Back Linchamiento de Thomas Shipp y Abram Smith Spanish Lynchage de Thomas Shipp et d'Abram Smith French הלינץ' בתומאס שיפ ואברם סמית' HE ਥਾਮਸ ਸ਼ਿੱਪ ਅਤੇ ਅਬਰਾਹਮ ਸਮਿੱਥ ਦਾ ਕਤਲ Punjabi Linchamento de Thomas Shipp e Abram Smith Portuguese
J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S. Smith were African-American boys who were murdered in a spectacle lynching by a group of thousands on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana. They were taken from jail cells, beaten, and hanged from a tree in the county courthouse square. They had been arrested that night as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. A third African-American suspect, 16-year-old James Cameron, had also been arrested and narrowly escaped being killed by the mob; an unknown woman and a local sports hero intervened, and he was returned to jail. Cameron later stated that Shipp and Smith had committed the murder but that he had run away before that event.[1]
The local chapter of the NAACP had tried, unsuccessfully, to evacuate the suspects from town to avoid the mob violence. The NAACP and the state's Attorney General pressed to indict leaders of the lynch mob, but, as was typical in lynchings, no one was ever charged for their deaths, nor for the attack on Cameron.[2]
Cameron was later convicted and sentenced as an accessory to murder before the fact. He served some time in prison, then pursued work and an education. After dedicating his life to civil rights activism, Cameron was pardoned by the state of Indiana in 1991.[3]
- ^ Bradley, David (May 24, 2006). "Anatomy of a Murder: Review of Cynthia Carr's Our Town". The Nation. Retrieved September 6, 2015.
- ^ Little, Monroe H. (February 2002). "Review of James Madison's A Lynching in the Heartland". H-Indiana.
- ^ "James Cameron Holocaust Museum founder". African American Registry. 2006. Retrieved July 15, 2008.