On Tuesday, President Joe Biden signed a bill into law that makes lynching a hate crime.
The Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act is the first federal law in the country to designate lynching hate crime after multiple attempts over the past twelve decades failed, NPR reports.
Biden signed the law in the White House Rose Garden, where he also spoke about the terrible history of lynching in America.
“Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone … belongs in America, not everyone is created equal,” he said, according to CNN. “Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated.”
Lynchings have impacted every oppressed group throughout America. The Equal Justice Initiative says 4,400 African Americans were lynched between 1877 and 1950, BBC reports. In 1871, 19 Chinese immigrants were lynched in Los Angeles, California.
The law comes at a time when hate crimes in America have reached the highest level in a decade. President Biden thanked those who worked to push the bill forward.
“Thank you for never giving up, never ever giving up,” he said, according to CNN.
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