Ida B. Wells, who died March 25, 1931, was born into slavery in MS. She went on to become a tireless champion of racial justice, particularly in documenting and exposing the practice of lynching. For a hundred years Congress has failed to pass a federal anti-lynching law.
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In 1922 an anti-lynching law died in the Senate after a filibuster by Southern Democrats. This inaugurated a tradition of using filibusters to thwart civil rights legislation. In 2020 the Emmett Till Antilynching Act was passed in the House.
It was blocked in the Senate by Sen Rand Paul who argued that it would "cheapen the meaning of lynching" through an overly broad definition.
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