The House of Representatives on Monday night passed The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which would make lynching a federal hate crime. The bill received unanimous support save for three Republicans. Reps. Andrew Clyde (R-Ga.), Thomas Massie (R-Ky.), and Chip Roy (R-Texas) opposed the bill.
In explaining his “no” vote, Massie wrote in a Twitter thread that designating enhanced penalties “for ‘hate’ tends to endanger other liberties such as freedom of speech.” He also argued that lynching is illegal in all states already.
Roy issued a statement Tuesday explaining his decision. “Lynching is an unspeakably heinous crime,” he said. “But this bill doesn’t have anything to do with lynching, other than its name.” He called the bill “an effort to advance a woke agenda under the guise of correcting racial injustice” and said it is a “matter for the states.”
In a statement following the bill’s passage, Rep. Bobby L. Rush, who introduced the bill, recalled the killing of Emmett Till. Till, a 14 year-old child, was killed in 1955 by a group that accused him of flirting with a white woman. “I was eight years old when my mother put the photograph of Emmett Till’s brutalized body that ran in Jet magazine on our living room coffee table, pointed to it, and said, ‘This is why I brought my boys out of Albany, Georgia,’” Rush said. “That photograph shaped my consciousness as a black man in America, changed the course of my life, and changed our nation.”
Rush on Twitter called out the three Republicans who voted against the legislation, noting that Roy once described lynching as “an example of justice.”
Andrew Clyde, GA: Called the 1/6 insurrection a “normal tourist visit”
Thomas Massie, KY: Wrote a bill to allow guns in school zones
Chip Roy, TX: Called lynching an “example of justice”
All Republicans. Surprised?