National Anti-Lynching Campaign Fails to Pass Federal Legislation

Between 1882 and 1900, over 1,400 Black people were lynched in the United States, an average of more than one per week. Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, and the newly formed organizations of Black civil society pressed Congress for a federal anti-lynching law throughout the 1890s. Representative George Washington Murray (R-SC), one of the last Black congressmen from the South, introduced anti-lynching legislation. Every attempt failed due to Southern Democratic opposition and Northern Republican indifference. The federal government never passed an anti-lynching law; the Senate formally apologized for this failure in 2005.