Today, the U.S. Senate will issue a long overdue apology to the victims of lynching. S. Res. 39, cosponsored by Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Virginia Sen. George Allen, condemns lynching as the “ultimate expression of racism.”
Southern Democrats filibustered ending lynching at a time when black men were terrorized and lynched for merely looking at a white woman (yeah, I know). Landrieu told USA Today: “Lynching was a form of terrorism practiced by Americans against other Americans.”
It’s serendipitous that I’m writing this in Chicago, where Emmett Till lived. Chicago was also the home of the pioneering journalist Ida B. Wells who walked the back streets and cried out against the injustice of this strange and bitter fruit.
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