Finally, after 100 years and multiple attempts, federal legislation was passed outlawing lynching and making it a federal crime. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act passed through the House and Senate and was recently signed into law by President Joe Biden.
The first attempt to pass an anti-lynching law was in 1900 by North Carolina Rep. George Henry White, the only Black member of the U.S. Congress at the time. In the 1920s, the NAACP began its efforts to pass an anti-lynching bill. In all, there were 240 attempts to pass an anti-lynching law since that time – and all of them failed to get past the Senate.
It would seem like common sense to pass a law that makes it illegal to kill a person but, for some reason, for 120 years that logic failed to convince enough senators to vote to enact this law.
There have been more than 4,300 documented cases of lynching from 1880 to 1950. Most lynchings in the Southeast were used to as means to subjugate and terrorize Black people. The majority of lynchings in the Southwest were of white people.
It is believed that since 2000 there have been eight lynchings in Mississippi, and there was the infamous plan to lynch Vice President Mike Pence and Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. So if you think lynching is something out of the past, you are mistaken. Mob violence is still alive and well, just ask the grieving family of Ahmaud Arbery. Not every lynching is committed with a rope; it sometimes involves guns, cars and various forms of torture.
The other big news is that the most popular U.S. Supreme Court nominee in recent history was confirmed by a 53 to 47 vote. Three Republicans defied their party and did the right thing to confirm Ketanji Brown Jackson. After 240 years, this country has made history in confirming its first Black female Supreme Court Justice.
The horrible questioning Brown Jackson had to endure – and that Florida Sens. Rick Scott and Marco Rubio did not support this Miami-born nominee – was simply sad. Even Sen. Lindsey Graham was willing to throw down for the South Carolina Black nominee, but Rubio and Scott could not support a Florida candidate. They are both a disgrace.
My father, who was born in 1926, could never get over the fact that this country had elected a Black president. He would be equally amazed that we will soon have a Black woman sitting as justice on the highest court of the land.
I am now praying that we can somehow replace two more conservative justices and reverse some Trump appointee rulings to start making America great again. An America that is open to all races, welcomes immigrants, protects the rights of the weak and the poor, and where the rule of law and justice reigns.
The court is still a 6-3 conservative court, even with Brown Jackson, so we have a lot of work ahead of us to undo the harm caused by Trump and Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has vowed that he will not confirm any more Biden picks if Republicans obtain a Senate majority in the midterm elections.
Reginald J. Clyne is a Miami trial lawyer who has practiced in some of the largest law firms in the United States. Clyne has been in practice since 1987 and tries cases in both state and federal court. He has lived in Africa, Brazil, Honduras and Nicaragua.
