US Senate set to apologise over its failure to outlaw lynching

Published on Tuesday 14 June 2005 02:21

THE United States Senate was due to say sorry yesterday for its failure to make lynching illegal, despite frequent opportunities to do so.

More than 3,500 black Americans were lynched between 1894 and 1968, and although the House of Representatives passed several bills outlawing the practice, each of the 200-plus attempts to pass anti-lynching legislation in the Senate failed.

This was primarily due to the opposition of Southern senators who were prepared to, and frequently did, use filibustering to frustrate efforts to pass legislation.

Yesterday's bipartisan resolution, introduced by George Allen, a Republican from Virginia and Mary Landrieu, a Democrat from Louisiana, expressed the "most solemn regrets of the Senate to the descendants of victims of lynching" over what Ms Landrieu called "an American form of terrorism".

"The apology is long overdue. Our history does include times when we failed to protect individual freedom and rights," said Mr Allen.

Descendants of some victims had travelled to Washington to see the resolution passed. Among them was Doria Dee Johnson, the great-great-grandaughter of a black farmer lynched in South Carolina, whose farm was confiscated by white neighbours after the lynching.

"People are fooling themselves if they believe it doesn't affect people today," said Ms Johnson. "My family lost everything, including the life of its patriarch."

Although blacks were the most frequent victims of lynching, Jews and other recently arrived immigrants were also victims of mob justice. As many as 1,297 non-blacks may have been lynched.

"Lynching was the socially acceptable way to demonstrate control," said Lawrence Guyot, a veteran civil rights activist in Washington.

"It sent a message that not only did this happen to this person, but if you as a black person thought about stepping outside of your racial code, it can happen to you."