The Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act easily passed the US Senate on March 7 and now heads to President Biden's desk for his signature.

The bill passed the Senate — evenly divided along party lines — by unanimous consent. That means that no senator objected to it, allowing it to bypass the cloture rule that requires 60 senators to agree to bring a bill to the floor for debate.

The bill makes lynching — defined as any bias-motivated offense resulting in death or serious injury — a federal hate crime. Once the president signs it, which he is expected to do, the Department of Justice will be empowered to intervene in local investigations, to collect evidence, and to prosecute offenders in federal courts, regardless of the outcomes of any local trials.

"After more than 200 failed attempts to outlaw lynching, Congress is finally succeeding in taking a long-overdue action by passing the Emmett Till Anti-Lynching Act. Hallelujah, it's long overdue," Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said in a floor speech.

"While this will not erase the horrific injustices to which tens of millions of African Americans have been subjected over the generations nor fully heal the terror inflicted on countless others, it is an important step forward as we continue the work on confronting our nation's past in pursuit of a brighter and more just future," Schumer added.

The bill amends the main criminal code of the federal government to include lynching as a hate crime, and punishes those convicted of conspiring to commit the offense to no more than 30 years' imprisonment.

The NAACP noted on its website that lynching was used by white people to terrorize and control Black people in the United States, but particularly in the South during the 19th and 20th centuries.

"A typical lynching involved a criminal accusation, an arrest, and the assembly of a mob, followed by seizure, physical torment, and murder of the victim," the group said, adding that it was often a public spectacle "in celebration of White supremacy."

Emmet Till was a 14-year-old Chicago boy who was visiting family in Money, Mississippi, in the summer of 1955 when he was kidnapped, tortured, and shot by two white men who accused him of whistling at a white woman.

His body was discovered in a nearby river several days later. His mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, insisted on an open-casket funeral so the more than 50,000 attendees could see the violence inflicted upon her son. A photograph of the deceased boy lying in the coffin was instrumental in galvanizing activists fighting for civil rights.

According to the NAACP, from 1882 to 1968, there were 4,743 lynchings across the United States.

While victims were historically predominantly Black men, LGBTQ people — and especially Trans people of color — have often been subjected to similar mob violence and will also be protected under the new law.