Last month, Congress pulled a new bill aimed at broadening the definition of a hate crime off the table. With the number of racist organizations in this country on the rise, it's important for voters to let their congressional representatives know just how badly needed the new law is.

According to The New York Times, which recently published data researched and developed by the Southern Poverty Law Center, during the period from the 1880s to the 1960s at least 4,700 men and women were lynched in this country. Hearing a recording of the song "Strange Fruit," performed by the magnificent blues jazz singer Billie Holiday was a heart-stopping experience, one with which no other description of those tragic events can compare.

Its words are frightening and unforgettable:

Southern trees bear a strange fruit

Blood on the leaves and blood at the root

Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze

Black bodies hanging from the poplar trees

In recent years it has been so comforting to tell ourselves that these occurrences were part of a past from which we have extricated ourselves, that long ago we cleansed ourselves of our history of racism, that the horror and guilt of lynching have been eliminated, and that we have expatiated our sins and are not innocent and enlightened. References to such a hideous past are not of interest only to historians. At least this myth is what we would like to believe. But how true is it?

Last season nooses were hung on an oak tree on the campus of Jena High School in Louisiana. Today, the tree is gone. It has been chopped down to soothe racial tensions in the small town of Jena, but the nightmare remains.

The school's main academic building was also destroyed, burned down, leading to questions of a link to the racial confrontations that had previously occurred. Some semblance of peace has been restored, or at least there seems to be evidence of a superficial calm. What remains, however, is the realization that much more needs to be done by the white citizens of Louisiana to understand the anger, anguish and distrust of the black community and to eliminate the causes of such events.