Booker Celebrates Paul, Warnock Cosponsorship of Legislation Making Lynching a Federal Crime

Washington D.C. — Today, U.S. Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) announced that Senators Rand Paul (R-KY) and Dr. Rev. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) are now cosponsors of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act, legislation that would create a specific offense for lynching under existing federal hate crime statues. Booker introduced the bill yesterday as companion legislation introduced by Representative Bobby Rush (D-IL-1) passed the House with broad, bipartisan support.

“The effort to pass anti-lynching legislation has spanned more than a century. After 200 failed attempts, Congress is now finally prepared to reckon with America’s history of racialized violence,” said Sen. Booker. “I am proud to announce Senators Paul and Warnock as cosponsors of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Their support underscores the bipartisan backing that we have to finally meet this moment and help our nation move forward from some of its darkest chapters.”

“Strengthening the language of this bill has been my goal all along, and I’m pleased to have worked with Senators Cory Booker and Tim Scott to get this right and ensure the language of this bill defines lynching as the absolutely heinous crime that it is,” said Dr. Paul. “I’m glad to cosponsor this bipartisan effort and urge the Senate to quickly pass it.”

In 1918, Congressman Leonidas C. Dyer (R-MO) became the first member of Congress to introduce a bill on the issue of lynching. His legislation, intended to punish authorities who failed to prevent lynching, ultimately died in the Senate after facing stiff opposition. After 200 failed attempts by Congress to pass anti-lynching legislation, Congress is now prepared to criminalize lynching as an instrument of terror and intimidation used against more than 4,000 African-African men, women, and children during the late 19th and 20th centuries, according to data from the Equal Justice Initiative.

In 2019, Booker, Scott, and then-Senator Kamala Harris (D-CA) led unanimous passage of an earlier version of the legislation on the Senate floor. That motion passed, marking a historic step towards the first federal anti-lynching law in the United States.

Full text of the Emmett Till Antilynching Act can be found here. The legislation is supported by: Equal Justice Initiative, The Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law, National Action Network, National Coalition on Black Civic Participation, Black Women’s Roundtable, Anti-Defamation League, and the National Urban League.