(WASHINGTON) — President Joe Biden has signed the Emmett Till Anti-lynching Act into law Tuesday, making lynching a hate crime under federal law.

“It was pure terror, to enforce the lie that not everyone — not everyone belongs in America, not everyone is created equal,” Biden said. “Terror, to systematically undermine hard fought civil rights, terror, not just in the dark of night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children, hung by nooses, from trees, bodies burned and drowned, castrated.”

Congress failed to pass anti-lynching legislation over 200 times before the bill finally moved forward this year. The bill is the first legislation of its kind in more than 100 years to be signed into law.

Lynchings were used to murder and terrorize the Black community in the U.S., predominantly in the South, from the 1880s to 1960s, the NAACP states.

Of people who were killed in lynchings, Biden said: “Their crimes? Trying to vote, trying to go to school, trying to own a business, or preach the gospel.”

The Equal Justice Initiative, a racial justice advocacy and research organization, has documented nearly 6,500 racial terror lynchings in the U.S. between 1865 and 1950.

Under the bill, an offense can be prosecuted as a lynching when the offender conspires to commit a hate crime that results in someone’s death or serious bodily injury under this bill. This includes kidnapping and aggravated sexual abuse or an attempt to kidnap, abuse, or kill.

A perpetrator can be sentenced to up to 30 years in prison for lynching alone, raising the maximum sentence by 20 years from previous versions of the legislation.

The act is named after 14-year-old Emmett Till, who was kidnapped, beaten and killed in Mississippi in August 1955 after being accused of whistling at a white woman.

Till’s cousin, Reverend Wheeler Parker, Jr., thanked legislators for enshrining this bill into law.

“My cousin was a bright, promising 14-year-old from Chicago,” Parker said in a statement to ABC News. “My family was devastated that no one was held responsible for the abduction, torture, and murder of Emmett. But we are heartened by this new law, which shows that Emmett still speaks in powerful ways to make sure that no one can get away with a racist crime like this ever again”

Till’s death remains a symbol of racism and brutality against Black people in the U.S.

“While this will not erase the horrific injustices to which 10s of 1000s of African Americans have been subjected over the generations, nor fully heal the terror inflicted on countless others, it is an important step forward as we continue the work of confronting our nation’s past in pursuit of a brighter and more just future,” said Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on the Senate floor.

Biden also recalled recent acts of violence against Black people, including the fatal killing of Ahmaud Arbery.

“The law is not just about the past. It’s about the present and our future as well,” he said.

Black Americans remain the most targeted group in the U.S. when it comes to reported hate crimes. They made up 2,871 of the 8,263 reported hate crimes in 2020 — or 34% — according to the FBI.

The Senate passed the bill unanimously on March 7.

Members of Congress applauded the bill’s progress following several years of attempts to pass it. Rep. Bobby L. Rush, D-Ill., who has been sponsoring such a bill since the 115th Congress, said that the bill is one step toward correcting “historical injustice.”

“By passing my Emmett Till Antilynching Act, the House has sent a resounding message that our nation is finally reckoning with one of the darkest and most horrific periods of our history and that we are morally and legally committed to changing course,” said Rush after the House passed the bill in February.

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(WASHINGTON) — The Biden administration on Tuesday warned the U.S. Supreme Court that “survival of the nation is at stake” in a dispute with the state of Texas over a federal law meant to protect military service members from job discrimination after completing a tour of duty.

The case involves a former Texas state trooper and Army reservist, Le Roy Torres, who was deployed in 2007 to Iraq, where he suffered lung damage from exposure to burn pits. Upon return to civilian life, Torres was effectively forced out of his old job after the troopers refused to accommodate his medical condition.

The government says the Uniformed Services Employment and Reemployment Rights Act, enacted by Congress in 1994, gives military reservists and National Guard members the ability to sue employers who deny them the right to return to work after serving the country.

The Pentagon says the mechanism is critical for recruitment of an all-volunteer force that is increasingly reliant on National Guard members and reservists.

“These are people who work for civilian employers at the same time they have jobs. They’ve never been more important to the military than they are right now,” said Assistant Solicitor General Christopher Michel.

“One of the first questions that people like that will ask when they’re considering whether to join the military is, ‘well, do I get to keep my job?” Michel told the justices. “It really does matter in the real world for the Army to be able to tell them, ‘yes, your employer does have to do that.'”

Texas argues it is protected from employment discrimination claims by service members in state courts because of state sovereign immunity under the Constitution. The claim is rooted in the meaning of Congress’ constitutional war powers, which the state argues do not extend to lawsuits.

“No one disputes the importance of war powers or that USERRA [the law] advances constitutional ends,” said Texas Solicitor General Judd Stone. But “neither precedent nor history show that the states authorized Congress to use the means of subjecting states to private damages actions by delegating the ends of raising an army to Congress.”

The gravity of the case did not appear lost on the justices on the bench, a majority of whom appeared inclined to side with Torres and the government. But their views were not always clear and did not break along traditional ideological lines.

“This has the potential of being a pretty important case for the structure of the United States of America,” declared Justice Stephen Breyer, the only member of the high court to have served on active duty.

“We have to be thinking about the next 50 years,” said Justice Brett Kavanaugh. “It’s important to recognize the ability to wage war successfully is getting people to sign up.”

Chief Justice John Roberts suggested the federal government had broad leeway in managing and protecting its military force, noting the very existence of the Constitution followed the failure of the Articles of Confederation to do the job.

“The strongest argument is the very reason the [Constitutional] convention was called,” Roberts said.

Justice Neil Gorsuch appeared to be the most skeptical of Torres and the administration’s argument, disputing the necessity of state discrimination suits for building and maintaining an army.

“If it’s essential to the war powers… that an individual be able to sue the state, in this case for forms of discrimination, why wouldn’t it be equally essential to allow veterans to sue for making sure our highway are in good order so that we can deal with invasions on the West Coast? I mean, that was the whole point of the interstate highway system,” Gorsuch hypothesized.

“What’s the limit?” he said later.

The trial court in the case sided with Torres and the government, but a federal appeals court reversed it.

The administration repeatedly warned Tuesday that rejecting Torres’ claim could discourage public employees nationwide — who now disproportionately make up members of the Guard and Reserves — from enlisting in the military in the first place.

A decision in the case is expected by the end of June.

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