Feature Story from civilrights.org
Tyler Lewis
June 16, 2005
The Senate approved by voice vote Monday a resolution apologizing to descendants of lynching victims for its repeated failure to enact anti-lynching legislation.
Resolution 39 apologizes for more than 4,700 recorded cases of lynching in America between 1882 and 1963--three-quarters of which were committed against Blacks. It marks the first time members of Congress have apologized to Blacks for any reason.
Congress has apologized to Japanese-Americans for their internment during World War II and to Hawaiians for the overthrow of their kingdom.
Resolution 39 comes at a time when the nation is confronting other troubling aspects of its past.
Trial began Monday in the murder case against Edgar Ray "Preacher" Killen for the slaying of three civil rights workers in 1964.
Earlier this year, the FBI was granted permission to exhume the body of Emmett Till, the fourteen-year old boy who was killed for allegedly whistling at a white woman in 1955. The FBI believes that the exhumation will lead to more clues into the slaying that was a pivotal moment in the civil rights movement.
Nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced by the House during the first half of the 20th century, but they were repeatedly filibustered by the Senate.
Seven U.S. Presidents petitioned Congress to end lynching between 1890 and 1952; between 1920 and 1940, the House passed 3 strong anti-lynching measures. These measures never made it through the Senate, however.
In an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, Sen. Mary Landrieu, D. La., chief sponsor of the resolution along with Sen. George Allen, R. Va., criticized the Senate for not outlawing lynching before now. "This was a community spectacle and the Senate of the United States knew it. There may be no other injustice in American history for which the Senate so uniquely bears responsibility," Landrieu said.
The resolution makes the same point: "Whereas protection against lynching was the minimum and most basic of Federal responsibilities, and the Senate considered but failed to enact anti-lynching legislation despite repeated requests by civil rights groups, Presidents, and the House of Representatives to do so."
Resolution 39 comes just days after Senate confirmation of three appeals court judges--Priscilla Owen, Janice Rogers Brown, and William Pryor--who had generated strong opposition because of their records on civil rights.
