The lynch mob is in Congress

“Of course no one who is opposed to this bill is opposed to lynching,” a senator from Georgia said from the Senate floor in late January 1933. “We are opposed to the Constitution being lynched.” He called the bill a first step in a larger civil rights program that, were it to succeed, would “destroy the white civilization of the South,” would “undermine and destroy the entire civilization of the United States,” because “no white man would have a chance to be elected” and “every officer and every official would be members of the Negro race.”

This senator, Richard Russell, needn’t worry: Congress would fail to outlaw lynching until 2022, and he would go on to serve until 1971. 

Writing about Louise Thompson and her march on Washington, 1933.