The US Senate is poised to apologize and express regret for having historically blocked legislation that would have outlawed lynchings between 1920 and 1940, two senators proposing the initiative announced.
"On three separate occasions, the House passed a resolution, and on three occasions, the Senate blocked that legislation. ... Sadly, the US Senate played a great role in this dark page of the history of the US," lamented Democratic Senator Mary Landrieu of Louisiana.
Yahoo News article
Sadly, the U.S. Senate is playing an equally great role in the present dark page of our history.
Some 4,749 people were killed by lynching between 1881 and 1964, 75 percent of them black, and fewer than one percent of those who carried out the lynchings were convicted, according to the Committee for a Formal Apology, a group urging the Senate to atone for its inaction.
The lynchings were carried out in 46 states.
Landrieu noted that the number of victims of such attacks would double if lynchings of unnamed victims prior to 1881 were also taken into account.
There's America the Beautiful for you. Can beheading be any more horrible than lynching? Only if you're squeamish about blood. And Americans were doing it to other Americans. And I can tell you of a certainty it was happening much later than 1964. But I had no idea it was ever legal.
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