James Cameron will be laid to rest on Juneteenth, 2006, according to a story Emily Fredrix of the Chicago Tribune.
Ida B. Wells, a journalist reported on the number of lynching that occured during the late 1880 and early 1900. In hope of writing about the lynching would raise the public awareness of the injustice against African-American males. Wells account of lynching was about men in the south. Cameron was an eyewitness account of the very same type of mob violence that was occurring in the so-called free states of the north. Cameron wrote about his experience in a book, A Time of Terror.
How lucky was James Cameron, his life spared from a lynching in Marion, Indiana on August 7, 1930. But, not so lucky his two friends who were photographed hanging dead from a tree in Grant County Courtyard. The photo of Tom Shipp and Abe Smith hanging from the tree was taken by Lawrence Beitler, a photographer. The photo is a reminder that Indiana (a state in the north) was not a welcoming place for African-Americans.
I missed the opportunity to meet Mr. Cameron in 1995. We both however, stood in the extreme cold to protest the Klan rally supported by the Fort Wayne City's Police Department. According to a story written by Ed Breen in the Journal-Gazette. The author of Our town : A heartland lynching, a haunted town, and the hidden history of white America by Cynthia Carr confirmed that Cameron was indeed in my city. This was not the first time Breen , as a city editor of the Marion-Chronicle-Tribune had written about Cameron, according to A Lynching in the Heartland by James Madison.
We are fortunate that Cameron founded a museum,in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to record a history that those in Indiana would love to forget.
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