[House Report 116-267]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
116th Congress } { Report
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
1st Session } { 116-267
======================================================================
EMMETT TILL ANTILYNCHING ACT
_______
October 31, 2019.--Committed to the Committee of the Whole House on the
State of the Union and ordered to be printed
_______
Mr. Nadler, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the
following
R E P O R T
[To accompany H.R. 35]
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the
bill (H.R. 35) to amend section 249 of title 18, United States
Code, to specify lynching as a hate crime act, having
considered the same, report favorably thereon without amendment
and recommend that the bill do pass.
CONTENTS
Page
Purpose and Summary.............................................. 1
Background and Need for the Legislation.......................... 2
Hearings......................................................... 5
Committee Consideration.......................................... 5
Committee Votes.................................................. 5
Committee Oversight Findings..................................... 5
New Budget Authority and Tax Expenditures and Congressional
Budget Office Cost Estimate.................................... 5
Duplication of Federal Programs.................................. 5
Performance Goals and Objectives................................. 5
Advisory on Earmarks............................................. 5
Section-by-Section Analysis...................................... 6
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported............ 6
Purpose and Summary
H.R. 35, the ``Emmett Till Antilynching Act,'' would amend
section 249 of title 18, United States Code, to specify
lynching as a hate crime under federal law. The bill corrects a
longstanding omission from Federal civil rights law.
Background and Need for the Legislation
Lynchings were violent and public acts of torture used for
nearly a century to enforce racial segregation.\1\ Despite
claiming the lives of thousands of victims, the perpetrators of
these acts of terror were never held accountable and official
inaction has left lasting scars on impacted communities.\2\
Despite enacting a broad range of civil rights protections, the
Federal government has never specifically outlawed lynching,
despite the unique damage it caused to the fabric of democratic
society.
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\1\Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America: Confronting the
Legacy of Racial Terror, at 5 (3rd ed. 2017), https://
lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report-landing (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
\2\Id. at 4.
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Lynching has been generally defined as a premeditated
extrajudicial killing by a group.\3\ The term has been most
often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob
in order to punish an alleged transgressor or to intimidate a
group. Lynching can also be employed as an extreme form of
informal group social control, and often conducted with the
display of a public spectacle for maximum intimidation. H.R. 35
is named in honor of Emmitt Till, a 14-year-old African
American youth from Chicago who was lynched in 1955 while
visiting an uncle in Mississippi.\4\
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\3\See Amy Louise Wood, Rough Justice: Lynching and American
Society 1874-1947 (North Carolina University Press (2009)).
\4\At his mother's insistence, Till received an open-casket funeral
so that people could see how badly her son had been beaten, which
galvanized the response of the African American community throughout
the nation. The state of Mississippi tried two defendants for his
murder, but they were acquitted by an all-white jury, and later
admitted their guilt.
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During the period between the Civil War and World War II,
thousands of African Americans were lynched in the United
States. Though lynching touched all races and religions, the
practice was predominant in the South, and four out of five
victims were African American. In 1892, the Tuskegee Institute
began to record statistics of lynchings and reported that 4,742
reported incidents had taken place by 1968, of which 3,445 of
the victims were African Americans.\5\ Through additional
research, the Equal Justice Initiative (``EJI'') documented
4,075 ``racial terror lynchings'' in twelve Southern states
between the end of Reconstruction in 1877 and 1950.\6\ These
violent incidents profoundly impacted race relations and shaped
the geographic, political, social, and economic conditions of
African American communities in ways that are still evident
today and were largely tolerated by state and federal
officials.
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\5\See Tuskegee University Archives Repository, Lynching, Whites &
Negroes, 1882-1968, retrieved at http://archive.tuskegee.edu/archive/
handle/123456789/51; Jessie P. Guzman, Negro Yearbook (1952), at 275-
279, https://archive.org/details/negroyearbook52tuskrich (last visited
Oct. 29, 2019).
\6\See Equal Justice Initiative, Lynching in America; Confronting
the Legacy of Racial Terror, at 5 (3rd ed. 2017), https://
lynchinginamerica.eji.org/report-landing (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
EJI distinguishes ``terror lynchings'' from racial violence and hate
crimes that were prosecuted as criminal acts, classifying the incidents
as acts of terrorism because the murders were carried out with
impunity, sometimes in broad daylight, often ``on the courthouse
lawn.''
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By the end of the nineteenth century, Southern lynching had
become a tool of racial control that terrorized and targeted
African Americans and their communities for wider violence.
Though the circumstances of the thousands of African Americans
lynched between 1877 and 1950 differed in many respects, in
most cases, their murders can be categorized as one or more of
the following: (1) Lynchings that resulted from a wildly
distorted fear of interracial sex; (2) lynchings in response to
casual social transgressions; (3) lynchings based on
allegations of serious violent crime; (4) public spectacle
lynchings; (5) lynchings that escalated into large-scale
violence targeting the entire African American community; and
(6) lynchings of sharecroppers, ministers, and community
leaders who resisted mistreatment, which were most common
between 1915 and 1940.\7\ EJI research revealed that lynchings
peaked between 1880 and 1940, with Mississippi, Georgia, and
Louisiana having the highest absolute number of African
American victims during this period.
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\7\Id. at 10.
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The antilynching movement set the stage for the creation of
the civil rights movement that we recognize today. African-
Americans undertook efforts to combat the terror of lynching
and the threat of racial violence through grassroots activism
and the founding of integrated social justice organizations.
The work of the National Association for the Advancement of
Colored People (``NAACP'') was pivotal in awakening the nation
to the urgency of combatting lynching. Founded in 1909 as an
interracial civil rights protest organization, the NAACP
conducted thorough investigations of lynchings and other crimes
committed against African Americans and issued regular reports
concerning the incidents. In 1919 the NAACP published Thirty
Years of Lynching in the United States, 1889-1918, which was a
revelation of the causes of lynching and the circumstances
under which the crimes occurred.\8\ Beginning in 1921, the
NAACP also actively began endorsing antilynching legislation to
make lynching a federal crime. Anti-lynching activists, like
journalists Ida B. Wells and T. Thomas Fortune and Tuskegee
sociologist Monroe Work, further harnessed the growing power of
the black press to demand national accountability for racial
violence.
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\8\National Association for the Advancement of Colored People,
Thirty Years of Lynching in the United States 1889-1918 (Apr. 1919),
https://www.loc.gov/teachers/classroommaterials/primarysourcesets/
naacp/pdf/lynching.pdf (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
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The first federal antilynching legislation was introduced
by Congressman George Henry White, then the only African
American Member of Congress, in 1900 and referred to the
Committee on the Judiciary.\9\ During the first half of the
twentieth century, nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were
introduced in Congress, but none were successful. Between 1920
and 1940, the House of Representatives passed three strong
antilynching measures, the closest of which Congress came to
enacting was sponsored by Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer in 1922.
The Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill provided fines and imprisonment for
persons convicted of lynching in federal courts, and fines and
penalties against states, counties, and towns which failed to
use reasonable efforts to protect citizens from mob violence.
Although the bill was quickly passed by a large majority in the
House of Representatives, and supported by then-President
Warren G. Harding, it was prevented from coming to a vote in
1922, 1923, and 1924 in the Senate due to filibusters by the
Southern Democratic bloc who claimed the legislation would be
unconstitutional and an infringement upon states' rights.\10\
However, the extensive debate on the bill, in combination with
the 1919 NAACP report and the related National Conference on
Lynching, moved local and state governments to take lynching
more seriously, leading to a dramatic decrease of incidents
after 1922.\11\
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\9\See Benjamin Justensen, George Henry White and the Anti-Lynching
Bill of 1900 (Sept. 17, 2016), https://www.georgehenrywhite.com/single-
post/2016/09/17/George-Henry-White-and-the-Anti-Lynching-Bill-of-1900
(last visited Oct. 29, 2019). Rep. White's legislation was ultimately
unsuccessful and would not be voted on by the House of Representatives
before his departure from that body in 1901.
\10\See Office of the Historian, U.S. House of Representatives,
Office of the Historian, Black Americans in Congress, 1870-2007, Anti-
Lynching Legislation Renewed, U.S. Government Printing Office (2008),
https://history.house.gov/Exhibitions-and-Publications/BAIC/Historical-
Essays/Temporary-Farewell/Anti-Lynching-Legislation/ (last visited Oct.
29, 2019).
\11\Southern white organizations also began to condemn lynchings
during the two decades before World War II. Among them were the
Commission for Interracial Cooperation, which did research and issued
publications that provided additional facts on lynchings, and the
Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynching, which was
founded in Atlanta in 1930. See Robert A. Gibson, The Negro Holocaust:
Lynching and Race Riots in the United States 1880-1950, Yale-New Haven
Teacher's Institute (2004) http://teachersinstitute.yale.edu/
curriculum/units/1979/2/79.02.04.x.html (last visited Oct. 29, 2019).
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The enactment of the Civil Rights Act of 1968 was the
closest that Congress ever came in the post-Reconstruction era
to enacting anti-lynching legislation. Codified at 18 U.S.C.
Sec. 241, the civil rights conspiracy statute makes it unlawful
for two or more persons to conspire to injure, oppress,
threaten, or intimidate any person of any state, territory, or
district in the free exercise or enjoyment of any right or
privilege secured to him or her by the Constitution or the laws
of the United States (or because of his or her having exercised
the same) and further makes it unlawful for two or more persons
to go in disguise on the highway or premises of another person
with intent to prevent or hinder his or her free exercise or
enjoyment of such rights.\12\ Though section 241 does not
specify the offense of lynching as a federal crime, this
section has been used by the Department of Justice to prosecute
civil rights era crimes and hate crimes that were described as
lynching in public discourse.
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\12\Depending upon the circumstances of the crime, and any
resulting injury, the offense is punishable by a range of fines and/or
imprisonment for any term of years up to life, or the death penalty. 18
U.S.C. Sec. 241.
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Despite the existence of federal criminal enforcement
against hate crimes, it remains important to enact federal
antilynching legislation due to the historical context of these
violent incidents. Lynching was a violent tactic of racial
subordination and closely linked to the deprivation of
freedmen's post-Reconstruction constitutional rights. The fear
of lynching was also a major factor in the Great Migration to
the North and changed the demographics of the nation.
Politically, the terms of the lynching debate still echo
through Congress and influence the debate around social justice
policy. For that reason, in 2005, the Senate passed a
resolution, sponsored by Senators Mary Landrieu and George
Allen, apologizing for the Senate's failure to enact
antilynching legislation as a Federal crime, with Senator
Landrieu commenting that, ``There may be no other injustice in
American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears
responsibility.''\13\ Taking a further step to equal the record
of the House of Representatives, the Senate voted unanimously
in favor of the Justice for Victims of Lynching Act on December
19, 2018, putting to rest nearly a century of opposition to
antilynching legislation in the that chamber.
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\13\151 Cong. Rec. S6365 (daily ed. June 13, 2005) (statement of
Sen. Landrieu); (Avis Thomas-Lester, A Senate Apology for Lynching,
Washington Post, June 14, 2005, https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/
politics/2005/06/14/a-senate-apology-for-history-on-lynching/324dade8-
ec0e-46d9-9674-c81c247eb214/.
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Hearings
The Committee on the Judiciary held no hearings on H.R. 35.
Committee Consideration
On June 12, 2019, the Committee met in open session and
ordered the bill, H.R. 35, favorably reported without
amendment, by a voice vote, a quorum being present.
Committee Votes
In compliance with clause 3(b) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, the Committee advises that no
rollcall votes occurred during the Committee's consideration of
H.R. 35.
Committee Oversight Findings
In compliance with clause 3(c)(1) of rule XIII of the Rules
of the House of Representatives, the Committee advises that the
findings and recommendations of the Committee, based on
oversight activities under clause 2(b)(1) of rule X of the
Rules of the House of Representatives, are incorporated in the
descriptive portions of this report.
New Budget Authority and Tax Expenditures and Congressional Budget
Office Cost Estimate
With respect to the requirements of clause 3(c)(2) of rule
XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives and section
308(a) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974 and with respect
to requirements of clause (3)(c)(3) of rule XIII of the Rules
of the House of Representatives and section 402 of the
Congressional Budget Act of 1974, the Committee has requested
but not received a cost estimate for this bill from the
Director of Congressional Budget Office. The Committee has
requested but not received from the Director of the
Congressional Budget Office a statement as to whether this bill
contains any new budget authority, spending authority, credit
authority, or an increase or decrease in revenues or tax
expenditures.
Duplication of Federal Programs
No provision of H.R. 35 establishes or reauthorizes a
program of the federal government known to be duplicative of
another federal program, a program that was included in any
report from the Government Accountability Office to Congress
pursuant to section 21 of Public Law 111-139, or a program
related to a program identified in the most recent Catalog of
Federal Domestic Assistance.
Performance Goals and Objectives
The Committee states that pursuant to clause 3(c)(4) of
rule XIII of the Rules of the House of Representatives, H.R. 35
will increase public safety and heal past and present racial
injustice.
Advisory on Earmarks
In accordance with clause 9 of rule XXI of the Rules of the
House of Representatives, H.R. 35 does not contain any
congressional earmarks, limited tax benefits, or limited tariff
benefits as defined in clause 9(d), 9(e), or 9(f) of rule XXI.
Section-by-Section Analysis
The following discussion describes the bill as reported by
the Committee.
Sec. 1. Short title. Section 1 sets forth the short title
of the bill as the ``Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act.''
Sec. 2. Findings. Section 2 sets forth a series of findings
regarding: (1) the history and statistics of lynching incidents
in the United States, (2) actions taken by citizen groups to
advocate for antilynching legislation, and (3) the frequency,
historical character, and legislative history of federal
antilynching legislation.
Sec. 3. Specifying lynching as a hate crime act. Section 3
amends 18 U.S.C. Sec. 249(a) to add a new subjection that
designates lynching as a hate crime punishable by a prison term
up to life, a fine, or both.
Changes in Existing Law Made by the Bill, as Reported
In compliance with clause 3(e) of rule XIII of the Rules of
the House of Representatives, changes in existing law made by
the bill, as reported, are shown as follows (existing law
proposed to be omitted is enclosed in black brackets, new
matter is printed in italic, and existing law in which no
change is proposed is shown in roman):
TITLE 18, UNITED STATES CODE
PART I--CRIMES
* * * * * * *
CHAPTER 13--CIVIL RIGHTS
* * * * * * *
Sec. 249. Hate crime acts
(a) In General.--
(1) Offenses involving actual or perceived race,
color, religion, or national origin.--Whoever, whether
or not acting under color of law, willfully causes
bodily injury to any person or, through the use of
fire, a firearm, a dangerous weapon, or an explosive or
incendiary device, attempts to cause bodily injury to
any person, because of the actual or perceived race,
color, religion, or national origin of any person--
(A) shall be imprisoned not more than 10
years, fined in accordance with this title, or
both; and
(B) shall be imprisoned for any term of years
or for life, fined in accordance with this
title, or both, if--
(i) death results from the offense;
or
(ii) the offense includes kidnapping
or an attempt to kidnap, aggravated
sexual abuse or an attempt to commit
aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt
to kill.
(2) Offenses involving actual or perceived religion,
national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender
identity, or disability.--
(A) In general.--Whoever, whether or not
acting under color of law, in any circumstance
described in subparagraph (B) or paragraph (3),
willfully causes bodily injury to any person
or, through the use of fire, a firearm, a
dangerous weapon, or an explosive or incendiary
device, attempts to cause bodily injury to any
person, because of the actual or perceived
religion, national origin, gender, sexual
orientation, gender identity, or disability of
any person--
(i) shall be imprisoned not more than
10 years, fined in accordance with this
title, or both; and
(ii) shall be imprisoned for any term
of years or for life, fined in
accordance with this title, or both,
if--
(I) death results from the
offense; or
(II) the offense includes
kidnapping or an attempt to
kidnap, aggravated sexual abuse
or an attempt to commit
aggravated sexual abuse, or an
attempt to kill.
(B) Circumstances described.--For purposes of
subparagraph (A), the circumstances described
in this subparagraph are that--
(i) the conduct described in
subparagraph (A) occurs during the
course of, or as the result of, the
travel of the defendant or the victim--
(I) across a State line or
national border; or
(II) using a channel,
facility, or instrumentality of
interstate or foreign commerce;
(ii) the defendant uses a channel,
facility, or instrumentality of
interstate or foreign commerce in
connection with the conduct described
in subparagraph (A);
(iii) in connection with the conduct
described in subparagraph (A), the
defendant employs a firearm, dangerous
weapon, explosive or incendiary device,
or other weapon that has traveled in
interstate or foreign commerce; or
(iv) the conduct described in
subparagraph (A)--
(I) interferes with
commercial or other economic
activity in which the victim is
engaged at the time of the
conduct; or
(II) otherwise affects
interstate or foreign commerce.
(3) Offenses occurring in the special maritime or
territorial jurisdiction of the united states.--
Whoever, within the special maritime or territorial
jurisdiction of the United States, engages in conduct
described in paragraph (1) or in paragraph (2)(A)
(without regard to whether that conduct occurred in a
circumstance described in paragraph (2)(B)) shall be
subject to the same penalties as prescribed in those
paragraphs.
(4) Offenses involving lynching.--Whoever, whether or
not acting under color of law, willfully, acting as
part of any collection of people, assembled for the
purpose and with the intention of committing an act of
violence upon any person, causes death to any person,
shall be imprisoned for any term of years or for life,
fined under this title, or both.
[(4)] (5) Guidelines.--All prosecutions conducted by
the United States under this section shall be
undertaken pursuant to guidelines issued by the
Attorney General, or the designee of the Attorney
General, to be included in the United States Attorneys'
Manual that shall establish neutral and objective
criteria for determining whether a crime was committed
because of the actual or perceived status of any
person.
(b) Certification Requirement.--
(1) In general.--No prosecution of any offense
described in this subsection may be undertaken by the
United States, except under the certification in
writing of the Attorney General, or a designee, that--
(A) the State does not have jurisdiction;
(B) the State has requested that the Federal
Government assume jurisdiction;
(C) the verdict or sentence obtained pursuant
to State charges left demonstratively
unvindicated the Federal interest in
eradicating bias-motivated violence; or
(D) a prosecution by the United States is in
the public interest and necessary to secure
substantial justice.
(2) Rule of construction.--Nothing in this subsection
shall be construed to limit the authority of Federal
officers, or a Federal grand jury, to investigate
possible violations of this section.
(c) Definitions.--In this section--
(1) the term ``bodily injury'' has the meaning given
such term in section 1365(h)(4) of this title, but does
not include solely emotional or psychological harm to
the victim;
(2) the term ``explosive or incendiary device'' has
the meaning given such term in section 232 of this
title;
(3) the term ``firearm'' has the meaning given such
term in section 921(a) of this title;
(4) the term ``gender identity'' means actual or
perceived gender-related characteristics; and
(5) the term ``State'' includes the District of
Columbia, Puerto Rico, and any other territory or
possession of the United States.
(d) Statute of Limitations.--
(1) Offenses not resulting in death.--Except as
provided in paragraph (2), no person shall be
prosecuted, tried, or punished for any offense under
this section unless the indictment for such offense is
found, or the information for such offense is
instituted, not later than 7 years after the date on
which the offense was committed.
(2) Death resulting offenses.--An indictment or
information alleging that an offense under this section
resulted in death may be found or instituted at any
time without limitation.