David Neiwert: Failing in the present

Monday, June 13, 2005

There are hollow gestures, and then there are appallingly hollow gestures that only highlight the grotesque incompetence of our nation's political leadership.

Today the Senate managed the latter, when it voted to apologize for its manifest failure in never having passed an anti-lynching bill.

Having done so, the question immediately becomes: Just when do you think you'll get around to passing one?

The gesture, such as it is, is actually rather laudable. Indeed, I've noted many times that the demise of an anti-lynching law, in the eyes of history, is one of the more notable moral failures on the part of Congress; it's abundantly clear now that this failure was a horrendous misjudgment. As the story noted, during the height of the "Lynching Era," several thousand black men were summarily murdered, often with outright official sanction:

During that time, nearly 200 anti-lynching bills were introduced in Congress, and three passed the House. Seven presidents between 1890 and 1952 petitioned Congress to pass a federal law.

But the Senate, with Southern conservatives wielding their filibuster powers, refused to act. With the enactment of civil rights laws in the 1960s and changes in national attitudes, the issue faded away.