Biden signed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act. Who was Emmett Till and what happened to him?

A more than century-long effort to pass anti-lynching legislation culminated Tuesday when President Joe Biden signed a landmark bill that makes lynching a federal hate crime. 

The effort began 122 years ago, when the first anti-lynching bill was introduced in Congress by U.S. House of Representatives member George Henry White, the only Black member of Congress at the time. That bill failed; the years passed and numerous attempts at passing similar legislation never came to fruition.

But the Senate passed the Emmett Till Antilynching Act in March, setting it up for a Biden signature. Senators Cory Booker, Tim Scott and House representative Bobby Rush introduced the bill, named after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old Black boy who was brutally kidnapped and murdered by two white men in Mississippi in 1955.