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The night James Cameron's life changed forever. A day before, he
and two other young Black men were arrested for the robbery, rape and
assault of a White couple in Marion, Indiana. James is in a cell in
the Grant County Jail. There is a lynch mob outside numbering into
the thousands. James is sixteen years old.
The mob comes into the jail and grabs one of men accused, with James,
of the crime. He is beaten unconscious, dragged outside and lynched.
The second man is then given the same treatment. The bodies of these
two men, Tom Shipp, 18, and Abraham Smith, 19, hanging from a tree is
depicted in a famous and disturbing
photograph. The mob now comes for James. He is beaten and dragged
out to the tree where his friends now hang and the rope is placed
around his neck. It is at this moment that James remembers hearing
what he describes as an angelic voice above the crowd say "Take this
boy back, he had nothing to do with any killing or rape." Suddenly
the hands that were beating him are now helping him. The rope is
taken from around his neck and the crowd clears a path for him to
walk back to the jail. In interviews he later conducted with people
who were in the crowd, no one remembers hearing any voice. Their
reason for why the crowd did not lynch James: "You were lucky that
night." Though James never admitted any guilt in the assault (he
admits that he was there), he served 4 years in prison. The female
victim later changed her story and confirmed that James had no part
in the assault.
After he was paroled, James Cameron moved to Milwaukee. During his
career, he held several jobs including table waiter, laborer,
construction worker, laundry worker, salesman, janitor, ditch digger,
record shop owner, theater custodian, junkman, newspaper reporter,
shoeshine boy and cardboard-box factory worker. He also organized the
Madison County Branch of the NAACP in Madison and other chapters in
Muncie and South Bend, Indiana. Upon retirement, he opened a rug and
upholstery cleaning business.
In 1983, after not being able to find a publisher for the book he
started writing in prison, Cameron took out a second mortgage on his
home to publish A Time of Terror, his autobiographical account
of what happened that night in 1930.
The following year, after hearing of plans to build a Jewish
Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., James Cameron decided that a
Black Holocaust Museum was needed. "It seems that every group of
people have a chance to erect museums and memorials and statues in
our country so the that the world can never forget."
In 1988, he founded America's Black Holocaust Museum, Inc., a
non-profit museum devoted to preserving the history of lynching in
the United States and the struggle of Black people for equality.
Cameron returned to Marion in 1993 to receive an official pardon from
Indiana Governor Evan Bayh for the part he played in the 1930 assault
incident for which he was originally arrested. He was also given the
Key to that city.
Age has not slowed James Cameron at all. In 1995, even though past
the age of 80, he again returned to Marion to lead a protest
against a Ku Klux Klan rally. This was in direct defiance to what
city officials were urging residents to do. To quote Cameron, "The
Klan should be stamped out, and the people should be the ones to
stamp it out."
In addition to his book, Cameron has been the subject of articles
written in many countries around the world.
James Cameron has been married to his wife Virginia for over 50
years. Together, they have 5 children, 8 grand children and 4 great
grandchildren.
For more information on using the resources at America's Black
Holocaust Museum, Inc., contact:
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