US PRESIDENT Joe Biden has signed the first ever federal legislation making lynching a hate crime. 

The historic Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Bill became law on Tuesday. 

The bill is named after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy, who was abducted and tortured by a group of white men in 1955, after he was accused of whistling and touching a white woman Carolyn Bryant Donham. 

The landmark bill was signed in the White House Rose Garden yesterday, with members of Till’s family present. 

According to Tuskegee University, which collects records on lynchings, 4,743 people were lynched between 1882 and 1968, with 3,446 of them being black. 

The anti-lynching legislation was first considered more than 120 years ago and had failed to be passed into law almost 200 times. 

Speaking at the White House yesterday, President Biden described how racial violence had devasted the lives of African Americans for decades. 

He said: “Lynching was pure terror to enforce the lie that not everyone … belongs in America, not everyone is created equal.

“Terror, to systematically undermine hard-fought civil rights. Terror, not just in the dark of the night but in broad daylight. Innocent men, women and children hung by nooses in trees, bodies burned and drowned and castrated.”

“Their crimes? Trying to vote. Trying to go to school. Trying to own a business or preach the gospel. False accusations of murder, arson and robbery. Simply being black,” he continued.

President Biden stressed the new law wasn’t just about addressing America’s history, but it was also about what was happening in the county now in regards to race relations. 

“It’s about the present and our future as well,” he said, highlighting the recent rally by white nationalists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017. 

“Racial hate isn’t an old problem. It’s a persistent problem.”

Kamala Harris, the country’s first Black and Asian American vice-president, was also at the watershed signing.

“Lynching is not a relic of the past. Racial acts of terror still occur in our nation. And when they do, we must all have the courage to name them and hold the perpetrators to account,” she said.

A descendant of Ida B Wells, a prominent journalist in late 19^th and early 20^th centuries, the who reported on lynchings in the US, was also at the signing.

The House finally approved the bill this year, on 7 March. 

Earlier this month, the family of Till called for murder charges against the woman responsible for his horrific lynching. 

Till’s cousin, Deborah Watts, is a co-founder of the Emmett Till Legacy Foundation. She said the organisation has collected more than 250,000 signatures demanding murder charges against Ms Donham, who is still alive. 

“We will bear witness to the hatred that has been embedded in our DNA since the slave ships arrived,” Ms Watts said according to the Clarion-Ledger. 

“We made a promise to [his mother] that we would persist and that’s why we’re here today.”