President Joe Biden claimed Thursday that some White people today still celebrate the lynching of Black Americans.

Pres. Biden made the claim during remarks at a White House screening of the movie “Till,” where he commemorated the upcoming anniversary of signing The Emmett Till Antilynching Act into law:

“Innocent men, women, children hung by a noose from trees.  Bodies burned, drowned, castrated. Their crimes?  Trying to vote.  Trying to go to school.  Trying to own a business.  Trying to preach the gospel.  False, false accusations of murder, arson, robbery.  Lynched for simply being Black, nothing more. 

“With white crowds, white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards. 

“Hard to believe, but that’s what was done.  And some people still want to do that.”

Biden made similar comments last March, when he signed the bill:

“Innocent men, women, and children hung by nooses from trees.  Bodies burned and drowned and castrated.

“Their crimes?  Trying to vote.  Trying to go to school.  To try and own a business or preach the Gospel.  False accusations of murder, arson, and robbery.  Simply being Black.

“Often the crowds of white families gathered to celebrate the spectacle, taking pictures of the bodies and mailing them as postcards.”

Then, however, his references to the present were more of a warning than an accusation:

“Racial hate isn’t an old problem; it’s a persistent problem.  A persistent problem.  And I know many of the civil rights leaders here know, and you heard me say it a hundred times: Hate never goes away; it only hides.  It hides under the rocks.  And given just a little bit of oxygen, it comes roaring back out, screaming.  But what stops it is all of us, not a few.  All of us have to stop it.”