President Joe Biden claimed during a White House movie screening this week that some white people “still want to” lynch black people.
Biden made the remarks on Thursday during a screening for “Till,” a film about Emmett Till, the 14-year-old black boy who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955.
“You know, folks, lynching is pure terror, enforcing the lie that not everyone belongs in America and not everyone is created equal,” Biden said. “Pure terror to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Innocent men, women, children hung by a noose from trees. Bodies burned, drowned, castrated.”
“Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business. Trying to preach the gospel. False — false accusations of murder, arson, robbery,” Biden claimed. “Lynched for simply being black, nothing more. With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards.”
“Hard to believe, but that’s what was done. And some people still want to do that,” Biden claimed.
WATCH:
Biden on lynching: "White families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies … Some people still want to do that" pic.twitter.com/oNY0x9UKcv
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) February 17, 2023
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPT:
JOE BIDEN, PRESIDENT: You know, it was almost exactly one year ago that I signed a law more than 100 years in the making. (Applause.) It was an honor. It was one of the great honors of my career. The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, making lynching a federal hate crime.
You know, folks, lynching is pure terror, enforcing the lie that not everyone belongs in America and not everyone is created equal. Pure terror to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Innocent men, women, children hung by a noose from trees. Bodies burned, drowned, castrated.
Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business. Trying to re- — preach the gospel. False — false accusations of murder, arson, robbery. Lynched for simply being Black, nothing more. With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards.
Hard to believe, but that’s what was done. And some people still want to do that.