Lynching is a horrific crime that historically has both hate- and race-based elements. Making it illegal at the federal level, and adding a hate crime enhancement, rights the historic wrong of the crime itself being allowed to continue for over a century, as well as the nearly 4,000 crimes of this nature that went largely unpunished.
It has been decades since the last lynching occurred in the U.S., and the Civil Rights Act has long-since negated the need for a federal anti-lynching law. The Senate’s 2005 apology to lynching victims and their descendants suffices to right the wrong of the federal government failing to enact an anti-lynching law when the crime occurred regularly.