Reid Benson, a 2018 graduate of the Master of Arts in American History and Government program, helps his Ojibwe students construct an honest account of the past while posing hopeful questions about the future.
The long fight for a federal anti-lynching law—which finally succeeded in March 2022—began in 1898. From the beginning it faced arguments that Congress had no authority to overwrite states' criminal law.
On March 7, 2022, the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act was passed unanimously by the Senate, becoming the first federal law against lynching to make its way through Congress, despite 122 years of efforts.
