Editing Lynching (section)

====Anti-lynching legislation and the civil rights movement====
The [[Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill]] was first introduced to the [[United States Congress]] in 1918 by [[Republican Party (United States)|Republican]] Congressman [[Leonidas C. Dyer]] of [[St. Louis, Missouri]]. The bill was passed by the [[United States House of Representatives]] in 1922, and in the same year it was given a favorable report by the [[United States Senate]] Committee. Its passage was blocked by White Democratic senators from the [[Solid South]], the only representatives elected since the southern states [[Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era|had disenfranchised African Americans]] around the start of the 20th century.<ref>[https://ssrn.com/abstract=224731 Richard H. Pildes, "Democracy, Anti-Democracy, and the Canon", ''Constitutional Commentary'', Vol. 17, 2000]. Accessed March 10, 2008.</ref> The Dyer Bill influenced later anti-lynching legislation, including the [[Costigan-Wagner Bill]], which was also defeated in the US Senate.<ref>Zangrando, NAACP Crusade, pp. 43–44, 54.</ref>

The song "[[Strange Fruit]]" was composed by [[Abel Meeropol]] in 1937, inspired by the photograph of a lynching in Marion, Indiana. Meeropol said of the photograph, "It haunted me for days."<ref>{{Cite book|title=The Cross and the Lynching Tree|url=https://archive.org/details/crosslynchingtre0000cone|url-access=registration|last=Cone|first=James H.|publisher=Oribis Books|year=2011|location=Maryknoll, New York|pages=[https://archive.org/details/crosslynchingtre0000cone/page/134 134]}}</ref> It was published as a poem in the ''New York Teacher'' and later in the magazine ''[[New Masses]]'', in both cases under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. The poem was set to music, also by Meeropol, and the song was performed and popularized by [[Billie Holiday]].<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/strangefruit/film.html|website=Pbs.org|title=Strange Fruit}} PBS ''Independent Lens'' credits the music as well as the words to Meeropol, though Billie Holiday's autobiography and the Spartacus article credit her with co-authoring the song.</ref> The song has been performed by many other singers, including [[Nina Simone]].

By the 1950s, the [[civil rights movement]] was gaining new momentum. It was spurred by the lynching of [[Emmett Till]], a 14-year-old youth from Chicago who was killed while visiting an uncle in Mississippi. His mother insisted on having an open-casket funeral so that people could see how badly her son had been beaten. The Black community throughout the U.S. became mobilized.<ref name="Atlantic"/> Vann R. Newkirk wrote "the trial of his killers became a pageant illuminating the tyranny of [[white supremacy]]".<ref name="Atlantic">{{Cite news|url=https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2017/02/how-the-blood-of-emmett-till-still-stains-america-today/516891/|title=How 'The Blood of Emmett Till' Still Stains America Today|last=II|first=Vann R. Newkirk|work=The Atlantic|access-date=July 3, 2017|language=en-US}}</ref> The state of Mississippi tried two defendants, but they were acquitted by an [[Racial discrimination in jury selection|all-white jury]].<ref>Whitfield, Stephen (1991). ''A Death in the Delta: The Story of Emmett Till''. pp 41–42. JHU Press.</ref> David Jackson writes that it was the photograph of the "child's ravaged body, that forced the world to reckon with the brutality of [[American racism]]."<ref>{{cite magazine|url=http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson|title=How The Horrific Photograph Of Emmett Till Helped Energize The Civil Rights Movement|magazine=[[Time (magazine)|Time]]|access-date=July 3, 2017|archive-date=July 6, 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170706123149/http://100photos.time.com/photos/emmett-till-david-jackson|url-status=dead}}</ref>

Most lynchings ceased by the 1960s,<ref name=tuskegee_umkc>{{cite web |url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingsstate.html |title=Lynchings: By State and Race, 1882–1968 |access-date=July 26, 2010 |quote=Statistics provided by the Archives at Tuskegee Institute. |publisher=University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100629081241/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingsstate.html |archive-date=June 29, 2010 }}</ref><ref name=tuskegee_umkc2>{{cite web |url=http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html |title=Lynchings: By Year and Race |access-date=July 26, 2010 |quote=Statistics provided by the Archives at Tuskegee Institute. |publisher=University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100724162418/http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/shipp/lynchingyear.html |archive-date=July 24, 2010 }}</ref> but even in 2021 there were claims that racist lynchings still happen in the United States, being covered up as suicides.<ref>{{cite news|first=DeNeen L. |last=Brown |url=https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/08/08/modern-day-mississippi-lynchings |title='Lynchings in Mississippi never stopped' |newspaper=The Washington Post |date=August 8, 2021 |accessdate=February 16, 2022}}</ref>

In 2018, the [[National Memorial for Peace and Justice]] was opened in Montgomery, Alabama, a memorial that commemorates the victims of lynchings in the United States.

On March 29, 2022, President [[Joe Biden]] signed the [[Emmett Till Antilynching Act]] of 2022 into law, which classified lynching as a federal [[hate crime]].<ref>{{Cite news |last=Zaslav |first=Ali |date=March 8, 2022 |title=Senate passes Emmett Till Antilynching Act of 2022 |url=https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/07/politics/senate-passes-antilynching-law/index.html |access-date=March 29, 2022 |work=CNN}}</ref><ref>{{Cite news |last=Shear |first=Michael D. |date=March 29, 2022 |title=Biden Signs Bill to Make Lynching a Federal Crime |language=en-US |work=The New York Times |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/us/politics/biden-signs-anti-lynching-bill.html |access-date=March 30, 2022 |issn=0362-4331}}</ref>