Washington Week with The Atlantic

What the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act does for civil rights

Season 2022 Episode 13 | 11m 37s

President Biden on Tuesday signed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act into law. The law makes lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history. The bill's named after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who was brutally murdered in 1955 by a group of white men in Mississippi. His mother's decision to have an open casket funeral for him made a huge impact on the civil rights fight.

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