Horrified by the race riots in St. Louis and East St. Louis in 1917 and the high rate of reported lynchings in the South, Dyer introduced the Dyer Anti-Lynching Bill in 1918. In 1920, the Republican Party supported such legislation in its platform from the National Convention. In January 1922, Dyer's bill was passed by the House, which approved it by a wide margin due to "insistent countrywide demand". The bill was defeated by the white Democratic voting bloc of the South in filibusters in the Senate in December 1922, in 1923 and 1924.