Entries tagged with “Lynching”
Issues
Mar 31, 2022
More Than a Century After it Was First Proposed, President Biden Signs Historic Law Making Lynching a Federal Crime
After more than a century of efforts by civil rights leaders to make lynching a federal crime, President Joe Biden on March 29, 2022 signed into law historic anti-lynching legislation. Flanked by the bill’s sponsors, Vice President Kamala Harris, and family members of the late Ida B. Wells and Emmett Till in a ceremony on the White House lawn, Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act (pictured), officially denominating lynching a federal hate crime. The law allows for crimes — such as…
Issues
Sep 20, 2021
Chattanooga Dedicates Memorial to Ed Johnson, An Innocent Man Sentenced to Death on False Rape Charges and Lynched After U.S. Supreme Court Stayed His Execution
On September 19, 2021, community leaders in Chattanooga, Tennessee dedicated a memorial to Ed Johnson, an innocent Black man wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in 1906 for allegedly raping a white woman and lynched by a white mob after the U.S. Supreme Court issued an order staying his execution. The memorial also honors the two lawyers who worked to save him. Eric Atkins, vice chair of the Ed Johnson Project committee, which spearheaded the creation of the memorial, said, “Hopefully…