On Capitol Hill, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky proposed an amendment Thursday that would weaken a bill making lynching a federal hate crime punishable by up to life in prison. A day earlier, Senator Paul single-handedly held up the legislation by denying its passage on unanimous consent. The bill is co-sponsored by the Senate’s three African Americans — Republican Tim Scott of South Carolina and Democrats Kamala Harris of California and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

Sen. Cory Booker: “But I am so raw today, of all days that we’re doing this. … I do not need my colleague, the senator from Kentucky, to tell me about one lynching in this country. I’ve stood in the museum in Montgomery, Alabama, and watched African American families weeping at the stories of pregnant women lynched in this country and their babies ripped out of them.”