ACLU Statement on President Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham’s Lynching Comments
NEW YORK — President Donald Trump and Senator Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) today compared the ongoing presidential impeachment inquiry to “a lynching.” Jeffery Robinson, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Trone Center for Justice and Equality, highlighted the offensive and historically inaccurate nature of those remarks in the following statement:
“At a time when the memorial to Emmett Till had to be fortified with bullet-proof material, President Trump’s comments show how divorced he is from the racial reality of America. Historically Black Americans have been subjected to numerous methods of lynching, including being hung, burned, shot multiple times, beaten, and drowned.
“Neither Senator Graham nor President Trump has ever personally experienced or lost a family member to such violence. If he wants to understand lynching, Senator Graham should ask the relatives of the 164 Black South Carolinians lynched between 1877 and 1950. They will tell him a truth he clearly doesn’t understand based on his comments. To compare impeachment — a process grounded in the Constitution — to lynching, is to belittle the devastation, terror, and loss of life that resulted from this horrific practice.”
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