Federal Anti-Lynching Legislation Repeatedly Blocked in Congress

Despite years of advocacy by Ida B. Wells, Frederick Douglass, and others, Congress refused to pass any federal anti-lynching legislation throughout the 1880s and 1890s. An average of 150 Black Americans were lynched each year in this period. Southern Democratic senators used procedural tactics to block any federal intervention, arguing lynching was a state matter, even as state governments either participated in or ignored the killings.