Visiting the Black Holocaust Museum
Archive post: What's a dollar really worth?
The following post has been repurposed from a Midwestern travel story for a black history series between 2005-06. At the time of the visit, a griot lead visitors (and myself) through the museum and African village plays, discussing its history. I am elated to find that this museum is still available for visits in 2023.
As with any member of our youth, young boys make mistakes. On August 7, 1930, 16-year-old James Cameron tried to save himself from a mistake that could end fatally. Two of his friends, Tommy Shipp and Abraham Smith, decided they wanted to rob a couple in Lover’s Lane (Marion, Indiana). With Cameron’s help, they held the couple at gunpoint. After recognizing the boyfriend, 21-year-old Claude Dieter, Cameron backed out of the robbery. He handed the gun to Tommy Shipp and ran several miles home, leaving his friends at the scene of the crime.
Police arrived later on that night to take Cameron into custody for the murder of Dieter and his 19-year-old girlfriend, Mary Ball. Shipp and Smith were hanged first, after being beaten by a mob within the 15,000 people who arrived to confront them. When Cameron did not identify himself to the KKK, too, black people in the neighborhood received threats to be hanged unless they started talking.
While the KKK chanted “We want Cameron,” eventually Cameron was identified and roped. He lost consciousness at some point during this confrontation. But Mary Ball’s uncle’s voice called to the hate group to save Cameron from his death. Although Cameron was not lynched, he served four years for accessory to murder in a maximum-security prison for adults. Mary Ball later admitted that she was not raped.
Recommended Read: “Yes, Millennials, the Holocaust actually happened ~ Almost 6 million Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but we’re taking selfies”
Cameron wrote a book about the lynching of his friends, as well as the near fatal death he had, entitled “A Time of Terror,” during his incarceration. When he was released in 1934, the prison guards confiscated his original notes but Cameron rewrote them again.
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The manuscript was rejected each time it was presented to mainstream publishing companies, so Cameron later went on to self-publish his book in 1982. In approximately 1988, Cameron was sold what later became America’s Black Holocaust Museum for $1.
Historian enthusiasts can explore the museum, with exhibits ranging from slave auction stands, rope, prison bars, newspaper columns and the typewriter used for his manuscript. This museum, formerly located at 2233 North 4th Street in Milwaukee and now located at 401 W. North Avenue, may still greet tourists with an African flag and a griot, who leads visitors through the museum, the African village and history.
For a virtual visit of the museum, contact virtual.museum@abhmuseum.org. For an in-person visit, click https://www.abhmuseum.org/visit/ for more information.
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