This week, Congress passed the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act to make lynching a federal crime. It’s named for Emmett Till, a Chicago teenager who was brutally killed in Mississippi in 1955. On today’s episode of A Word, Jason Johnson is joined by historian Lopez Matthews, Jr. to discuss the harmful myths about lynching, and how its specter haunts African Americans to this day.

Guest: Lopez Matthews, Jr. is an executive council member for the Association for the Study of African American Life and History

Podcast production by Jasmine Ellis

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Lynching’s Legacy: Emmett Till to George Floyd