect of an apology is. We can understand that 
question being asked. This is sort of a day of reckoning for us as a 
country, it is a moment for the conscience of our country to be 
listened to by everybody. It is an embarrassingly and unforgivably late 
moment in coming, but we are addressing a stain on our history, and we 
are working to heal wounds across generations. I believe that is 
important. Some people might try to diminish that, but the very lack of 
unity I mentioned earlier, in fact, goes to show why this apology is so 
important and why we all have to keep moving in this direction.
  No words, obviously, are going to undo the horror of those 5,000 
Americans losing their lives. No apology is going to just wipe away the 
memories of Mr. Cameron and others, though they have shown a greater 
graciousness of understanding than others even at this moment.
  The fact is that this resolution can be one more step in the effort 
for all of us to try to get over the divide that still exists between 
races and as a result of Jim Crow in this country, but only if we face 
the truth. It is the Bible that reminds us that it is the truth that 
sets us free. And so it is that we

[[Page 12273]]

have to embrace it, commit ourselves to putting our hearts and our 
actions where our words have now preceded us. This should be an 
important step forward, but, frankly, it will only do that if we do not 
stop here.
  The truth is that it is not enough to face the horror of lynchings if 
we then just walk out of here and consciously turn away from legally 
separate and unequal schools in America. It is not enough to decry 
decades of refusing to use the force of law against lynchings if today 
we refuse to use the force of law to tear down the barriers that 
prevent people from voting, barriers in the economy, divisions in the 
health care system that works for too few of those who are in the 
minority in America.
  It is only by reconciling the past that we have to understand where 
we have to go in the future and get there. I remind my colleagues to 
remember the words of Julian Bond when he dedicated that beautiful, 
simple memorial in Montgomery, AL, to those who gave their lives for 
civil rights. He said it was erected as much to remember the dead as it 
was for those young people who cannot remember the period when the 
sacrifices began, with its small cruelties and monstrous injustices, 
its petty indignities and its death dealing in inequities. There are 
many too young to remember that from that seeming hopelessness, there 
arose a mighty movement, simple in its tactics, overwhelming in its 
impact. That is why we have to remember the period of the lynchings. 
That is why this resolution is important--for the young people who do 
not know what it means to wake up in the middle of the night to hear 
that knock, for young people to need to commit to help our country 
complete the journey in order to guarantee we make it all that it 
promises to be and can be.
  We will never erase what Mr. Cameron or Mr. Wright and too many 
others went through, but we certainly can honor the legacy of these 
civil rights heroes and the martyrs who came before us by doing right 
by them and by the country. I hope this resolution will help us do 
that.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Who yields time?
  Mr. KERRY. Mr. President, I yield such time to the Senator from 
Illinois as he should use.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Illinois.
  Mr. OBAMA. Mr. President, I rise in strong support of this 
resolution. Before I make any further remarks, I would like to 
recognize Doria D. Johnson, and thank her for coming. She is from 
Evanston, IL. Ms. Johnson is the great, great-granddaughter of Anthony 
Crawford, a South Carolina farmer who was lynched nearly 100 years ago 
for the crime of being a successful Black farmer. I am sure that this 
day has special meaning for her, and for the other family members of 
those who were impacted by these great tragedies of the past. I thank 
her and others for being here today.
  Since America's darkest days of Jim Crow, separate but equal, fire 
hoses, church bombings, cross burnings and lynchings, the people of 
this great Nation have found the courage, on occasion, to speak up and 
speak out so that we can right this country's wrongs, and walk together 
down that long road of transformation that continues to perfect our 
Union. It is a transformation that brought us the Civil Rights Act and 
the Voting Rights Act; a transformation that led to the first Black 
Member of Congress, and the first Black and White children holding 
hands in the same playground and the same school; a transformation 
without which I would not be standing here speaking today. But I am. 
And I am proud because, thanks to this resolution, we are taking 
another step in acknowledging a dark corner of our history. We are 
taking a step that allows us--after looking at the 4,700 deaths from 
lynchings, the hate that was behind those deaths, and this Chamber's 
refusal to try and stop them--to finally say that we were wrong.
  There is a power in acknowledging error and mistake. It is a power 
that potentially transforms not only those who were impacted directly 
by the lynchings, but also those who are the progeny of the 
perpetrators of these crimes. There is a piercing photographic exhibit 
in Chicago right now that displays some of the lynchings that occurred 
across the country over the past two centuries. These photographs show 
that what is often most powerful is not the gruesome aspects of the 
lynching itself, nor the terrible rending of the body that took place. 
No, what is most horrific, what is most disturbing to the soul is the 
photographs in which you see young little White girls or young little 
White boys with their parents on an outing, looking at the degradation 
of another human being. One wonders not only what the lynching did to 
the family member of those who were lynched, but also what the effect 
was on the sensibilities of those young people who stood there, 
watching.
  Now that we are finally acknowledging this injustice, we have an 
opportunity to reflect on the cruelties that inhabit all of us. We can 
now take the time to teach our children to treat people who look 
different than us with the same respect that we would expect for 
ourselves. So it is fitting, it is proper, and it is right that we are 
doing what we are doing today.
  However, I do hope, as we commemorate this past injustice, that this 
Chamber also spends some time doing something concrete and tangible to 
heal the long shadow of slavery and the legacy of racial 
discrimination, so that 100 years from now we can look back and be 
proud, and not have to apologize once again. That means completing the 
unfinished work of the civil rights movement, and closing the gap that 
still exists in health care, education, and income. There are more ways 
to perpetrate violence than simply a lynching. There is the violence 
that we subject young children to when they do not have any opportunity 
or hope, when they stand on street corners not thinking much of 
themselves, not thinking that their lives are worth living. That is a 
form of violence that this Chamber could do something about.
  As we are spending time apologizing today for these past failures of 
the Senate to act, we should also spend some time debating the 
extension of the Voting Rights Act and the best way to extend health 
care coverage to over 45 million uninsured Americans. We should be 
considering how we can make certain that college is affordable for 
young African-American children, the great, great-grandchildren or the 
great, great, great-grandchildren of those who have been wronged. These 
are the ways we can finally ensure that the blessings of opportunity 
reach every single American, and finally claim a victory in the long 
struggle for civil rights.
  Today is a step in the right direction. Today's actions give us an 
opportunity to heal and to move forward. But for those who still harbor 
anger in their hearts, who still wonder how to move on from such 
terrible violence, it is worth reflecting for a moment on one 
remarkable individual: Mamie Till Mobley.
  Mamie Till Mobley's child Emmett was only 14 years old when they 
found him in the Mississippi River, beaten and bloodied beyond 
recognition. After Ms. Mobley saw her child, her baby, unrecognizable, 
his face so badly beaten it barely looked human, someone suggested that 
she should have a closed casket at his funeral. She said: No, we are 
going to have an open casket, and everybody is going to witness what 
they did to my child.
  The courage displayed by this mother galvanized the civil rights 
movement in the North and in the South. And, despite the immensity of 
the pain she felt, Mamie Till Mobley has repeatedly said: I never 
wasted a day hating. Imagine that. She never wasted a day hating, not 
one day.
  I rise today, thanking God that the United States Congress--the 
representatives of the American people and our highest ideals--will not 
waste one more day without issuing the apology that will continue to 
help us march down the path of transformation that Mamie Till Mobley 
has been on her whole life, and that the people in attendance in the 
gallery have been on for generations.
  I am grateful for this tribute, and I am looking forward to joining 
hands

[[Page 12274]]

with my colleagues and the American people to make sure that when our 
children and grandchildren look back at our actions in this Chamber, we 
do not have something to apologize for.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I join my colleagues today to talk about 
one of our Nation's darkest periods, a stain in history we would rather 
forget but that we cannot ignore. While White mobs committed 4,742 
hangings, floggings and burnings of African Americans, the Senate 
watched indifferently, failing to pass any of the 200 separate bills 
before it to make lynching a Federal crime. S. Res. 39, expressing the 
Senate's apology for failing to adopt antilynching legislation, is long 
overdue. I express my sincere apologies and regret to the families in 
Arkansas and the Nation, especially to the victims and their 
descendants, that this body failed to help at a time when they needed 
it most.
  I hope that acknowledging these grave injustices of the past will 
help begin to heal the wounds that exist today. Even more so, this 
acknowledgement should serve as a lesson that government must step in 
to help foster racial reconciliation, ensure the mob mentality never 
returns, and protect those who are most vulnerable.
  The Senate can start by continuing to advance civil rights and 
equality, and work to close the divide that continues in our 
neighborhoods, schools and workplaces. I am afraid that if we don't 
start truly addressing inequities we will look back once again at the 
Senate's inaction with disdain and remorse.
  Most of the worst offenses of lynching occurred in the south and 
Arkansas was no different. Between the years 1860-1936, 318 lynchings 
occurred in Arkansas. Of this number, 230 were black, including 6 
females. Three-quarters of the lynchings in our State that are recorded 
were against African Americans.
  Of course, statistics don't have a face, they don't feel pain, nor do 
they hold memories. But people and families all over Arkansas do, and 
they remember these crimes and the Senate's inaction to protect them.
  In March 1892, a reporter from the Christian Recorder reported the 
chaos and hopelessness occurring throughout the state:

       There is much uneasiness and unrest all over this State 
     among our people, owing to the fact that the people all over 
     the State are being lynched upon the slightest provocation; 
     some being strung up to telegraph poles, others burnt at the 
     stake and still others being shot like dogs.
       In the last 30 days there have been not less than eight 
     colored persons lynched in this State. At Texarkana a few 
     days ago, a man was burnt at the stake.
       In Pine Bluff a few days later two men were strung up and 
     shot, and this too by the brilliant glare of the electric 
     lights. At Varner, George Harris was taken from jail and shot 
     for killing a white man, for poisoning his domestic 
     happiness.
       At Wilmar, a boy was induced to confess to the commission 
     of an outrage, upon promise of his liberty, and when he had 
     confessed, he was strung up and shot. Over in Lonoke County, 
     a whole family consisting of husband, wife and child were 
     shot down like dogs. Verily the situation is alarming in the 
     extreme.

  There were few honest press accounts of such lynchings, a problem 
that continues to trouble historians today as they put together the 
pieces of this period. Most Arkansas press accounts were no different. 
Lynchers were considered heroes, officers conniving, and the accused 
guilty.
  A case in point:
  In 1919, Arkansas would be home to a terrible racial injustice--the 
so-called Elaine Race Riot.
  According to sketchy accounts that have been pieced together by 
historians, in September 1919, black sharecroppers met to protest 
unfair settlements for their cotton crops from white plantation owners. 
Local law enforcement broke up the union's meeting, and the next day a 
thousand white men, and troops of the U.S. Army, converged on Phillips 
County to put an end to the black sharecroppers' so-called 
``insurrection''.
  The number of African-American deaths from this lynching is disputed, 
ranging from 20 at the low end to 856 men and women on the high end.
  The details of the Elaine Race Riot of 1919 have never been formally 
written down, but Mayor Robert Miller of Helena, AR remembers them 
vividly.
  At the time, Mayor Miller's four uncles were preparing for a hunting 
trip. Three of them had traveled to a town near Elaine, Helena, AR, for 
this special occasion, which turned tragic when a mob saw the brothers 
with guns in hand, and assuming they were part of the ``insurrection,'' 
all four were immediately killed.
  Of the anti-lynching legislation we are considering today, Mayor 
Miller says, ``It won't change what happened, but at least it's a good 
thing, a movement in the right direction.''
  A 2000 article from the Arkansas Times reports on Arkansas' most 
high-profile lynching and the lasting impact it has had on families in 
Arkansas today.
  In May 1927, a mentally retarded black man named John Carter was 
accused of attacking a white mother and daughter. Upon his capture near 
Little Rock a mob of 100 quickly gathered and prevented police from 
taking him to Little Rock, where police would protect him from being 
lynched.
  After hanging him from a utility pole, the mob dragged John Carter's 
body through the city, and burned it in downtown Little Rock at 9th and 
Broadway.
  The Arkansas Times article recounts a conversation that occurred 30 
years later, in September 1957 of a mother talking to civil rights 
pioneer Daisy Bates about the John Carter lynching. The mother had this 
to say:

       I am frightened Mrs. Bates. Not for myself, but for my 
     children. When I was a little girl, my mother and I saw a 
     lynch mob dragging the body of a Negro man through the 
     streets of Little Rock. We were told to get off the streets. 
     We ran. And by cutting through side streets and alleys, we 
     managed to make it to the home of a friend.
       But we were close enough to hear the screams of the mob, 
     close enough to smell the sickening odor of burning flesh. 
     And, Mrs. Bates, they took the pews from Bethel Church to 
     make the fire. They burned the body of this Negro man right 
     at the edge of the Negro business section.

  The woman speaking to Daisy Bates was named Birdie Eckford. Her 
daughter Elizabeth, one of the Little Rock Nine, would walk through an 
angry, threatening crowd the following day to claim her right to an 
equal education at Little Rock Central High School.
  Little Rock Central High School today reminds us of some of the 
darkest days during the civil rights movement. As a former student, 
however, I can tell you that it also represents hope and achievement.
  The year 2007 will mark the 50th anniversary of the desegregation 
process at Little Rock Central High School. Last Friday, I spoke with 
seven members of the Little Rock Nine to tell them that we are closer 
to funding an adequate visitor center and museum in time for his 
landmark anniversary.
  Minnijean Brown Trickey, one of the Nine, said this Visitors' Center 
will serve many purposes, but what struck me was her assurance that the 
Center ``is an opportunity for healing.''
  Today's resolution offers similar opportunities. It allows us to 
remember the past, begin healing from that past, look at how far our 
Nation has come to address equality and discrimination and rededicate 
ourselves to acknowledging how much further we must go from here.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Colorado.
  Mr. SALAZAR. Mr. President, I rise this evening to speak in support 
of S. Res. 39, apologizing for the Senate's failure to enact 
antilynching legislation. It is important for us to reflect on the 
statements that have been made by my colleagues, including the 
distinguished Senator from Louisiana and the distinguished Senator from 
Virginia, so that we can remember the history of this country and how 
America has been an America in progress. The past can be painted in 
statistics or it can be painted in the stories of people who have 
suffered from the unjust result of the absence of an antilynching law.
  We can speak about the time between 1882 and 1968 when there were 
nearly

[[Page 12275]]

5,000 lynchings. These lynchings that occurred were not lynchings that 
occurred just in the southern part of the United States of America but 
happened throughout most of the States of our country, including in my 
own home State of Colorado, where a historian has in his own research 
concluded that there were about 175 lynchings in Colorado between 1859 
and 1919.
  It is appropriate and fitting that today we apologize for the absence 
of those laws, that we recognize people like James Cameron who became a 
survivor of the lynchings of that time period, recognize that this 
Senate today says we apologize for that past.
  It is perhaps even more important to look to the future of America 
and to look at the racial issues and the challenges we face as a nation 
to create an America that truly is an America of inclusion. It is one 
thing to stand in the Chamber of the Senate today, to look at our 
history, and to learn from that painful history, but it is equally as 
important to look to the future and to recognize the challenges we face 
in this America in the decade ahead, and the 100 years ahead require us 
to learn from those very painful lessons of the past.
  When one looks at those very painful lessons of the past, we have to 
recognize for the first 250 years of the beginnings of this Nation we 
had a system of law that recognized it was OK for one group of people 
to own another group of people under our system of slavery just because 
of the color of their skin. It is important for us, also, to recognize 
that it took the bloodiest war of the United States during the Civil 
War, for over half a million people were killed on our own soil in 
America to bring about an end to the system of slavery and to usher in 
the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments which are the bedrock of the 
constitutional liberties we now endow upon all people of America.
  Notwithstanding the fact that in that time period of the Civil War we 
saw the blood and life of so many Americans laid down in this country, 
we still continued through another period of almost 100 years where we 
divided our Nation according to groups. It was over 100 years ago when 
Justice Harlan, writing for the dissent in the now famous case of 
Plessy v. Ferguson, made the following observation, disagreeing with 
the U.S. Supreme Court on the segregation system which was ushered in 
under that decision, saying:

       The destinies of the races, in this country, are 
     indissolubly linked together and the interests of both 
     require that the common government law shall not permit the 
     seeds of race hate to be planted under the sanction of law.

  That was over 100 years ago. Yet it took more than half a century, 
until 1954, in the decision of Brown v. Board of Education, for the 
U.S. Supreme Court under the leadership of Justice Warren to say in 
these United States, separate but equal was unconstitutional under the 
14th amendment. It took more than half a century more for the U.S. 
Supreme Court to make that statement.
  So when we look to the future of America, when we look to the 
diversity that defines our country, it is my belief that this next 
century will be defined by how we as an American society embrace the 
concept of an inclusive America. When we embrace a concept of an 
inclusive America, we talk about including people of all backgrounds--
be they Anglo Americans, French Americans, African Americans, Latinos, 
Native Americans, women--that we as an American society will be 
challenged in the century ahead by how we deal with the issue of 
inclusion, and the greatness of this country will be defined by how 
successful we are in making sure we are inclusive of all people.
  There are some who have recognized this. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, 
in writing for the U.S. Supreme Court in the now famous decision of the 
University of Michigan from several years ago, made the following 
comment about the importance of diversity in higher education in the 
majority opinion:

       These benefits are not theoretical but real, as major 
     American businesses have made clear that the skills needed in 
     today's increasingly global marketplace can only be developed 
     through exposure to widely diverse people, cultures, ideas, 
     and viewpoints.

  That was from the brief submitted by General Motors. She went on to 
say:

       What is more, high-ranking retired officers and civilian 
     leaders of the United States military assert, based on their 
     decades of experience, a highly qualified racially diverse 
     officer corps is essential to the military's ability to 
     fulfill its principal mission to provide national security.

  It was in that articulation by Justice Day O'Connor, where she 
articulated the challenge and the opportunity that we have as an 
American society, the 21st century unfolds in front of us.
  In my estimation, the greatness of this country depends on our 
learning and not forgetting the painful lessons of the past, including 
the lynchings that occurred across America, while also looking forward 
to the challenge of including people of all backgrounds and all races 
in all of the business affairs and civic affairs of this Nation.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Florida.
  Mr. NELSON of Florida. Mr. President, I am very glad we are passing 
this resolution. There have been attempts in the past by other Members 
of Congress, such as my good friend, the former Congressman Tony Hall 
of Ohio, who had tried several years back to get a resolution of 
apology with regard to slavery. They never could work out all the 
details. I am very glad the Senate has come to this point that it could 
critique itself for this legislative body's failure to enact 
antilynching laws back at a time when it would have been so important 
to stop these kinds of mayhem and murderous rampages where mobs would 
take, supposedly, justice into their own hands.
  Thank goodness we have come to a point at which we can admit our 
mistakes, even though this is several generations later, and pass such 
a resolution as we will do tonight.
  Interestingly, one of my political heroes is a person who Americans 
rarely hear about. He was a British Parliamentarian in the late 1700s 
and the early 1800s named William Wilberforce. Wilberforce was elected 
to the Parliament at the age of 21 along with one of his best friends, 
William Pitt, the Younger. And in 3 years, at age 24, Pitt was elected 
Prime Minister. Of course, Wilberforce could have been in his Cabinet. 
But at that point Wilberforce had recognized the great evil of the day 
and dedicated his life to the elimination of the economic order of the 
day, which was the English slave trade where the captains would take 
the boats down off the coast of Africa under the guise of friendship, 
round up native Africans, put them in the holds of those slave ships, 
and take them to the New World and sell them.
  Wilberforce is a hero to me because, as a government official, a 
member of Parliament, he would not even join William Pitt, the 
Younger's Cabinet. He wanted to devote his life to the elimination of 
the slave trade. It took him 20 years to do it. Time after time, he was 
beat back, but he persevered, and he finally won, 20 years later. Then, 
before Wilberforce died, he saw that Parliament actually abolished 
slavery. That was some 30 years before slavery was abolished here in 
America.
  So it is a privilege for me to be here at long last to join our 
colleagues to apologize for the Senate's failure in the 1930s to pass 
legislation outlawing the barbaric practice of lynching. For more than 
a century, this country presented two realities to its citizens. 
Enshrined in our Constitution is a government and a legal system 
designed to protect the rights of all Americans so that our freedom 
cannot be taken away or infringed upon without due process of law. But 
for many decades, however, this system of justice and respect for the 
rule of law did not apply to all of the citizens of this country.
  In 1857, in the Dred Scott Supreme Court decision, that guarantee in 
the U.S. Constitution that all men are created equal was not intended 
to include Blacks by that decision. For many years later, Black 
Americans found few protections in the constitutional guarantees of 
liberty and freedom and equal protection under the law. A Black man 
accused of a crime against a White person found that he had no access 
to the

[[Page 12276]]

courts to prove his innocence, he had no access to a fair and impartial 
jury of his peers. All too often, White citizens, armed with guns and 
feelings of righteousness, would take the accused, as law enforcement 
officers stood by, and brutalize them and hang them in a public setting 
for other members of the community to view and feel avenged. How 
horrible would that be, a public spectacle that was supposed to 
intimidate, that was supposed to strike fear. Did it? You bet it did. 
It was meant to send a message to the members of the Black community 
that they better remain in their place, to remember that the guarantees 
of freedom and fairness in the Constitution did not include them.
  In my State of Florida, there were 61 lynchings of Black Americans 
between 1921 and 1946, which, of course, represents only a fraction of 
the total number that were committed in my State. There is no 
justification or explanation for these horrible acts of violence. As a 
nation that respects the rule of law and court-prescribed justice, what 
happened was vigilantism and mob rule. That is what determined 
``justice.'' And that is never justifiable.
  There is a place in Florida called Rosewood. It was the site, in the 
1920s, of what many describe as a massacre. That Black community was 
destroyed by Whites. No arrests were ever made in as many as 27 racial 
killings in that location.
  Florida finally passed the Nation's first compensation for Blacks who 
suffered from those past racial injustices. It was all directed back to 
the massacres that had occurred at Rosewood, FL. The 1994 Florida 
Legislature passed the Rosewood Claims Bill to compensate victims for 
loss of property as a result of the failure to prosecute those 
individuals responsible. I felt as a Floridian that this 
acknowledgement was long overdue, and it made me proud to see, at long 
last, that we addressed the tragedy of Rosewood.
  Now, as a Member of the Senate, I believe this resolution we are 
passing tonight is long overdue. In being proud of this event, I am 
also humbled to stand up as a Member of the Senate and to personally 
apologize for the Senate's failure to act--a failure to outlaw barbaric 
acts such as lynchings and racial massacres.
  I am proud, too, that we can today reaffirm that we are a nation of 
laws designed to protect the freedom and liberty of all Americans--all 
Americans--regardless of race.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this is an issue that will be considered 
by the Senate later this evening, an issue of historic importance. It 
will be an official apology by the Senate for the Senate's failure to 
protect victims of lynching in America.
  Fifty years ago, on August 20, 1955, a Chicago woman named Mamie Till 
took her 14-year-old son Emmett to the 63rd Street Station in Chicago 
to catch the southbound train to Mississippi. Emmett was going to spend 
the summer with his great uncle and aunt in a town called Money, MS, in 
the heart of the Mississippi Delta.
  The next day, August 21, 1955, young Emmett Till arrived in 
Mississippi. He spent the next few days helping out around the house, 
working with his great uncle, Moses Wright, in the cotton fields.
  On August 24, after a long day of working in the fields, Emmett and a 
group of teenagers went into town to Bryant's Grocery Store for some 
refreshments. The store--owned by a White couple named Roy and Carolyn 
Bryant--served primarily Black workers, sharecroppers, and their kids. 
Emmett went into Bryant's Grocery Store to buy some bubble gum. Some 
kids who were hanging out outside the store accused Emmett of whistling 
at Carolyn Bryant, one of the proprietors of the store.
  Four days later, on August 28, Carolyn Bryant's husband and his half 
brother went to Moses Wright's home at 2:30 in the morning. They 
kidnapped young Emmett Till from his bed, and they committed one of the 
most notorious and horrific lynchings in American history. They 
brutally beat this young man from Chicago, IL, Emmett Till. They gouged 
out his eyes, they shot him in the head, they tied a large metal fan 
around his neck with barbed wire, and they threw his mangled, dead body 
into the Tallahatchie River.
  A few days later, his broken and bloated body was found floating in 
the river. Emmett Till was returned to his mother in Chicago in a 
coffin. On September 3, 1955, Mamie Till held a historic funeral for 
her son at Roberts Temple Church of God in Chicago. She did a 
courageous thing: She directed that the casket remain open so that 
everyone could see what hatred and racism had done to her little boy.
  Tens of thousands of Chicagoans came to say goodbye to 14-year-old 
Emmett Till, a young man who just a few weeks before got on that train 
to visit his family in Mississippi. News coverage of that funeral 
reached millions more around the world. Jet Magazine made a historic 
decision: They decided to print actual photographs of Emmett Till's 
mutilated body lying in the casket and cover his funeral. The decision 
by that magazine and the publicity that came with Emmett Till's tragic 
death changed people across America. I cannot tell you how many African 
Americans I have met who said that the world changed after the murder 
of Emmett Till. They came to realize that what happened to him should 
not be allowed to happen in America.
  One of my favorite friends in Congress, one of my heroes of all time, 
is a man named John Lewis. He represents Atlanta, GA, as a Member of 
the House of Representatives. He was one of the pioneers in the civil 
rights movement. He was 15 years old, 1 year older than Emmett Till, 
growing up in Alabama, when he saw those photographs of this young man. 
Like millions of African Americans, John Lewis was haunted by the 
image. He told a Washington Post reporter recently: I remember thinking 
it can happen to anyone, me or my brothers or my cousins. It created a 
sense of fear that it could happen to anyone who got out of line.
  Those images of Emmett Till inspired more than fear. In many people, 
they inspired courage and resolve. There was a decision made by so many 
at every level of life in America to no longer ever tolerate the brutal 
inhumanity of hatred and racism of Jim Crow laws. When Rosa Parks, the 
legendary civil rights leader, refused to give up her seat on that bus 
in Montgomery, AL, it was 100 days after Emmett Till's murder. She 
said, when asked later: How did you show the strength to do that, stand 
up against everybody and say, no, I will not sit in the back of the 
bus, she said she got her courage by thinking of that young man, Emmett 
Till.
  Eight years later, in a song entitled ``The Murder of Emmett Till,'' 
the great poet/songwriter Bob Dylan had the following lyrics:

     If you can't speak out against this kind of thing,
     a crime that's so unjust,
     your eyes are filled with dead men's dirt,
     your mind is filled with dust.

  Today, 50 years after Emmett Till's brutal murder, the Senate will 
formally and officially offer apologies to not just the families of 
Emmett Till but the nearly 4,800 other Americans who died at the hands 
of lynch mobs in our country, in this great Nation of America, between 
1882 and 1968. We offer our apologies as well to the countless millions 
of Americans who were forced to live with the fear that they could be 
the next victim.
  Emmett Till's cousin, Simeon Wright, was lying next to Emmett the 
night he was kidnapped and lynched. Simeon Wright is with us today. 
Doria Johnson, from Evanston, IL, also is with us today. Her 
grandfather, Anthony Crawford, was lynched by a White mob in Abbeville, 
SC, in 1916. He was beaten, hanged, and shot more than 200 times. What 
kind of offense would merit that kind of punishment? What had Anthony 
Crawford done? Anthony Crawford, in 1916, in South Carolina, a Black 
man, got into an argument with a White man over the price of cotton 
seed at a store.
  To them and to all who lost a loved one to lynching and to those who 
lost a piece of their own childhood and their own sense of security, we 
say today formally and officially in the

[[Page 12277]]

Senate that we were wrong--wrong for failing to protect them, wrong 
because we never said we were sorry.
  The murders of Emmett Till and Anthony Crawford are among those 
documented in a groundbreaking book and museum exhibit called ``Without 
Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America.'' The exhibit has traveled 
all over the United States and opened just last week at the Chicago 
Historical Society.
  Mr. President, just a few days ago, the Chicago Sun-Times did an 
editorial on this issue of lynching and this exhibit. I ask unanimous 
consent that the editorial be printed in the Record.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

              [From the Chicago Sun-Times, June 12, 2005]

         Exhibit of Lynching Photos Shows Evil we Must Remember

       The Chicago Historical Society's ``Without Sanctuary: 
     Lynching Photography In America'' seems an unlikely 
     exhibition to launch in a Northern city. But the link between 
     Chicago and ``murder by a mob of an individual outside the 
     confines of the legal system,'' a definition that comes 
     halfway through the exhibit, is long-standing. It has been 50 
     years since Chicagoan Emmett Till was lynched in Mississippi. 
     That case is still with us.
       Till's murder, for allegedly whistling at a white woman, 
     shocked an entire nation and sparked the civil rights 
     movement in the North, but lynching had gone on for decades. 
     Journalist Ida Wells-Barnett was crusading against it in 1892 
     when three successful black businessmen were lynched. Through 
     her fearless reporting, Barnett established that lynching was 
     not the white man's response to a black man's abuse of white 
     women, but that most lynchings were caused by ``economic 
     competition and racial hatred.''
       In 1893, Barnett stood outside the Chicago World's Fair and 
     protested the exclusion of African Americans, while handing 
     out copies of her pamphlet: ``Southern Horrors: Lynch Law in 
     All Its Phases.'' Still, except for protest art such as 
     Claude McKay's ``The Lynching'' and Billie Holiday's 
     ``Strange Fruit,'' the sadistic killing of black Americans 
     has mostly been hidden from America's mainstream.
       The Chicago Historical Society's exhibit will change that. 
     And it strikes us as fitting that photographs and documents, 
     many of which are on loan from private collections, have 
     ended up here. Although the re-opening of the Till murder 
     case has sparked new interest in this subject, many young 
     Chicagoans probably do not know how widespread this crime was 
     or that it occurred outside of the South in places such as 
     Downstate Cairo.
       ``No part of the nation was immune,'' as the exhibit 
     recalls with a quotation from W.E.B. Du Bois. ``We must 
     remember because if the world forgets evil, evil is reborn.''
       The 53 images of lynchings that took place between 1870 and 
     1961 constitute a shocking testament to America's shame. The 
     lynching exhibition runs through Dec. 4. Don't miss it.

  Mr. DURBIN. Mr. President, this editorial from the Chicago Sun-Times 
urges people to attend the exhibit and notes that ``many young 
Chicagoans probably do not know how widespread this crime was or that 
it occurred outside of the South in places such as downstate Cairo,'' 
IL. That is an important point. Lynching was not just a southern shame, 
it was an American shame. While most lynchings occurred in the South, 
they also happened in the North.
  I commend Senators Mary Landrieu and George Allen for authoring this 
resolution and working so hard to have the Senate take it up and right 
this historical wrong. It is my hope the Senate will match the words of 
this resolution with action. It is not enough to apologize for the 
failure of our predecessors to protect their fellow citizens from 
violent prejudice. We have a responsibility to protect those who are 
targets of today's hate crimes as well. Senator Ted Kennedy, a 
Democrat, and Senator Gordon Smith, a Republican, have been trying for 
years to persuade Congress to pass a new, stronger Federal hate crimes 
bill. Year after year, they have met with resistance.
  Listen to the arguments of those who oppose a stronger hate crimes 
bill today, and you hear the same arguments that were made against a 
Federal antilynching bill decades ago. The names have changed, the 
arguments and the excuses are the same.
  They say we in Congress cannot pass a strong hate crimes bill because 
it will infringe on States rights or because the Constitution does not 
give Congress explicit authority to pass such a law.
  Listen to what a Member of the House of Representatives, James Woods 
of Virginia, said in 1922:

       This bill, commonly known as the ``anti-lynching bill'' 
     would be described more accurately if designated--from the 
     standpoint of its effects rather than from its purpose--as a 
     ``bill to override the Constitution of the United States, to 
     foment race hatred, and to revive sectional animosity.'' If 
     it were possible to put an end to lynching by a lawful act of 
     Congress, none would support such legislation more earnestly 
     than we of the South.

  The Constitution does not say anything explicitly about the Civil 
Rights Act, which the Senate passed 41 years ago, or the Voting Rights 
Act, which turns 40 today. There always will be political voices that 
will find excuses to delay acting on the moral challenges of our time.
  Finding the moral courage to deal with those challenges in our own 
time is the real test of leadership. What is it we are doing or failing 
to do today that would lead the Senate 50 years from now to apologize? 
That is the question.
  I hope Congress will pass the Kennedy-Smith hate crimes bill as 
tangible proof to the victims of lynching that we will never again 
withhold our protection when Americans are persecuted and killed simply 
for being who they are.
  When Mamie Till put her son on that train for Mississippi, he was 
wearing a watch he had been given by his father before his father died. 
The hands on that watch stopped when Emmitt Till was tortured and 
murdered.
  Much has changed in the 50 years since Emmitt Till died, but some 
small part of America's soul has always remained frozen in that time 
because of our failure to formally acknowledge that what happened was 
wrong. By apologizing to the victims of lynching--and by having the 
courage to protect the victims of hate crimes today--we can reclaim 
that piece of our soul and move forward in time as one Nation 
indivisible.
  Mr. LEVIN. Mr. President, the opportunity has finally come to make 
the record right--to begin to balance what has been an imbalance. We 
have come to this floor to apologize for the silence of the U.S. Senate 
regarding the lynching of our fellow Americans, primarily African 
Americans.
  Tonight, we begin to redress the lynching madness that swept our 
country from the 1880s and which continued unchecked through the 1950s, 
and even as recently as the 1960s. It is estimated that nearly 5,000 
Americans were lynched during this time. African Americans were strung 
up from trees, burned at the stake, mutilated in the town square for 
all to see. Those who committed such atrocities went without 
punishment. Justice was not only denied, it was ignored, abdicated, and 
overthrown.
  The victims were not just those who were killed. A lynching is not 
only a heinous and savage act against one person; it is an act of 
violence against the rights of an entire community. Its victims are 
everyone who hears its hateful message.
  Ida B. Wells-Barnett explained well the nature of lynching in 
America. Born in Mississippi a few months before the signing of the 
Emancipation Proclamation, Ida Wells-Barnett was the editor and co-
owner of a Black newspaper called ``The Free Speech and Headlight.'' In 
1900, she wrote:

       Our country's national crime is lynching. It is not the 
     creature of an hour, the sudden outburst of uncontrolled 
     fury, or the unspeakable brutality of an insane mob. It 
     represents the cool, calculating deliberation of intelligent 
     people who openly avow that there is an ``unwritten law'' 
     that justifies them in putting human beings to death without 
     complaint under oath, without trial by jury, without 
     opportunity to make defense, and without right of appeal.

  Lynching was an attack on the rule of law itself, and yet the U.S. 
Senate did not act against it. Antilynching legislation was called for 
by seven U.S. Presidents. The House of Representatives passed three 
antilynching bills. This body passed none, though many were introduced.
  In 1935, Senator Edward Costigan spoke in favor of an antilynching 
bill he had introduced with Senator Robert Wagner. Having made a 
careful yet passionate argument for his proposed legislation, Senator 
Costigan concluded:


[[Page 12278]]

       If one can mention, much less picture such appalling facts 
     as I have recited without being revolted, he is indeed 
     hardened out of all semblance to humanity. They destroy our 
     claim to civilized life. They must not be permitted to 
     multiply. Every repetition of mob brutality denies its 
     victims the right of speedy and impartial trial and the equal 
     protection of laws guaranteed by the Constitution. No man can 
     be permitted to usurp the combined functions of judge, jury, 
     and executioner of his fellow men; and whenever any state 
     fails to protect such equal rights, I submit that the federal 
     government must do its utmost to repair the damage which is 
     then chargeable to us all.

  Faced with both the opportunity and the responsibility to act, the 
Senate simply failed. That failure is a permanent stain on this body, 
and we are not trying to wipe it away. We only hope that acknowledging 
it will allow for some national healing.
  To the families of victims of lynching who sit in the Senate Gallery 
tonight, let me offer my personal sorrow over the injustice you have 
suffered. I hope our action today will bring you some comfort, though 
it cannot ease your loss.
  As the ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, I also want to 
say a special word about the members of the American Armed Forces who 
were lynched in the country they had defended. Following both World War 
I and World War II, returning soldiers were lynched, many while still 
wearing their military uniforms. It is difficult to imagine a more 
unjust situation. There would be no new respect for these brave African 
Americans who had fought for our country, only the old order of 
injustice and hate.
  Mr. President, it is easy for the Senate to apologize now. This is 
not a tough decision, only a somber one. But there are still tough 
decisions ahead. While we cannot bring justice to those who were 
lynched, we can continue to bring about the just society that was 
mocked and shredded by acts of lynching.
  In that spirit, I hope that today is part of a larger effort toward 
racial reconciliation and justice. We can continue by honoring the 
Tuskegee Airmen with the Congressional Gold Medal for their 
contributions to our Nation's defense and to its progress, as proposed 
in bipartisan legislation, S. 392, introduced on February 16, 2005. And 
we can make progress on so many vital issues--education, health care, 
jobs--that would improve the lives of African Americans and all 
Americans. We have moved past lynching, but we have not reached 
justice. I hope we will not fail to act.
  In closing, I would like to thank my able colleagues, Senator Mary 
Landrieu and Senator George Allen, for their diligence and leadership 
in bringing this healing resolution, which I was pleased to cosponsor, 
before the U.S. Senate.
  Mr. McCAIN. Mr. President, I am proud to be an original cosponsor of 
this important resolution. I commend my friends and colleagues, Senator 
Landrieu and Senator Allen, for their leadership on this important 
issue.
  It is difficult to address this subject without noting the shameful 
record of Senate inaction on the issue of lynching. As noted in the 
text of the resolution, 4,742 people were lynched in the United States 
between 1882 and 1968. During that time, 7 U.S. Presidents pushed for 
Congressional action on what had succeeded slavery as the ultimate 
expression of racism. Between 1920 and 1940, the House of 
Representatives passed strong antilynching measures on three different 
occasions. Sadly, the Senate failed to do its duty to enable 
antilynching legislation to be enacted, thus allowing this despicable, 
murderous practice to continue.
  This Senate Resolution is long, long overdue. As we all know, the 
Senate has a basic Federal responsibility to provide protection to 
those in need. While our predecessors failed in that regard, we have an 
opportunity today to begin healing the wounds that this body's failures 
have inflicted upon the African American community for so many years.
  The apology we issue today comes too late for the thousands of 
Americans brutally slain in this abhorrent manner. Hopefully, by our 
acknowledgment of wrongdoing, and our sincere apology, we can bring 
some solace to the family members who still recall--all too vividly--
the horror of having a loved one murdered by lynching.
  We must never forget the thousands of men, women and children who 
were deprived of life, human dignity, and the Constitutional 
protections that are to be accorded all U.S. citizens, We have a 
responsibility--to all Americans--to ensure that the tragedy of 
lynching, and this body's failure to address it, will neither be 
forgotten, nor repeated.
  Mr. KENNEDY. Mr. President, I join my colleagues in condemning the 
shameful role of lynching in the Nation's history and the decades of 
refusal by the Nation, especially the United States Senate, to act 
against it. I commend my colleagues Senator Landrieu of Louisiana and 
Senator Allen of Virginia for bringing this important issue before the 
Senate floor and taking this long overdue action. And I thank the 
family members of the victims of lynching, many of whom traveled great 
distances to be here today.
  The history of lynching is a stain on the Nation's past. Over 4,700 
persons were lynched in the United States from the 1880s to the 1960s.
  These lynchings involved acts of unspeakable cruelty. Many victims 
were shot, burned or hanged. Some of the victims were accused of 
criminal offenses, while others were attacked because of something they 
said or because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time.
  The vast majority of victims were African Americans who were killed 
solely because of their race. In the year 1892 alone, 230 persons were 
lynched--at least one victim every other day. We must never forget that 
injustice. Many whites also fell victim to this brutality, singled out 
for their religion or ethnicity, their refusal to accept the racial 
hierarchy, or other reasons.
  Lynching was devastating to African American communities. It struck 
fear into the hearts and minds of African Americans, who knew they 
could be killed at any time for the most trivial of offenses or for no 
offense at all.
  Year after year, the Federal Government and State and local 
governments failed to respond effectively to the danger. The 
perpetrators had little reason to fear that they would be prosecuted or 
convicted. In some cases, scheduled lynchings were announced in 
newspapers beforehand, demonstrating the unwillingness of local law 
enforcement to intervene. Photos of lynchings show onlookers grinning 
at the camera. The failure of local authorities to prevent these 
atrocities dehumanized, demoralized, and terrorized black Americans.
  When the 370,000 African-American soldiers who served in World War I 
returned home, many believed that they had earned the equality they had 
previously been denied. Their hopes soon turned to frustration, as the 
discrimination of the pre-war years was renewed and reinvigorated. Even 
newly discharged soldiers were lynched, still wearing their uniforms.
  Lynching was more than isolated acts of brutality. It was vigilante 
mob murder that became systemic, ritualized and condoned by a racist 
society. It became a cruel weapon of white supremacy which took the 
lives of many African Americans and terrorized whole communities. Along 
with Jim Crow laws, segregated schools and dismal lack of property 
rights, lynching was used as an organized weapon of oppression that 
denied the fundamental rights of tens of millions of African Americans. 
As W.E.B. DuBois stated, the things that ``the white South feared more 
than Negro dishonesty, ignorance and incompetency, [were] Negro 
honesty, knowledge, and efficiency.'' Lynching was part of an organized 
attempt to oppress African-American communities and exclude them from 
the American dream.
  In 1900, African-American Congressman George White introduced the 
first antilynching bill, only to see it die in committee. Brave men and 
women like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. DuBois, and others in the NAACP, 
lobbied tirelessly for Federal antilynching legislation in the first 
half of the twentieth century. Their efforts succeeded in the House of 
Representatives, which passed such legislation three times between 1922 
and 1940. Each time, however, the legislation died in the Senate.

[[Page 12279]]

  In 1945, President Truman proposed a new antilynching bill, to make 
lynching a crime under Federal law. His proposal never made it out of 
the Senate Judiciary Committee.
  We cannot undo the Senate's past failures to act against lynching. 
But we can and must do all we can to erase its bitter legacy.
  Today, there is strong need to strengthen laws against hate crimes 
and other violence motivated by bigotry. As the Supreme Court has 
stated, bias-motivated violence is ``more likely to provoke retaliatory 
crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite 
community unrest.'' Like acts of terrorism, hate crimes have an impact 
far greater than the impact suffered by individual victims; they are 
crimes against entire communities and against the whole Nation. Whether 
based on prejudice against the victim's race, religion, ethnic 
background, gender, disability, or sexual orientation, hate crimes are 
modern-day lynchings which threaten not just individuals, but our 
entire social and political order.
  My colleague, Senator Smith and I have introduced bipartisan 
legislation to strengthen our laws against hate crimes, and I urge all 
of our colleagues to support it. That bill passed the Senate last year 
and died in the House. We will not give up until it becomes law.
  As each of us knows, the past has consequences for the present, and 
past acts of lynching over many decades contributed substantially to 
the disparities between African American and Whites. We cannot undo 
that history, but if we are sincere in our apology today, we must match 
our words with deeds and work harder together to close the gaps.
  At the beginning of this year, members of the Congressional Black 
Caucus put forward a plan for doing so, and we should work to implement 
it as one of the most important issues before us in this Congress.
  We need to do more to ensure the job security of African Americans, 
whose unemployment rate is 10.1 percent--almost double the national 
average and more than double the unemployment rate of Whites.
  Thirty-four percent of African American children live in poverty, 
nearly double the national average. We know that education is the key 
to opportunity and a better life, and we should be doing more to 
improve education at every level. We need to do more to help the 
youngest children in American--and the earlier, the better. Head Start 
has a 30-year track record of achievement in preparing children for 
kindergarten. It makes an enormous difference for 300,000 young African 
American children.
  We must meet our promise of fully funding the No Child Left Behind 
Act. The President's proposed budget shortchanges elementary education 
under the Act by $12 billion--for a total deficit of $39 billion since 
the school reform law was first enacted. The No Child Left Behind Act 
is already leaving 3 million children behind.
  In fact, the President's proposed budget contains the first absolute 
reduction for education in a decade. It has a cumulative cut of $40 
billion for education over the next 5 years. One out of every three 
programs eliminated by the President is a program in the Department of 
Education.
  We should also be doing more to fund opportunities for college. We 
know that African Americans are only half as likely as Whites to earn a 
college degree. The current annual unmet need of a typical 
undergraduate now averages $5,800. It is more important than ever to 
increase grant aid. Yet the Bush administration has proposed only a 
$500 increase in the maximum Pell grant this year.
  The budget also reduces a number of important programs to help 
African Americans, while preserving tax cuts for the rich and powerful. 
It proposes a 5-year freeze on child care funding, which will reduce 
the number of low-income children receiving this assistance by 300,000 
in 2009. The budget also cuts $10 billion over 5 years from Medicaid, 
the program that provides basic health care for the poor.
  As we review our legislative priorities, we cannot forget that we 
have a special duty to address the malignant disparities created by 
long-standing racial bigotry in this country--of which lynching was the 
most vicious example but far from the only example.
  It's fitting that we enact this apology today, the first day of the 
long overdue trial for the brutal lynching of civil rights workers 
James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner in 1964. Those 
murders, 41 years ago this month, took the lives of three young men 
whose only offense was attempting to register African Americans to vote 
in Mississippi, and it shows how deeply rooted racial violence once was 
in American life. All of us hope that the prosecution now taking place 
in that case, like the Senate apology today, can begin to heal these 
bitter wounds of injustice that the nation still feels because of the 
sordid legacy of lynching.
  I look forward to working with my colleagues to achieve the great 
goal of genuine equal opportunity for all our citizens. May the passage 
of this resolution mark a new beginning of race relations in America.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I rise to clarify the record concerning my 
support for the resolution before us today.
  I chose to cosponsor this resolution because of my abhorrence for the 
crime of lynching. I have been told that the passage of this resolution 
will enable people whose families were affected by this terrible crime 
to resolve their frustration that Government authorities did not do 
more to stop it. If this resolution helps people deal with the past so 
that they can move on to the future, it is a worthwhile statement to 
make.
  Having said that, I am aware of concerns that have been raised about 
possible ``next steps'' based on the Senate's action on S. Res. 39. Let 
me just say that this resolution should not be interpreted--at least so 
far as this Senator is concerned--as any kind of an endorsement for 
some claim of compensation based on any action or inaction of the 
Federal Government.
  In fact, what brings me to the floor is a concern that the actions of 
a particular Senator long ago may be subjected to unfair, revisionist 
criticism from our perspective today. The Senator in question is my 
predecessor, known as ``the Lion of Idaho,'' William Borah.
  Senator Borah was one of the leaders of the Senate in blocking 
consideration of the anti-lynching legislation. I think it is important 
for the record to show that whatever motives others may have had at the 
time for blocking this legislation, William Borah offered convincing 
justifications for his position rooted in serious constitutional and 
policy concerns.
  This is the conclusion I have drawn from considerable historical 
research of the debates of the time, which has been condensed into a 
report by a talented law student, David Palmer, who served as my law 
clerk earlier this year. I am going to ask that this report be printed 
in the Record so that all my colleagues can review it. It is an 
absorbing read, and I think it supports the conclusion that Senator 
Borah made a principled stand at the time.
  I ask unanimous consent that the report of David Palmer concerning 
William Borah's arguments against Senate action be printed in the 
Record following my statement.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

     To: Senator Craig
     Fr: David Palmer
     Re: William Borah's arguments against Senate anti-lynching 
         bills in the 1920's & 1930's
       William Borah spoke out in opposition to the anti-lynching 
     bills presented to the Senate on several occasions during the 
     1920s and 1930s. He did this primarily for two reasons: 
     first, Senator Borah felt that such a bill represented an 
     unconstitutional exercise of federal rights in the realm of 
     criminal law (an area which had previously been reserved for 
     the states); second--to a lesser degree--Senator Borah argued 
     that even if such a bill were constitutional, it would be an 
     ineffective law meant largely to penalize the South. 
     Combining these rationales, and noting that lynching was a 
     relatively infrequent crime of increasing rarity with each 
     passing year, he argued that the tremendous costs to state 
     sovereignty through federal intrusion in this

[[Page 12280]]

     matter would be much more dangerous to the good of all than 
     any uncertain benefits that might come through passing such a 
     bill. In short, Senator Borah was not a racist; rather, he 
     was a man of deep commitment to this nation's federalist 
     system, and this memo will present his respective 
     constitutional and policy arguments against the anti-lynching 
     bills of his day.

 1. William Borah's Constitutional Arguments Against the Anti-Lynching 
                                 Bills

       Senator Borah felt that there were a number of 
     constitutional infirmities with the anti-lynching bills he 
     faced, although they all revolved around his firm belief in 
     states' rights as a centerpiece of the entire government. His 
     constitutional problems with the various anti-lynching bills, 
     as well as his reasons for championing state sovereignty so 
     strongly, are detailed below.


A. Borah: The Fourteenth Amendment Is Not An Acceptable Constitutional 
                     Basis For Anti-Lynching Bills

       To put Senator Borah's arguments in context, the proponents 
     of the anti-lynching bills typically based their opinion that 
     such bills were constitutional on two grounds: first, that 
     the Federal Government must guarantee a republican form of 
     government to all citizens; second, that the 14th Amendment's 
     equal protection clause allowed for federal action in the 
     face of state failure to prosecute lynchings. 79 Congo Rec. 
     6, 6524 (1935). Borah felt that the first point was ``utterly 
     irrelevant'' (id.), and apparently so did his debating 
     opponents, as almost all the constitutional debates Borah 
     participated in dealt with aspects of the 14th Amendment.
       Regarding the 14th Amendment, Borah consistently argued 
     that any attempt to apply the amendment to the actions of 
     individuals by the Federal Government should be rejected, as 
     the amendment's framers specifically rejected this idea. Id. 
     at 6362. The anti-lynching bills invariably allowed the 
     Federal Government to step in at some point to prosecute the 
     perpetrators of a lynching if a state had not done its law-
     enforcement job, thus mandating federal intrusion into law 
     enforcement against individual action which was not 
     undertaken by the states. Borah argued that this simply 
     cannot be justified under the 14th Amendment, as such a 
     capacity for law enforcement by the Federal Government 
     (against individuals not acting as official representatives 
     of a state) was explicitly rejected by those who originally 
     passed the 14th Amendment. Id.
       In a later debate (in 1937), Borah similarly argued that 
     the 14th Amendment contains no clause whatsoever allowing the 
     Federal Government to go into a state and establish civil 
     liability for damages between citizens of the state, or 
     between citizens and a subdivision of a state (as would have 
     been allowed in that year's bill). He further argued that 
     this anti-lynching bill was such a new proposition--
     constitutionally speaking--that the people of the United 
     States should be consulted in the form of passing this bill 
     as a constitutional amendment. Borah feared that it would 
     ultimately result in the ``elimination of the states.'' 81 
     Congr. Rec. 8,8746-8 (1937).
       Additionally, Borah argued that if our nation were really 
     concerned about the equal protection of the law being 
     enforced where it is needed, then the 1937 bill should not 
     have exempted violence due to ``gangsterism'' and 
     racketeering. This was the area in which he felt that most 
     states had truly failed to enforce the law. Instead, the 
     exemption reinforced in Senator Borah's mind that the anti-
     lynching bill was really a sectional bill aimed at punishing 
     the south while exempting the northern states for their own 
     law enforcement failures. Id. at 8753.
       Finally, in 1938 Senator Borah cited several Supreme Court 
     cases for the proposition that the 14th Amendment was not 
     designed to transfer any power from the states to the Federal 
     Government for protecting the lives, liberty and property of 
     a particular state's citizens. 83 Congr. Rec. 2, 1492 (1938). 
     Borah concluded his 14th Amendment arguments by stating that 
     the only way a state could be liable under that amendment--in 
     this area of the law--is if it were to not pass laws 
     protecting its citizens from lynching. Id. at 1495. Because 
     the states had done that, and given that the framers of the 
     14th Amendment (and the Supreme Court) had rejected the idea 
     that the amendment transferred any power to the Federal 
     Government for enforcing the criminal law, Senator Borah 
     strongly opposed using the 14th Amendment as a basis for the 
     antilynching bills.


   B. Borah: McCulloch v. Maryland Precludes the Anti-Lynching Bills

       Senator Borah attacked the 1938 anti-lynching bill on an 
     additional ground: it would have allowed the Federal 
     Government to bring suit on behalf of an individual against a 
     division of a state (a county) if the officials of the 
     division had not enforced anti-lynching laws. Borah noted 
     that this ability for one sovereign to bring suit against 
     another sovereign was precluded by a continuous line of 
     Supreme Court cases beginning in 1819 with McCulloch v. 
     Maryland, 17 U.S. 316. Id. at 1490.
       Senator Borah began this argument by pointing out that 
     McCulloch held the ability of one sovereign to tax another is 
     the ability to destroy it, and this therefore is not 
     constitutionally permissible. He further argued that the 
     ability of one sovereign to bring suit against another is an 
     equivalent power, and therefore it is unconstitutional on 
     that ground as well. Finally, in response to another 
     senator's argument, Borah went through a detailed list of how 
     the Supreme Court had repeatedly issued decisions supporting 
     his view (even in the cases decided since the passage of the 
     14th Amendment). Id. at 1491.
       There are three key points Borah made in support of this 
     McCulloch argument. First, he pointed out that the anti-
     lynching bill would have allowed the Federal Government to 
     sue counties on behalf of individuals, and these suits 
     against counties would constitute direct interference by the 
     Federal Government with the power of states over their 
     counties. Numerous Supreme Court decisions have disallowed 
     such actions because of their impingement on state 
     sovereignty. Id. at 1492.
       Second, Borah argued that suing counties was the same thing 
     as suing states (an idea supported by numerous Supreme Court 
     decisions), and states could never consent to be sued by 
     another sovereign (at most they could consent to be sued by 
     their citizens). Id. at 1493.
       Last, he argued that states cannot be found liable for the 
     actions of their employees when those employees are not 
     acting in an official capacity. As states already had anti-
     lynching laws on their books, Borah argued that any lack of 
     enforcement by state officials of those state laws indicated 
     that county officials were not acting in an official capacity 
     during the dereliction of their responsibilities. Therefore, 
     to allow the Federal Government to take action against those 
     officials would be to allow the government to sue the states 
     (through their counties) in situations where no official 
     state conduct had occurred. 83 Congr. Rec. 1, 141 (1938). 
     This, Borah argued (citing several Supreme Court decisions 
     for this proposition), is constitutionally impermissible. 83 
     Congr. Rec. 2, 1494 (1938).


           C. Borah's Miscellaneous Constitutional Arguments

       In addition to the constitutional arguments already 
     discussed, William Borah included two other, albeit less-
     emphasized, legal objections to the anti-lynching bills in 
     his speeches. One such argument was an objection to the 
     trigger of Federal intervention under these bills: when only 
     one man committed a lynching, it did not allow Federal 
     jurisdiction; rather, it required the actions of a group of 
     people, and thus ``the Constitution is being made subject to 
     construction in accordance with the number of persons present 
     when the crime takes place.'' 79 Congr. Rec. 6, 6677 (1935). 
     Borah concluded this argument by saying that the act should 
     be rejected because ``we certainly have not one Constitution 
     for a half dozen and another Constitution for an 
     individual.'' Id. at 6504.
       Another point that Borah made regarding the 
     constitutionality of the anti-lynching bills dovetails with 
     his McCulloch arguments. He posed a question on the floor 
     which implied that the particular anti-lynching bill before 
     the Senate would create a cause of action for an individual 
     against a county (and therefore a state), thus allowing an 
     individual to sue a state--which is explicitly barred by the 
     11th Amendment. 83 Congr. Rec. 1, 965 (1938). While the 
     senator to whom Borah asked this question replied that the 
     suit technically was to be brought in the name of the United 
     States Government on behalf of an individual, it is clear 
     that this question was designed to cover Senator Borah's 
     bases. In other words, if the suit was undertaken by the 
     United States against a state, then the McCulloch reasoning 
     would apply to make it unconstitutional; alternatively, if 
     the action was undertaken by an individual, the 11th 
     Amendment would apply. In either case the act would be 
     unconstitutional.


   D. Borah: The Anti-Lynching Bills Would Destroy Essential States' 
                                 Rights

       Near the conclusion of William Borah's final speech 
     regarding the anti-lynching bills, he summarized his position 
     by stating that his only interest in opposing these bills was 
     in preserving the integrity of the State. To him, the state 
     was and remained ``the fountain source of the people's power 
     in the Government; and when that is destroyed, democratic 
     government is at an end.'' 83 Congr. Rec. 2, 1496 (1938). 
     Racism did not enter that consideration, as his words and 
     actions reveal a man of great devotion to the ideals of our 
     federal system. Moreover, given the complete lack of a 
     constitutional basis for any federal anti-lynching law, Borah 
     felt that such a measure would constitute a naked intrusion 
     by the Federal Government into state sovereignty. 
     Furthermore, while Senator Borah repeatedly said that he had 
     great respect for what the senators backing the anti-lynching 
     bills were trying to do, he also could not allow any such 
     bill to pass out of the Senate in order to have its 
     constitutionality ruled on by the Supreme Court (as several 
     senators had suggested as a course of action) without 
     ``stultifying'' his own convictions. 79 Congr. Rec. 6, 6673-4 
     (1935). If the law were to be somehow found constitutional 
     under an increasingly activist court, Borah

[[Page 12281]]

     felt that through this bill the Congress would ``have utterly 
     annihilated all State sovereignty.'' Id. This was a 
     possibility he could never support.
       A primary reason Senator Borah so passionately opposed the 
     anti-lynching bills was that allowing federal intrusion 
     through those bills would create a principle of law that he 
     felt would justify further intrusion in almost unlimited 
     circumstances. While supporters of such bills could argue 
     that the legislation only allowed federal intrusion under 
     limited circumstances, the legal principle of the matter was 
     of supreme importance to William Borah. He stated ``[i]f the 
     Federal Government can send a United States marshal into the 
     State of Tennessee to arrest a sheriff because he has failed 
     to protect a colored man from violence, it can, under the 
     same principle, send a United States marshal into the State 
     of New York to arrest a sheriff, or other officer on whom the 
     duty is imposed, because he neglected to protect the life of 
     a citizen against the violence of thugs.'' 83 Congr. Rec. 1, 
     141 (1938). Therefore, while an anti-lynching bill might only 
     take a limited amount of power from the states in the short-
     term, Senator Borah was a man who looked at the long-term 
     future; he saw that any such bill such held grave 
     implications for the sovereignty of states. Along these 
     lines, he also argued that allowing this level of federal 
     intrusion would indicate the complete displacement of our 
     nation's federalist system. After all, if a state could not 
     be entrusted exclusively to enforce its own laws, then he 
     felt there was no such thing as local government. Id.
       Additionally, Senator Borah included in his speeches some 
     powerful language as to why he felt so strongly about 
     protecting states' rights. In one speech, he explained that 
     the experiences uniquely gained in local government shaped 
     the political views of the founders of this nation. 83 Congr. 
     Rec. 2, 1496 (1938). In another debate, he explained that in 
     1922 he opposed, in committee, the Dyer anti-lynching bill in 
     part because he was convinced that it is not sound national 
     policy ``to remove responsibility from the different local 
     governments of the communities for the enforcement of the 
     law. In the long run that results in breaking down all sense 
     of duty upon the part of the citizen.'' 79 Congr. Rec. 6, 
     6673-74 (1935).
       Moreover, this opposition to encroaching federal power is 
     consistent with Senator Borah's views on other New Deal 
     legislation as detracting from state sovereignty. Regarding 
     such legislation he went on record as stating that ``we can 
     only have a great Federal Union by having great individual 
     sovereign States.'' Id. Concerning all of these measures 
     (including the anti-lynching bill), Borah expressed his 
     heartfelt feeling that ``there is nothing in all the realm of 
     government more essential to the happiness and well-being of 
     the American people than the right of local self-
     government,'' and the increased power by the Federal 
     Government constituted an ever-growing threat to this 
     happiness and well-being. Id.
       In sum, Senator Borah felt that states necessarily had to 
     retain their sovereign powers to make this union a great one. 
     Any detraction from that power, particularly one with such 
     far-reaching principles for federal intrusion as would be 
     created under this bill, would be devastating to our federal 
     system. Given the complete lack of constitutional support for 
     such a bill in his eyes, William Borah could not in good 
     conscience allow any of the anti-lynching bills to leave the 
     Senate and potentially destroy the sovereignty of the states 
     under an overreaching Supreme Court. Senator Borah was a deep 
     believer in states' rights, his words and actions 
     consistently supported that view, and to ascribe racism to 
     him as a motivation is to both blatantly ignore the 
     historical record as well as demean a man who dedicated his 
     Senate service to furthering the form of government that 
     would provide the greatest good for Americans of all races. 
     As the Senator himself put it (in reference to the final 
     anti-lynching bill put before him): ``[t]his, Mr. President, 
     is another compromise with a vital principle of our dual 
     system of government. It is bartering with the future for the 
     supposed and transient demands of the present, and at a time 
     when the present is taking care of the problem. It is another 
     instance in which our confidence in our scheme of government 
     is not strong enough to say to all races, all creeds, all 
     groups, and all factions: Your problems, however serious, are 
     subordinate to the principles of this Government, and you 
     must work them out within the compass of the long-tested and 
     well-accepted principles of democracy.'' 83 Congr. Rec. 1, 
     143 (1938).

  II. William Borah's Policy Arguments Against the Anti-Lynching Bills

       Although Senator Borah's opposition to the anti-lynching 
     bills was primarily based on his belief that such legislation 
     represented an unconstitutional infringement on states' 
     rights, he also opposed the bills as poor policies. In his 
     view, even if such bills were constitutional, they would 
     merely result in an ineffective law that would destructively 
     penalize the South. Given that lynching was declining each 
     year as a crime, Borah believed that instituting an 
     ineffective--and potentially damaging--bill to stop a 
     disappearing crime was simply not worth the price to be paid 
     in greatly eroded state sovereignty. This section will detail 
     William Borah's beliefs that creating federal anti-lynching 
     laws would be poor national policy--even if they were somehow 
     deemed constitutional.


  a. borah: the anti-lynching bills are potentially harmful sectional 
                                measures

       In an extended speech given in 1938, Senator Borah assumed, 
     for purposes of arguing the wisdom of adopting such a policy, 
     that the anti-lynching bill before the Senate was 
     constitutional. He then attacked the potential law on several 
     grounds, beginning with his belief that the bill was nothing 
     more than a sectional measure aimed at the South. 83 Congr. 
     Rec. 1, 138-9 (1938). By sectional measure, Borah meant that 
     he believed this legislative measure to be based on the same 
     idea that inspired so much of northern policy towards the 
     South during Reconstruction: a desire to punish the area 
     because the southerners were incapable of self-government. 
     Id. Although the senator did not offer in his 1938 speech a 
     great amount of evidence as to why this was a sectional 
     measure, it seems clear from his earlier speeches regarding 
     the exception of ``gangsterism'' from prosecution that he 
     felt anti-lynching legislation was aimed at a crime primarily 
     occurring in the South while simultaneously exempting 
     northern cities and states from their own law enforcement 
     failures.
       Senator Borah further explained that a measure aimed at the 
     South would be both undeserved by the region and potentially 
     harmful to the nation. He felt that the South had dealt as 
     well as could possibly be expected with its ``race problem'' 
     in the 70 years since the Civil War, and this was in part 
     evidenced both by the economic progress of southern blacks as 
     well as the lower per capita arrest rate by southern blacks 
     (as compared to northern blacks). He finally stated his 
     belief that nations are held together by more than just laws; 
     mutual respect, confidence and tolerance from one part of the 
     country to another is essential too. Borah feared that 
     passing such a sectional bill would arouse old problems in 
     the south that could potentially disrupt national unity. Id.


         b. borah: the anti-lynching bills will be ineffective

       Another policy argument that Senator Borah advanced against 
     anti-lynching legislation was that it would be ineffective. 
     He first stated this belief in the Congressional Record in 
     1935 when he argued that the legislation would be useless 
     because lynching can only be effectively prevented by 
     educating people. 79 Congr. Rec. 6, 6674 (1935). Borah 
     reiterated that same argument in 1938, when he stated that 
     educating both races ``to understand their responsibility to 
     society'' would be the best way to end lynching, and he also 
     noted that such education was underway in the South. 83 
     Congr. Rec. 1, 139 (1938).
       Additionally, Borah argued that the actual enforcement of 
     the federal law would be ineffectual for two reasons. First, 
     he pointed out that the Federal Government is simply 
     incapable of enforcing criminal law; he cited the federally-
     controlled District of Columbia and its extraordinary murder 
     and crime rate as his primary example of this ineptness. Id. 
     His second reason aligned with his concern that this was a 
     sectional bill: Senator Borah felt that if Congress were to 
     pass a bill that the South would interpret as aimed at them, 
     then it would be completely unrealistic to expect 
     southerners--even those employed by the Federal Government--
     to enforce the anti-lynching laws to any greater degree than 
     the state anti-lynching laws. He firmly believed that laws 
     could not be enforced without being backed by public opinion. 
     Id.


  c. borah: lynching is disappearing as a problem in the united states

       A final policy argument that Senator Borah made against 
     anti-lynching laws is that it was a disappearing crime. In 
     1937 he offered the statistic that 40,000,000 Americans were 
     living in poverty to support Senator Pepper's argument that 
     the Senate should be dealing with the problems of the 
     nation's poor instead of ``debating an anti-lynching bill, 
     when the total toll of lynching last year, I think, was about 
     11, one of the minor categories of crime, nationally 
     speaking, in the United States.'' 82 Congr. Rec. 1, 158 
     (1937). One year later Borah argued that lynching had 
     dramatically decreased in the United States since 1918, and 
     it had almost disappeared in many states by 1938. Given the 
     extremely small number of lynchings in the two years prior to 
     the introduction of the 1938 anti-lynching bill (combined 
     with the national trend towards fewer lynchings each year) 
     Senator Borah concluded that there was not a sufficient 
     problem to justify judging the southern states (through 
     passing a sectional measure against them) as having failed in 
     their provision of free government. 83 Congr. Rec. 1, 140 
     (1938).

        III. Potential Problems With William Borah's Statements

       Although Senator William Borah's speeches convey the 
     message that his real motivation for opposing anti-lynching 
     legislation was based on his concern for state sovereignty, 
     he did make one particular comment that needs to be addressed 
     for its potential racial offensiveness. In 1938, Borah

[[Page 12282]]

     referred to a quotation by Henry W. Grady as true, and this 
     quotation described the white and black races as two 
     ``utterly dissimilar races on the same soil--with equal 
     political and civil rights--almost equal in numbers but 
     terribly unequal in intelligence and responsibility.'' Id. at 
     141. While this quote does on its face seem to be an overtly 
     racist comment, there are a few reasons why this quote should 
     not be taken as evidence that William Borah fought the anti-
     lynching bills because he was himself a racist.
       The first reason this is so is that following this 
     quotation, Borah put what he meant by it in context. As he 
     explained, he felt that no race of people would have the 
     capacity to assume full citizenship following years of being 
     enslaved. Id. (Borah then argued that the efforts by the 
     South in the years since Reconstruction were the best that 
     could be expected given the circumstances of the region's 
     past, and therefore the region should not be punished by this 
     sectional bill.) Given his statement that no race could have 
     assumed full citizenship following such treatment, it implies 
     that Borah considered any lack on the part of the blacks to 
     be a result of their slavery rather than an innate racial 
     defect. While it is not a flattering statement, it is not 
     strictly a racist remark; instead, Borah does seem to 
     indicate that any race under similar conditions would be 
     unequal in some regards to the enslaving race.
       More important, William Borah's other speeches all strongly 
     reinforce the point that his opposition to the anti-lynching 
     bills were purely based on his views of the importance of 
     state sovereignty. He repeatedly praised the intentions of 
     his Senate colleagues who supported the anti-lynching bills, 
     and none of those opponents ever imputed any racist motives 
     to his beliefs. While opposing senators may have disagreed 
     with his constitutional views, there is no record whatsoever 
     that Borah's views were not legitimately held in this and 
     other areas of federal expansion. To try and read such a 
     motivation into the Congressional Record is to engage in 
     revisionist history with no basis other than a personal 
     agenda. Any description of William Borah as being racially 
     motivated to oppose the anti-lynching legislation ignores all 
     of the written record in order to manufacture a preferred 
     reason for the senator's views.

                             IV. Conclusion

       Senator William Borah was a passionate advocate for states' 
     rights, and this--rather than racism--was the basis for his 
     opposition to the anti-lynching bills presented to the Senate 
     during the 1920s and 1930s. Senator Borah felt that those 
     bills were unconstitutional for several reasons, and the 14th 
     Amendment was certainly not a sound basis for them to pass 
     constitutional muster. Moreover, Borah saw the anti-lynching 
     bills as creating a principle that would justify repeated and 
     destructive federal intrusion into the state sovereignty that 
     was necessary for our nation's well-being. Finally, as 
     lynching had dramatically decreased in the United States by 
     the late 1930s, and given the Senator's feelings that anti-
     lynching legislation would be an ineffective solution to that 
     disappearing problem (while at the same time threatening 
     national unity), William Borah strongly believed that passing 
     an anti-lynching bill would needlessly destroy our nation's 
     federalist system without solving any problems at all.
       In his final Senate speech against an anti-lynching bill, 
     Senator Borah eloquently concluded by arguing that a loose 
     interpretation of the 14th Amendment would contribute to the 
     downfall of our governmental system, and that ``a few lives 
     will be lost if we do not pass this measure, . . . which we 
     will all regret. But many lives were lost to establish this 
     Government, to establish this dual system, and the happiness 
     and contentment of many millions will be lost if we do not 
     preserve it.'' 83 Congr. Rec. 2, 1497 (1938).

  Mr. KOHL. Mr. President, I rise today not only to show my support for 
S. Res. 39 but also to honor the achievements of Dr. James Cameron, the 
oldest living lynching survivor. Dr. Cameron moved on from his horrific 
early experience with racial hatred to found America's only Black 
Holocaust Museum. His life story and work are a source of hope and 
pride for many survivors of racial violence.
  Dr. Cameron was born in LaCrosse, WI, in 1914 and moved to Indiana as 
a teenager. In Indiana, he accompanied two friends involved in an armed 
robbery that turned to rape and murder. Though Dr. Cameron ran away 
well before the crime was committed, all three young men were taken to 
jail. The Ku Klux Klan stormed that jail on August 7, 1930, hung Dr. 
Cameron's two friends and beat Dr. Cameron severely. Dr. Cameron 
survived but spent another 6 years in jail for crimes he did not 
commit.
  Dr. Cameron has never let us forget the injustice done to him and to 
too many other victims of lynching and other forms of racial violence. 
After moving back to his home State of Wisconsin, he founded the Black 
Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee. This unique museum lays bare our 
Nation's violent past of racism and slavery. Dr. Cameron's efforts to 
shine a light on this disturbing aspect of our history have opened the 
eyes of thousands to the suffering of African-Americans--not only in 
the age of slavery but also in the decades that followed. As painful as 
the exhibits in his museum are to view, they are a necessary reminder 
of the costs of racial hatred--and of the apology we owe to the 
families torn apart by acts of racial hatred.
  Because of my great respect for Dr. Cameron--and because he has 
opened our eyes to the great crimes committed by this nation by not 
ending lynching--I am cosponsoring S. Res. 39, a resolution apologizing 
to the victims of lynching and the descendants of those victims for the 
failure of the Senate to enact antilynching legislation. The history of 
lynching in America is an atrocious one indeed. Between the years 1882 
and 1968, some 4,700 people were lynched. And though, over that same 
period, nearly 200 antilynching bills were proposed, none made it past 
the Senate.
  That lack of action is truly a black mark on this institution's 
history and legacy. An apology cannot erase our crimes--but an 
acknowledgment of the costs of our inaction is a first step toward 
ensuring we never again let hate and racism run unchecked through our 
great Nation.
  Ms. SNOWE. Mr. President, I rise today as a cosponsor and strong 
supporter of S. Res. 39, an apology on behalf of the United States 
Senate, for its inaction during one of this Nation's darkest chapters. 
Today, my colleagues and I, through this legislation, offer an apology 
to the victims of lynching, and their families and descendants, for the 
Senate's failure to enact antilynching legislation throughout the 
course of this Nation's history. Despite the fact that, at key 
junctures in our Nation's history, the House of Representatives passed, 
and the President stood ready to sign, Federal law to actively 
eliminate lynching throughout the country, such legislation died in the 
Senate, as did the many victims of this heinous crime who might have 
been saved by the passage of such law.
  Following the Civil War, and as Reconstruction ended Federal troops 
withdrew their presence from the States that had been in rebellion, 
lynching became the most extreme form of racial oppression in the 
South. Between 1881 and 1964, at least 4,749 reported lynchings took 
place, with most of the victims being black; all but four States had at 
least one lynching on record. However, 99 percent of the perpetrators 
of these crimes escaped any punishment, as State and local authorities 
refused to investigate and prosecute these cases, and those who were 
charged with lynching were regularly acquitted by all-white juries.
  Unprotected by State authorities, African-Americans and civil rights 
groups sought protection from the Federal Government, the same 
authority that rid this Nation of the scourge of slavery. As a result 
of the Reconstruction amendments to the Constitution, the Federal 
Government had the express power to pass legislation under the 13th and 
14th Amendments to use the full force of the Federal Government's law 
enforcement authority to put an end to lynching. In fact, between 1890 
and 1952, seven Presidents petitioned Congress to halt lynching, and 
almost 200 antilynching bills were introduced in Congress. Most 
notably, on three on three occasions between 1920 and 1940, the House 
of Representatives passed strong antilynching bills. And equally as 
regrettably, all three of these bills died in the United States Senate.
  That is why I find S. Res. 39 to be entirely appropriate, and frankly 
long overdue. This resolution, offered by my colleagues Senator 
Landrieu and Senator Allen, constitutes a formal apology by the Senate 
``to the victims and survivors of lynching for its failure to enact 
antlynching legislation.'' It further expresses this Chamber's sympathy 
and regret to the descendants of these victims. Undoubtedly, a measure 
of this nature may stand as insignificant when compared to the sad 
legacy of men, women, and children dying at

[[Page 12283]]

the hands of racist, bigoted vigilantism. Yet it is my hope that this 
resolution, which we will pass tonight, will help heal some of the 
wounds for the surviving family members of the victims of lynching.
  This effort has been a long time coming, and I am thankful for the 
involvement of my colleagues, present and former, who have taken part 
in supporting this effort. I thank the sponsors of this resolution, 
Senators Allen and Landrieu, as well as all other cosponsors of this 
resolution, 60 in number altogether. I also want to thank Janet 
Langhart Cohen and her husband, our former colleague and fellow Mainer 
Bill Cohen. Their devotion to championing this cause helped to raise my 
awareness of this issue, and I am sure many of my colleagues have 
similar feelings.
  For decades after the Civil War, too many of our fellow Americans 
suffered from the murderous actions of lynching bees and the fear and 
intimidation that accompanied those actions. People of all backgrounds 
fell victim to lynch mobs in nearly every State, but this burden fell 
especially hard on our fellow citizens in the African American 
community. Needless to say, the Senate bears no direct responsibility 
for these crimes, nor does this resolution suggest anything along those 
lines. However, the Senate's sin was one of omission. At critical 
junctures in our history, when the tide of the terror wrought by 
lynching could have been stemmed by passage of Federal legislation, the 
Senate single-handedly blocked such action. For this inaction, at times 
when this legislative body was needed the most, we in the Senate 
express our heart-felt apology to those whose suffering could have been 
avoided.
  I yield the floor.
  Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, the resolution for consideration today 
details the Senate's shameful failure to pass anti-lynching legislation 
despite several attempts. Even as seven Presidents called for anti-
lynching legislation, and the House three times passed such bills, the 
Senate has steadfastly refused to act.
  At least 4,749 people were reported lynched between 1881 and 1964, 
with the vast majority of the victims being African-American. 
Shockingly, 99 percent of the perpetrators of these horrible acts 
escaped punishment from State or local authorities.
  My State was one of only four or five States that did not have a 
lynching during that time. It wasn't just one or two States. It was 
every State in the Union, every State of the then-48 States with the 
exception of only four or five.
  Even though my State did not have any, I cosponsored this resolution 
because I believe an apology is in order. I have cosponsored this 
resolution because an apology is surely in order, and I believe Senator 
Landrieu deserves great credit for bringing this important issue to the 
Senate's attention.
  This public act of contrition is an important gesture today to take 
responsibility for the civil rights misdeeds of the past. But it is 
also an opportunity for Congress to show the country that we will not 
tolerate similar offenses. As we pass this resolution, it is fitting to 
carry this principle to the present and act in kind to prevent civil 
rights and human rights abuses occurring now in this country and around 
the world.
  As we pass this resolution, we should also recognize that it is long 
past the time to pass the Local Law Enforcement Enhancement Act, which 
would strengthen and extend our Federal hate crimes law. The Senate has 
repeatedly passed this bill, with 65 votes in the last Congress. The 
Republican leadership in the House, with the acquiescence of the Bush 
White House, has killed it. It is fitting that we apologize for past 
inaction, but that does not obviate the need to solve today's problems.
  By the same token, we should reauthorize the Voting Rights Act in 
this Congress and not wait for 2007. We need to ensure that this law, 
one of the most important bills of the 20th century, remains in effect 
to safeguard the fundamental right of all citizens to participate fully 
in our democracy.
  We should also remember the leading role this country played in 
drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was modeled 
on our own Bill of Rights. As the country that, especially since the 
Second World War, has been looked to around the world as a beacon of 
hope for victims of arbitrary arrest, torture, and the denial of 
fundamental freedoms, we need to set a far better example than we are 
today. The atrocities and dehumanizing mistreatment that have occurred 
in U.S. military detention facilities in Afghanistan, Iraq and 
Guantanamo, are eerily reminiscent of some of the despicable acts 
described in this resolution. In addition, the continued assistance the 
administration is providing to foreign security forces that violate 
human rights, directly contradict the message we are trying to send 
with this resolution. We should not be satisfied with long overdue 
apologies. There are serious human rights problems that we need to 
address today.
  A few years ago, I had the opportunity to examine the book ``Without 
Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America,'' which is referred to in 
this resolution. The haunting photographs in this book make plain the 
evil that lurked in this Nation not very long ago, and make it 
impossible to accept the fact that the individuals and mobs that 
committed these heinous acts by and large suffered no consequences. 
This resolution deserves our immediate approval, and I hope it provides 
some comfort to the descendants of the victims of these horrible 
crimes.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, it is every citizen's duty to know American 
history. One fact we must reckon with is that our experiment in self-
government began in a compromise with the existence of slavery. As the 
American experiment went forward, protections granted to slavery in the 
Constitution--a document that never explicitly mentioned slavery--were 
dismantled. The cost was great: Brother fought against brother in the 
Civil War, largely over whether ``the peculiar institution'' would be 
allowed to thrive in the United States. When, at the end of that 
terrible conflict, the 13th amendment was put in the Constitution, 
slavery was abolished.
  Yet while a pernicious institution was now, thankfully, illegal, its 
aftereffects were still felt in the former slave States. Postwar 
reconstruction was supposed to restore the natural and the civil rights 
of the former slaves and their descendents; but State and local 
authorities did not enforce those rights. The lynching of African 
Americans, and other forms of persecution, would persist into the 20th 
century, to the shame of every decent citizen.
  Candidly facing this history is important. We must not forget the 
wrongs of the past--nor that we have had leaders willing to come 
forward and stand against those wrongs. From the Continental Congress 
passing the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which banned slavery in the 
region northwest of the Ohio River, to the words and deeds of Frederick 
Douglass and Abraham Lincoln, to the civil rights movement of the 
1960s, brave men and women reaffirmed for all of us the principles of 
human equality and consent of the governed on which our Nation was 
founded.
  Lincoln declared: ``Those who deny freedom to others deserve it not 
for themselves, and under a just God, cannot long retain it.''
  I support Senate Resolution 39 in the name of honesty and national 
unity. As Senators representing Americans of all colors and creeds, we 
ought to give due recognition to past injustices. Even more 
importantly, we ought to live today by Lincoln's dictum. We must make 
sure our laws and our practices always reflect our belief in individual 
worth and equality under the law. This belief held in common is what 
has helped Americans--whatever their race, religion, or background--to 
succeed.
  Mr. FEINGOLD. Mr. President, the Senate has accomplished some 
wonderful things for this country. But sometimes this body makes grave 
mistakes. Today, by passing the resolution apologizing to the victims 
of lynching, we acknowledge one of the gravest. The use of the 
filibuster and other dilatory

[[Page 12284]]

tactics to prevent the enactment of a law criminalizing lynching is 
among the darkest chapters in the history of the U.S. Senate. This 
resolution is a small but important step toward helping us come to 
terms with the Senate's disgraceful failure over a period of many 
years, at the beginning of this century, to protect our citizens. I 
congratulate Senators Landrieu and Allen for their work to bring this 
resolution before the Senate.
  There are few crimes as despicable and contrary to the rule of law as 
lynching. The practice was born of hatred, racial or otherwise, and 
disdain for our criminal justice institutions. Unfortunately, lynching 
occurred throughout the United States, with cases documented in all but 
four states. From 1881 to 1964, there were 4,749 recorded victims of 
lynching. Of these victims, 3,452 were African Americans. Worse still, 
in nearly all cases of lynching before 1968, local and state law 
enforcement officials failed to investigate or prosecute the 
perpetrators.
  An anti-lynching law would have allowed Federal prosecutors to bring 
the perpetrators of lynching to justice. On three occasions, the House 
passed anti-lynching bills, but each time a small group of Senators 
filibustered the proposals in the Senate.
  Although a resolution cannot make up for the terrible injustice 
perpetrated against the victims of lynching and their families, this 
resolution is, at least, a positive step toward recognizing the 
Senate's past mistakes. There is much more that the Senate must do to 
address continuing racial injustice in this country. But this 
resolution is a worthy effort. I am proud to support it, and I am 
pleased that the Senate will pass it tonight.
  Mrs. LINCOLN. Mr. President. I rise today in support of Senate 
Resolution 39.
  This resolution acknowledges a dark period in the history of our 
Nation and the history of this institution. It was a time of racial 
intolerance, hatred and violence, that took the lives of 4,742 people, 
mostly African Americans, between 1882 and 1968. It was also a time 
when this body failed to fulfill its moral and constitutional 
responsibilities to pass significant legislation which may have 
prevented many of these deaths.
  During this time, there were 284 victims of lynching in my home State 
of Arkansas. It was a crime that was documented in over 46 States. To 
properly punish those responsible, Congress tried on over 200 occasions 
to pass antilynching legislation but on each occasion it came to the 
Senate floor, it was defeated.
  While we can never adequately express the deep sympathy and regret in 
our hearts, I am hopeful this long overdue acknowledgment and apology 
brings some sense of solace to the descendants of victims of lynching. 
This was a moment in our nation's history that was at odds with the 
principles upon which we were founded, and a moment at odds with our 
future. When we acknowledge the misdeeds of our past and demonstrate a 
willingness to learn the lessons from those actions, we build upon the 
many things that unite us all to make our Nation stronger and a better 
place to live.
  Mrs. BOXER. Mr. President, today we in the Senate are finally 
apologizing to the descendants of the nearly 5,000 victims of lynching, 
primarily African Americans, for our failure to enact antilynching 
legislation.
  Even though the House of Representatives passed three strong 
antilynching measures between 1920 and 1940, the Senate filibustered 
all of those measures. This was wrong, and this resolution is long 
overdue.
  Lynching, a widely acknowledged practice that continued until the 
middle of the 20th century, was a shameful chapter in our history. It 
was mob justice at its most heinous, motivated by racial and ethnic 
hatred. And it was a national problem occurring in all but four States 
in our country.
  While passing this apology is important, it not going to right every 
wrong. And it does not absolve us of our responsibility to continue to 
work to provide justice in American society.
  Justice at the polls for those who are made to stand in line for 
hours to exercise their right to vote.
  Justice in the schools so that every child has an equal educational 
opportunity.
  Justice in the workplace so that no worker will face discrimination.
  Let us use this opportunity not only to apologize for a shameful 
injustice but to dedicate ourselves to eradicating the remaining 
injustices in our society.
  Mr. HARKIN. Mr. President, I am here to speak on the Senate's need to 
redress a past wrong. For more than 6 decades, the Senate attempted to 
pass legislation outlawing the terrible act of lynching. And for more 
than six decades, against the wishes of many Presidents and a majority 
of Congressmen and Senators, a small minority of Senators prevented any 
antilynching legislation from passing this body. Three times the House 
passed bills with severe penalties for perpetrators of this crime, and 
three times companion bills failed to garner enough support to stop a 
filibuster in the Senate. Today, it is time for atonement--and for a 
belated apology on behalf of the United States Senate.
  My colleagues and I have drafted this resolution to apologize for the 
past mistakes of this governing body. This terrible crime was a 
widespread phenomenon in the late 19th century and throughout the first 
half of the 20 century. It was practiced in some 46 states.
  Mark Twain once termed lynching as an ``epidemic of bloody 
insanities.'' Compounding the tragedy of lynching is that fact that 
some 99 percent of the perpetrators of these crimes failed to receive 
any punishment for their actions.
  This resolution cannot make up for the Senate's past failures, but it 
will serve as a statement of remorse from this body. It has been said 
that one cannot judge the past through the lens of the present, but 
lynching should have been viewed as a crime in any time. The Senate, 
through this legislation, apologizes for its past mistakes, and seeks 
to redress the failure of this body to protect Americans from violent 
and sadistic behavior.
  No longer will this body permit an ``epidemic of bloody insanities'' 
to overtake this Nation.
  Mr. JEFFORDS. Mr. President, I would like to express my support for 
Senate passage of S. Res. 39, a resolution of apology for the Senate's 
failure to pass anti-lynching legislation.
  Some may wonder about the need to pass this resolution concerning 
events that occurred decades ago. I believe it is important that light 
be shown upon, and a discussion occur, about these horrific events. As 
the famous saying goes, ``Those who do not know history are doomed to 
repeat it.'' There were almost 5,000 documented cases of mob lynching 
in the United States since the Civil War. It is important to note that 
many historians believe this number should be doubled to include the 
undocumented cases that occurred.
  Lynchings occurred almost everywhere in the United States, and were 
in many cases examples of so-called mob justice which thwarted the 
decisions of or shortcut the American judicial system. Despite the 
national scope of these events, the Senate refused to pass anti-
lynching legislation that would provide greater protection to innocent 
victims and bring the guilty to justice.
  While we cannot reverse the decisions made by previous Senates, we 
can at the very least, offer our apologies and highlight this shameful 
period in American history. Only by exposing these terrible events, 
discussing how they occurred, and learning from them can we hope to 
avoid repeating them in the future.
  Ms. MIKULSKI. Mr. President, today the Senate acknowledges the dark 
side of our history. We apologize for a terrible wrong--the Senate's 
repeated failure to adopt anti-lynching legislation. This legislation 
is long, long overdue. I join my colleagues in offering this resolution 
as a way of saying how profoundly sorry we are that the Senate did not 
act decades earlier--when action might have saved lives. We also 
recommit ourselves to ensuring that this will never happen again.

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  The horrific practice of lynching is a stain on our Nation--and on 
our souls. There were over 4,700 documented lynchings in the United 
States. There were 29 documented lynchings in Maryland. These lynchings 
were public events, with members of the community colluding--either 
directly or indirectly--in this horrifying practice. It was no accident 
that they made them public--they were sending a message to other 
African Americans in the community. These crimes left thousands of 
people dead and families and communities scarred. Yet 99 percent of 
these murderers were never arrested or tried for their crimes.
  For many in Maryland, the history of lynchings is not an 
abstraction--it is the history of their family or their community. The 
Washington Post reported about a 1906 lynching in Annapolis, where 
Henry Davis was lynched on a bluff near College Creek just days before 
Christmas. There was George Armwood, who was lynched and burned by a 
mob in Princess Anne's County, and King Davis--who was lynched in 
Brooklyn, MD on Christmas Day in 1911. Many institutions throughout the 
Nation have tried to document the extent of this racial violence--but 
so many incidents went unreported that we will never have a true 
account of how many African Americans were murdered.
  Billie Holiday, a Baltimore native, tried to capture the despicable 
practice of lynching in her 1939 song ``Strange Fruit.'' Her career 
suffered because of the painful honesty of this song. Her record label 
refused to record it, and some of her concerts were cancelled. Yet 
Holiday's perseverance turned ``Strange Fruit'' into one of the ``most 
influential protest songs ever written'' and an inspiration for those 
fighting for racial justice.
  The Senate tried several times to put an end to this monstrous 
practice by outlawing it, but each time the measure died. This is a 
horrific failure that cost American lives. This failure will always be 
a scar on the record of the United States Senate.
  Today we apologize for this tragedy, though no action now can right 
this wrong. Although we acknowledge this dark side of our history, we 
cannot and should not want to erase it. We must ensure that it serves 
as a lesson about a time when we failed to protect individual rights 
and preserve freedom.
  This legislation is important to recognizing the evil of lynching and 
the failure of government to protect its citizens. It also stands as a 
symbol of our commitment to move our Nation forward so we can truly be 
a symbol of democracy.
  Next week in Baltimore, we will open the Reginald Lewis Museum of 
African American History and Culture. It will be a proud day--the 
celebration of a strong and proud history that has made our Nation 
great. This museum documents the courageous journeys toward freedom and 
self-determination for African Americans in Maryland and in America. 
Yet history must also acknowledge this dark side of our history. We 
must educate the next generations about the proud history, and mighty 
struggle that African Americans have endured in the United States.
  Today, this resolution stands as a painful reminder of that history. 
Yet it should also stand as a guiding principle--that we must always 
fight to protect the rights of all Americans. This resolution 
acknowledges that the Senate was wrong when it failed to enact anti-
lynching laws. But it also empowers us to move forward to do all that 
we can to strengthen opportunity for all Americans, to fight 
discrimination in every form and to ensure that we vigorously protect 
the rights of all Americans.
  Mr. ALEXANDER. Mr. President, this past February, I introduced the 
resolution celebrating Black History Month that follows these remarks. 
Thirty five other Senators have joined me in this effort. I offered 
this resolution in the spirit of my late friend Alex Haley, who lived 
his life by the words ``Find the Good and Praise It''. These six words 
are etched on his tombstone in the front yard of his grandparents' home 
in Henning, TN. When Alex was a boy, he would sit on the front porch 
steps of that home on summer evenings listening to his great aunts rock 
in their chairs and tell the stories that eventually became Roots, the 
story of the struggle for freedom and equality.
  It is in that spirit that the Black History Month resolution honors 
the contributions of African Americans throughout our history, 
recommits the United States Senate to the goals of liberty and equal 
opportunity for every American, condemns the horrors of slavery, 
lynching, segregation, and other instances in which our country has 
failed to measure up to its noble goals, and pledges to work to improve 
educational, health, and job opportunities for African Americans and 
for all Americans.
  African Americans were brought forcibly to these shores in the 17th 
century. From that dark beginning, however, these men and women and 
their descendants have overcome great obstacles. They continue to do 
so, and have taken a prominent place among the many people of diverse 
backgrounds who have come together here to form a single nation. 
African Americans have made and continue to make significant 
contributions to the economic, educational, political, artistic, 
literary, scientific, and technological advancement of the United 
States of America.
  Black History Month, and this discussion in the Senate today, offer 
an opportunity to remind ourselves that the United States of America is 
a work in progress. Ours is the story of a people establishing high 
ideals, and then struggling to reach them, often falling short, rarely 
achieving them, but always recommitting ourselves to trying again. This 
is why we continue to say that anything is possible in America, that no 
child shall be left behind, and that we will pay any price to defend 
freedom, although we well know that we will never quite reach such 
lofty ideals.
  Perhaps the most ambitious of our goals is the proposition, expressed 
in the Declaration of Independence, that ``all Men are created equal, 
that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, 
that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness. .  .  
. .'' Our most conspicuous failure to reach this goal is the treatment 
of African Americans. Slavery, lynching, and segregation are all 
disgraceful examples of times when this Nation failed African 
Americans, when we failed to live up to our own promise of that 
fundamental truth that all men are created equal.
  However, for almost every time that we have failed, we have then 
struggled to come to terms with the disappointment of that failure and 
recommitted ourselves to trying again. Where there once was slavery, we 
enacted the 13th and 14th amendments abolishing slavery and declaring 
equal protection under the law for all races. After segregation, came 
Brown v. Board of Education and the Voting Rights Act. There are so 
many moments like these in our history. We should celebrate these 
moments, but we should not stop there. We celebrate and remember our 
history so that we can learn its lessons and apply them today. Today's 
wrongs are begging for attention. African Americans in this country 
face significant and often crippling disparities in education, health 
care, quality of life, and other areas where the Federal Government can 
play a role.
  There are different ways to acknowledge those times when Americans 
have failed to live up to our lofty goals. The Senators from Louisiana 
and Virginia, who are also co-sponsors of our Black History Month 
resolution, have chosen to apologize for the actions of some earlier 
Senators as a way of expressing their revulsion to lynching. I also 
condemn lynching, and this Black History Month resolution condemns 
lynching. But, rather than begin to catalog and apologize for all those 
times that some Americans have failed to reach our goals, I prefer to 
look ahead. I prefer to look to correct current injustices rather than 
to look to the past. Maya Angelou once wrote, ``History, despite its 
wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need not 
be lived again.''
  There is no resolution of apology that we can pass today that will 
teach

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one more child to read, prevent one more case of AIDS, or stop one more 
violent crime. The best way for the United States Senate to condemn 
lynching is to get to work on legislation that would offer African 
Americans and other Americans better access to good schools, quality 
health care and decent jobs. By joining together in our Black History 
Month resolution, 35 members of this body commit ourselves to do just 
that, to find more ways to look to the future, and to continue to 
contribute to this work in progress that is the United States of 
America.
  I don't know what my friend Alex Haley would say about this Senate 
resolution or that Senate resolution. But I do know how he celebrated 
Black History Month. He told wonderful stories about African Americans 
and other Americans who believed in the struggle for freedom and the 
struggle for equality; he minced no words in describing the terrible 
injustices they overcame. He said to children that they were living in 
a wonderful country of great goals, and that while many in the past 
often had failed to reach those goals, that we Americans always 
recommit ourselves to keep trying.
  Mr. CORNYN. Mr. President, I wish to associate myself with the 
articulate and poignant remarks of the junior Senator from Tennessee. 
He is absolutely right, of course, that the era of widespread lynching 
in our nation's history is deplorable. And he is right that we must 
look to the future, to ensure that such crimes are never again allowed 
to occur.
  There are different ways to acknowledge those times when Americans 
have failed to achieve the goals we have set for ourselves. The Senator 
from Tennessee quotes Maya Angelou, who once wrote, ``History, despite 
its wrenching pain, cannot be unlived, but if faced with courage, need 
not be lived again.'' Indeed, let us learn from the past, and look 
forward with such courage.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Isakson). The Senator from Arkansas.
  Mr. PRYOR. Mr. President, I know we have other Senators on their way 
to the Chamber to speak.
  I suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The legislative clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. LANDRIEU. Mr. President, I am here tonight on behalf of my 
colleague from Virginia, Senator Allen, and all of our colleagues who 
participated in the debate to close out this evening on this very 
important and historic resolution, S. Res. 39, which has apologized 
formally, officially, and with great sincerity to the thousands of 
victims of lynching and to their descendants. It was, as was stated 
most eloquently and passionately on this floor, a very dark chapter, 
indeed, in American history, but a real mark against this Senate that, 
despite the repeated pleas of the victims and their families, thousands 
of Americans, the House of Representatives, and seven Presidents, of 
both parties, the Senate failed to act.
  Tonight the Senate has admitted its mistake and has taken a very 
positive step in admitting failure so that we can have a brighter 
future. I know that many of these victims and their families--
``survivors'' is really a better word--have triumphed against this 
evil. Many were African Americans, but they were people of all 
different races and religious backgrounds. Many of them were here 
tonight and have been with us all day today.
  I know their names are part of the record, but again they were James 
Cameron, 91 years old, a victim of lynching who miraculously survived 
to tell his story; Doria Johnson, the great-granddaughter of Anthony 
Crawford--Grandpa Crawford, as he has been called--from Abbeville, SC--
what a story that family has to tell. Dan Distel, the great-grandson of 
Ida Wells. What a brave and historic journalist she was. In the face of 
literally constant threats to her life, she continued to write. What a 
role model for journalists everywhere of the courage of what it really 
takes to tell a story. And she did it.
  We had many other family members and history professors with us 
today. There was a tremendous effort that enabled us to get to the 
floor tonight. As I wrap up, I want to again thank the staff. I thank 
my staff, including Jason Matthews, my deputy chief of staff; Kathleen 
Strottman, legislative director; Nash Molpus, who is with me on the 
floor. Our staff has been very helpful. Senator Allen's staff has also 
been remarkable and so many have contributed to this effort.
  I had many quotes to choose from, Mr. President, to end tonight. 
Really, there were hundreds of them that would be appropriate. But one 
was especially appropriate, for the close of this debate because, while 
it ends one chapter, it begins many new chapters in the history of our 
Nation. The woman I will quote from is one I have admired my whole 
life. I have read much about her and have been taught a lot about her. 
I will read this quote from this particular woman because it took guts 
to say what she did, at a time when people in America didn't want to 
hear it. This came at a time when people didn't want to hear what women 
had to say, generally, about any subject, let alone the subject of 
injustice and intolerance not only in our Nation but the world.
  The woman I will quote is Eleanor Roosevelt, who actually led a group 
of descendants into this Chamber in 1938 to urge the Senate, hopefully 
by their presence, to act--men and women who came with their own being, 
their own bodies to try to tell the Senate what you are reading about 
isn't true; these are innocent people. Eleanor Roosevelt escorted them 
to this Chamber and, of course, through all of their mighty efforts, 
actions were not taken, but not through any fault of hers. What I want 
to quote is what she wrote about universal human rights. I read this as 
a young legislator. Of course, we read lots of things, and some things 
stick and some don't. This particular quote is seared into my heart. I 
try to remember it every chance I get. I read it often, and I would 
like to read it tonight because it is very relevant to the debate that 
we have had. She wrote:

       Where, after all, do universal human rights begin? In small 
     places, close to home--so close and so small they cannot be 
     seen on any maps of the world. Yet they are the world of the 
     individual person, the neighborhood he lives in, the school 
     or college he attends, the factory, farm, or office where he 
     works. Such are the places where every man, woman, and child 
     seeks equal justice, equal opportunity, equal dignity without 
     discrimination. Unless these rights have meaning there, they 
     have little meaning anywhere. Without concerted citizen 
     action to uphold them close at home, we shall look for them 
     in vain in the larger world.

  We have heard stories today--hundreds of stories about these small 
places close to home--trees in a public square, river banks, levees, 
streets, alleys, open fields, behind school buildings, and in front of 
stores. This is where people want to experience dignity and justice. 
Some of these towns are so little they may still not be on any map of 
the United States. Maybe in some of these towns--because of what 
happened in the past--there are very few people who live there. And 
some of these places are quite large, where you can find them on the 
map. I think it is instructive for the Senate, as we make this sincere 
apology tonight, that we really take a breath and be very introspective 
to think about where these small places are in America, where these 
places of any size are in America, and recommit ourselves to be honest 
about our failings and our shortcomings, to be honest about the fact 
that we are not always as courageous as we should be.
  But when we come to a point where we know we made the wrong decision, 
we didn't act in the best interests of our country or the American 
citizens who look to us for their protection and their support, we 
should at least be able to sincerely say we are sorry. That is what we 
did tonight. I thank Eleanor Roosevelt. I am forever grateful for her 
great leadership for the country and for thousands of Americans, people 
of all races, who advocated for justice and freedom at great expense to 
their own life--which is not what most of us experience today, 
gratefully--with great

[[Page 12287]]

expense to their reputation, their livelihood. She was really not 
understood or appreciated in the world in which she lived.
  There were many children in the Senate today, these children and 
great, great, great-grandchildren. Some of the victims and some of the 
journalists who have written about this in the past were here. Let's 
make sure they know the truth and they know that tonight we apologize.
  Thank you, Mr. President.
  Mr. BENNETT. Mr. President, I have listened with great interest to 
the presentations that have been made on the floor and wish to be 
associated with the sentiments involved.
  I come from a State that does not have a history of lynchings, but 
that does not mean I should be absolved from the concern that all 
Americans should have over the lynchings that have occurred. I note 
that it was the filibuster that made it possible for the Senate to be 
the body that blocked this legislation in the past. I would hope that 
in the future, we would all realize that the filibuster should be used 
for more beneficial purposes than that.

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