With supporters calling it more than 100 years in the making, the House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved legislation on Wednesday that makes lynching a federal hate crime for the first time in U.S. history.
The Emmett Till Antilynching Act was approved in a vote of 410-4. Three Republicans and one independent representative voted against it.
Advocates say there have been more than 200 attempts to pass the legislation in the past, and the latest effort has been in the works for nearly two years.
“This act of American terrorism has to be repudiated,” Illinois Democrat Bobby Rush, who sponsored the legislation nearly two years ago, told NPR. And “now it’s being repudiated. It’s never too late to repudiate evil and this lynching is an American evil.”