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Interview with Dr. James Cameron, Founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum

So, when I came out of there and composed myself I told my wife, I said honey, we need a museum like this in America to show what has happened to Black people and freedom loving White people in this country who have been trying to help us ever since we've been here. So it's right here in Milwaukee, WI. And it is making Milwaukee famous again. You know what made Milwaukee famous the first time?

RF: I believe the old expression was beer.

JC: Schlitz beer, yes, Schlitz beer, that's right. But now people are coming here from all over the world to see my museum.

RF: What, uh, Dr. Cameron, what, what, what will, uh, visitors see when they, when they come into the Black Holocaust Museum. What, what is that they'll see?

JC: Well, they'll see figures hanging with ropes around their necks, Ku Klux Klan robes, pictures of lynchings, and they'll get to see a video that British Broadcasting Company made. And, uh, then they'll have a, suffer a lecture from me.

RF: Well, uh, you have a unique experience about, uh, lynching. And I'd like for us to, to maybe go back in history if it's not too painful, and for you to, uh, paint a picture for us of, uh, the near lynching of you and certainly the lynching of two of your friends. Would you take us back and paint a picture for us

JC: Yes.

RF: please?

JC: Yes, the date was August the 6 th , 1930. I had gone out with my two friends. I thought they was gonna drop me off at home but they didn't. They wanted to go out and rob somebody. I wanted to get out of the car but they wouldn't let me out, they kept driving. And, uh, they went out across the 38 th Street Bridge, past the soldier's home that was there in Marianne, IN. That's where it happened, in Marianne, IN. And, uh, they drove down a country road, it was called lover's lane. And it ran parallel to the ____ River. And, we got out there and they talked me into taking a gun and holding it up to people in the car. Now I walked up to the car and I opened the door, and I pointed the gun at them and I said stick em up. And, uh, this man got out of the car and I saw he was my buddy, a friend of mine, a real nice White fella. And, uh, his girlfriend got out, her face was so pale and frightened. And when I saw that my friend was the one being held up I came to my senses but it was too late. I turned around, gave the gun to one of my confederates. I said here, you guys take this, I'm not going to have anything to do with this. And I ran away from the scene of the crime. And after I ran away about 2 or 3 blocks I heard some shots rang out in the stillness of the night, just like that. Well, I was foolish for being out there with them but I wasn't foolish enough to go back and see who was shooting who. I kept on running till I got home. When I got home my mother opened the door, let me in the house, and then the police came and arrested me and put me in jail. And in less than 24 hours the Ku Klux Klan mob broke into the jail and got all three of us out and they lynched all three of us. But they didn't lynch me with a rope around my neck, they lynched me with a severe beating. You have to understand, a lynching is when two or more people decide to take the law into their own hands and issue justice according to their own racist views, language, customs, religion, politics or whatever. If they don't kill you (CAN'T MAKE OUT WHAT HE'S SAYING). In that regard, let me tell you, that when the Civil War ended in 1865 we had an 11-year reconstruction period, from 1865 to 1876. It only lasted 11 years. But the first two years of that reconstruction period, from 1865 thru 1867, over 50,000 people were lynched down south. And 15,000 of them got away with their lives, but 35,000 met death at the hands of those defeated and disgruntled rebels who were mad because they had lost the war and wasn't able to make Black and White slavery a national institution. So, the first two years 50,000 were lynched from 1865 thru 1867. And why? Well, in the first place 15,000 got away with their lives and 35,000 met death. They all were lynched, if they didn't lynch them they meant to. What I want to tell you is this, they lynched those people cause those damned Yankees were coming down here and teaching our Blacks how to read and write. That's what was infuriating the people. And, so they were killing the White men and running them out of town. Tarring and feathering them and shooting in the houses where the White women had schools for the kids and a lot of the White women were nursing the Black kids. And they were shooting over the heads of the women, and the houses and setting the houses on fire and putting the women on steamers and coaches and sending them back up north and said if you were men we'd kill you like we've been doing the rest of them. And they killed us for having sense enough to sit in the audience and listen to these people. They formed what is known as union leagues. It wasn't anything subversive, it was just how to help us to ease into the stream of American living. And the rebels made out like we were plotting to take over and make slaves out of them. And they didn't want any part of that, but it was alright for them to have made slaves out of us. So that's what happened there.

RF: Um, I wanna, I wanna, before we get to the Civil War and reconstruction, I'd like to, uh, maybe have you stay for a few more moments

JC: OK.

RF: um, in that the time that you were in the jail and the mob was gathering outside, how were you and your friends feeling? How were you feeling and how, and what observations did you have of them? How were they acting?

JC: Well, you have to understand, we weren't put in the same cellblock. There's a building, takes up a half a block, that's the county jail. There's a side street, the street in front of the jail, and then there's an alley. And, they put me up on the second floor in this building, the county jail. And down below me on the second, on the first floor they had Abe down there. And then across on the other side of the building they had, uh, Abe there, then Tommy below me, and Abe on the other side of the building. That way they kept us segregated. We didn't have anything to talk about. But in that jail where I was incarcerated, in that cell block there was 20 Blacks in there. And one of them had a 16- year old son. They had been caught riding the train to Marianne, IN and given 30 days for vagrancy. And, uh, from the time I was locked in there they wanted to know what happened, and what they arrested me for and all that. So I told them just the same things that I told the sheriff. And, uh, they said ah, hell, I wish I was out of this here town, I don't like the looks of this. Said in this town they make out like this boy done raped somebody, some White folks just want to lynch him for nothing, you know. And, it was all that kind of negative talk going on. It didn't bother me at first, but it slowly began to dawn on me. And, uh, people kept coming up in the jail looking through the windows in the cell block just as if we were some kind of animals in a zoo, you know. And, uh, I imagine they was doing the same thing to Tommy and Abe down on the first floor. And the sheriff wouldn't let me mother come up to see me. She made four efforts to come up to see me and he wouldn't let her in.

RF: And, uh, Dr. Cameron there's this expression that, um, murderers of, uh, people who witnessed some of these murders, uh, use, you could, no one would actually know who the perpetrators were because there's an expression that the coroner would issue that says, uh, that said, at the hands of unknown men.

JC: Well that's what they said, but everybody knew who they were. They knew who they were but they said they didn't and that's, that's the verdict they give that death was brought about by persons unknown. But every one of them were Marianne residents. They had the names of 27 homegrown hoodlums and they didn't call a one of them up into the investigation. I was the only one got any time out of the situation. I was in jail a whole year waiting trial. When I went up for trial the State of Indiana tried me for being an accessory before the fact to voluntary, to uh, uh, first degree murder. They wanted to give me the electric chair but the jury found me guilty of being an accessory before the fact to voluntary manslaughter and they sentenced me to 2 to 21 years in prison. Now that meant they couldn't keep me no less than 2 years and no more than 21. They keep you the whole 21 years if they want to.

RF: And, and there's, there's a very poignant picture I recall, uh, uh, the photograph of your two friends.

JC: Yes.

RF: Uh, describe for our audience, uh, the picture.

JC: Well, the picture is one of the most famous lynching pictures in the world. If you just blot out the bottom part which shows the expressions of the people looking around all happy and grinning, that makes it the most dramatic lynching picture in the world. But if you blot out the people and the expressions on their face it's just two Blacks hanging on a tree, just like any ordinary lynching. But, they meant for me to be hanging right between Tommy and Abe in that famous picture. That picture was taken August the 7 th , 1930 in Marianne, IN. Abram Smith, he was on the left of the picture if you hold it in front of you, he was 19 years old. And Tommy was on the right side of you as you look at the picture, he was 18 and me, James Cameron, I was 16 years old. They meant for me to be hanging right between the two of them. When they got me out of jail and put me up to the tree and put the rope around my neck and got ready to hang me I was scared to death, but I prayed to God, I said Lord have mercy and forgive me of my sin. And then a voice came out from heaven and said take this boy back he had nothing to do with any killing or raping. And those hands that had already been cruel and merciless and had killed 2 human beings, they became soft and kind and tender and they took that rope off my neck and they allowed me to stumble and stagger back to the jail which was just a ½ a block away. And, and, and the sheriff was out there in front of the jail, he said I'm gonna get you out of here for safe keeping, but it was too late for that. He knew since early that morning, because decent and freedom loving White people in that town, and there's always freedom and decent loving White people in any town where Blacks and Whites live, they had called Dr. Bailey, the only Black doctor in town and also the sheriff himself and told them that some White people was planning on breaking into the jail that night and getting those boys out of there and we gotta do something to get them outta there so they can have a fair trial. And they bombarded the sheriff's office all that morning with telephone calls and he assured them that everything was under control. It was, it was under the Ku Klux Kan's control, cause he was a very prominent member of the Ku Klux Klan in Marianne, IN, August the 7 th nineteen hundred and thirty.

RF: So, so the, um, the sheriff, uh, more or less, uh,

JC: Oh, yeah, he

RF: Acquiesced the, uh,

JC: He let them in the jail, he could have kept them out, yes. But you see, there was ten or fifteen thousand people there that night. And Bob, silence gave consent. Those people could have said, hey, we don't want this to happen in our neighborhood, our town. We're not gonna stand for that, forget it. But those ten to fifteen thousand people stood by and let 25 or 30 people do all the participatory work and they just sat there with their, stood there with their arms folded and looked and didn't say a thing. Didn't open their damn mouth or nothing. Now I know God picks out people to be messengers, healers, prophets or teachers, it could have been someone in that crowd that said take this boy back he had nothing to do with any killing or lynching. But you know what? I don't believe it, I believe it was a voice from heaven. But I don't see how in the world they could have, uh, still the anger and fury of the mob that night. It was just as if the St. Louis Cardinals had won the Super Bowl. I mean the world championship, the World Series, yes.

RF: And, uh, and Dr. Cameron, uh, correct me if I'm, I'm wrong because historians have, have written and, and they've basically said that when Blacks were lynched usually there was no, there were no trials and that it was just mob, mob rule.

JC: That's all it was.

RF: So, so you are just, you are collaborating what historians have written about those type situations.

JC: Only thing about it, they didn't, they didn't take them down and burn them after they lynched them on the tree. They lynched me, but they lynched me with a, with a severe beating. When they found out that I hadn't died in the beating they gave me, that I had done my time in prison, got out and married and was, had raised a family and was a decent and respectful business man, they invited me back to Marianne, IN and they gave me the key to the city and put the red carpet out. The governor gave me a pardon and I've been back there about 30 or 40 times since then. And, uh, I've been there twice with Oprah Winfrey, once with Tony Brown, uh Pat Robertson, 700 Club, Jerry Springer, Larry King Live, Charles Carroth, Tom Brokaw, CNN, uh, the British Broadcasting Company, and the people from Virgin Islands, and Ireland, and Austria, Germany, Switzerland, France, Spain, Portugal, Westinghouse Broadcasting System, and all the television stations here in Milwaukee. I've taken them all down to Marianne, IN and taken them to the old jail, which is vacant now cause they have a new jail complex. But the building still stands. And I show them where I was, where Tommy was and how the mob came in the jail and everything. And I take them up to the courthouse square and show them where the tree had stood for over 40 years as a proud momento of the disgrace that had befallen the city. And then I take them out to my old neighborhood where I used to live. And you still have to jump over mud puddles out there when it rains, they haven't put any street improvements there or nothing, still dirt roads and dirt sidewalks.

RF: And Dr. Cameron, do you feel in any way, shape, form or fashion that justice was done to either you or your two friends?

JC: Oh no, we should've had a trial, then justice could have been done, we should have had a trial, we should have had a trial. But instead of that, you have to understand, Indiana during the roaring ‘20's was the most populated Klan State in the Union. And then, we only had 48 States in the Union, we didn't have Alaska and Hawaii. And there was only five million Klansmen throughout the whole country, 1920 – 1930, that was their height, their glory period. And what happened was, uh, Indiana had over a half million of those Klansmen, and Ohio, the State of Ohio had over 400,000. Between those two States, those two northern States, they had a fifth of all the Klan membership in the whole country. So, uh, the Klan began to break up in Indiana in 1923 when D.C. Stevenson, who called himself power and I'm the law, nobody can touch me I'm the law, and, uh, he raped his secretary on the way from Indianapolis up to South Bend, IN on one of those pullman sleeping cars, and chewed her breasts up and she, paranitis set in, infection, and she died two weeks later. But she named him as her attacker and the Ku Klux Klan had just got through electing a governor in Indiana. You had to be a member of the Klan or know somebody in the Klan before you could be elected to any kind of office almost. And his name was Ed Jackson. And when, uh, they uh, had the trial of D.C. Stevenson and accused him of killing his, uh, secretary by chewing her breasts, eating her up, cannibalism, uh, they found him guilty and gave him life in prison, Michigan City, IN, the big prison. And he said I'm not worried, I'm power, I'm the law. Said Ed Jackson just got elected the governor of Indiana, he's not gonna let me do a day in prison. But when they put that joker in Michigan City and turned that key on him and Ed Jackson turned his back on him, boy he got mad and he come naming people in the Klan, and the bribes and the, everything, you know. And, uh, that's when the Klan began to break up, around 1923, 24. But there was still a good remnant of them left in 1930.

RF: Speaking, speaking Dr. Cameron of, uh, of anger

JC: Yes.

RF: Do you find yourself angry at, at anyone, anyone in that crowd that night?

JC: No, no, I didn't recognize any of them.

RF: But, I guess I should say are you angry that, first of all, two of your friends were harmed in the manner in which they, they, they met their death. And you, the third, nearly, uh, went, went the same way.

JC: Yeah, yeah.

RF: What, what, let me ask this question, what's the lesson in that? What, what, what should young, young people take from, from, from that particular incident?

JC: Well, they should know that they can get in a lot of trouble by listening to their peers. The things I learned, especially the traumatic experiences I went through, uh, something that you can't put down on paper, uh, with a pencil and pad, you, you, you have to feel these things. I wrote a book called A Time of Terror . It's out of print right now, I'm having trouble with my publisher and I want to break the contract with him so I can get somebody else to publish the book, cause he's totally dissatisfactory, dissatisfied in my mind of being my publisher. Uh, so, uh, you can go to the library and get the book, the library there should have, what State are you in?

RF: Arkansas.

JC: Yeah, they, they should have, go to the library they should have the book there. If not, have the librarian to trace it and get it for you. Any of those libraries can get any book in the world you want.

RF: Right, we will, I'll, I'll do that.

JC: All you have to do is go there and if they have got it they'll send off and get it. They'll look in the computer and find out which, uh, library in the United States has it, might be down in Florida or California or Wisconsin or New York, and they'll send that book to that library and then you rent it out and bring it back and let somebody else look at it. But, uh, it, uh, it's called A Time of Terror .

RF: OK.

JC: That's the name of the book.

RF: Let me, let, let me, uh, move on, move on a little bit and, and, and ask you about, um, uh, the life, did, did, did the life situation, or the life circumstances of Blacks during the time of your youth, uh, what was growing up, uh, at that time like?

JC: Well, we, we were segregated. We had our own little society, little Black society, you know. Little bar-b-cue joints, gambling joints, whiskey and it was home brewed, see, prohibition was in. And, uh, so, uh, it was, uh, pretty rough.

RF: And, uh, from that period looking back a little bit and looking forward, as you look forward what's been the, um, what would you say has been the greatest accomplishment of, uh, of Blacks and Whites over the many years that, that, that, that you've lived and, and, observed since, uh, 16 years old?

JC: Well, look now, you have to understand, the name of the game is still watch that Black dude. They still don't want us to get anything. There's certain people in this country, like the confederate South. I just got through writing an article for the newspaper which they published about the confederate flag. And, uh, they have, uh, never stopped hating the North because they were not allowed to make Black and White slavery a national institution. And, uh, although they took the soldiers of occupation out of the South during the, uh, after the Reconstruction period had ended in 1876 they still should have some of those occupation troops down there in certain parts of the South right now to protect the rights of the poor Whites and the Blacks down there who are still catching hell. But, things haven't changed much, they just look like they've changed.

RF: And, and as you move forward, uh, with your museum, um, what would you like, what is the living legacy of your, of your museum there in Milwaukee?

JC: The living legacy is that we never forget. Our mission here is to educate the general public of the violent injustices suffered by the people of African American heritage and to provide visitors with an opportunity to rethink their assumptions about race and racism. You see, the American people, especially our dominant society, they're gonna have to face this problem and solve it, that's all. They created it they're gonna have to solve it, they're gonna have to get rid of it. And if they don't get rid of it, think they can get rid of it by getting rid of Black people, if Black people go down in this country White people are gonna go down too. Because Black people have been the mainstay of the economic power of this country ever since it's been organized.

RF: And, uh, Dr. Cameron as we, as we come just about full circle some people have pointed out that there are current lynchings if today. For example, people point to James, to James Byrd situation in Texas.

JC: Yes, that was a lynching, yes.

RF: People point to the, uh, Luwima case in New York as a possible lynching.

JC: CAN'T MAKE OUT WHAT HE'S SAYING.

RF: What are some of the lynchings or

JC: Those four cops shot that guy, shot him 41, shot at him 41 times and hit him 19 times, all these things are lynchings. See, a lot of these police now, uh, are hiding their prejudice and everything behind the shield of the badge that they wear. So, we're not safe, everywhere we go every time a cop stops one of us we wonder what he's got up his mind, what's he stopping us for? You know, and, uh, a lot of them have an excuse that, we just got a report that a car of this description was stolen, is this your car? And let me see your license and all that stuff, you know. And then, you better not have a White woman in the car with you, even though she might be your wife and the cop don't know anything about it. Cause they'll take her out of the car and ask her why is she fooling around with this nigger when, uh, he hasn't got anymore than I've got. And she'll say well he's got me and they're ready to slap the hell out of her, see. And then they tell him that you ought not be fooling around with these White folks because, uh, you can get in a lot of trouble, you know. Well, that's just his own personal opinion, see, he's prejudice. A lot of these cops, man, something's got to be done about it.

RF: And, um, and Dr. Cameron as we come towards the end, to the end of the program, uh, what would you say, uh, what, what would you like to say to the audience out there about, uh, living day-to-day here in America and being Black and living in America? Would you have any advice, uh, whatsoever?

JC: Yes, get an education. Without an education we're lost, and if we don't have an education there's nothing we can do to combat the evils that are upon us. But we have to have the, the education and specially the computerization of the country that is going on now. If these young kids don't go to school and learn how to run computers and these other electronic equipment they're gonna be in tough shape. They're not gonna be able to be employed or nothing.

RF: And, uh, I'm sorry Dr. Cameron.

JC: They're gonna be, uh, assets instead of liabilities.

RF: And, uh, Dr. Cameron,

JC: Yes.

RF: do you have, um, do you have any regrets, any regrets?

JC: No, not the way things have turned out. I think God has blessed me in so many different ways. I'm 86 years old now, and I always said that allegiance and protection goes together. You hear a lot of White boys saying hell no I won't go when the war is on and they go to Canada and Mexico and they don't care if you put their picture on the front page of every paper in the country. And, uh, why do they say hell no I won't go? Because they haven't been given any protection in their, uh, civil rights and things like that, human rights. And so, no country has a right to call on its citizens, the people within its borders for allegiance when they haven't been giving those people protection in their civil rights, cause allegiance and protection boils down to this. We can't have one without the other. Whenever a country expects allegiance from it's citizens it has best spent most of its time protecting those citizens so that when the time comes to defend the honor of our country there will be an honor to defend.

RF: And my last point, uh, you have a very poignant, uh, quote, it says, uh, “From this to this.”

JC: Yes, from, from the lynching now, to the lynching, to, to a PhD. in Humanities from the University of Wisconsin here in Milwaukee.

RF: Dr. James Cameron is founder, he's the founder of America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, WI. He is the author of A Time of Terror , and autobiography of Cameron's personal ordeal with racism at the hands of Ku Klux Klan. Uh, Dr. Cameron, uh, thank you, thank you very much for your insight, and, uh,

JC: OK.

RF: your comments.

JC: You're welcome.

RF: Take care now.

JC: Alright.

RF: Bye bye.

RF: I'm Bob Franklin, I'll be back next week with 30 more minutes of good conversation on another edition of Like it Is.