On This Day in 1930: The Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith

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A white mob gathers beneath the bodies of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith after their lynching in Marion, Indiana, on Aug. 7, 1930. Sixteen-year-old James Cameron was also seized and beaten by the mob but survived a near-lynching. This image has been cropped from the original photograph. (Photo: Lawrence Beitler)
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(AURN News) — On Aug. 7, 1930, one of the most infamous lynchings in American history took place in Marion, Indiana.

A white mob numbering in the thousands stormed the local jail, seized 18-year-old Thomas Shipp and 19-year-old Abram Smith, brutally beat them and hanged them from a tree outside the Grant County Courthouse.

Sixteen-year-old James Cameron was also dragged from the jail, beaten and nearly lynched before the mob spared his life.

No one was ever convicted of the murders of Shipp and Smith.

A photograph of their bodies surrounded by the crowd became one of the most haunting images of racial terror in American history.

Cameron devoted much of his life to civil rights activism and preserving the history of racial violence in America. In 1988, he founded America’s Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee.

James Cameron died in 2006 at age 92.

Click play to listen to the AURN News report from Clay Cane. Follow @claycane & @aurnonline for more.

Clay Cane is an award-winning journalist, writer, radio host, and political commentator. A graduate of Rutgers University with a degree in African-American Studies, his work on race, culture, and politics have appeared in national publications, including the Washington Post, CNN, and The Grio. Clay is a regular political commentator on MSNBC. Twitter: @claycane

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