Cory Booker on Anti-Lynching Bill: ‘We Need to Right Wrongs of History’

RUSH EXCERPT:

BOOKER: “This is a darker part of our history when thousands and thousands of people, mostly African-Americans for such a long — from the 17, 1800 — excuse me from the 1800s to 1968 thousands of African-Americans were lynched around this country and there were efforts in this body to stop that, dozens of efforts but it was blocked. We’ve never made lynching a federal crime in this country. And it is a sore, sore point, a blistering, festering part of our history that we have never addressed. Especially for the memory of those folks and those families who had not only been lynched but there never were investigations into their lynchings so this is a bill to correct our past, to show we are having a moment of reconciliation in this country. It is a bipartisan bill, I have Tim Scott, kamala Harris and others working with me on this. This is a time we need to right wrongs of history where we need to have reconciliation and recognition of our tragic past and we need to move together understanding the hurtful aspect of our past. Make this a federal crime and show that we are willing to start to address some of the unaddressed issues from our common history.”