The day: August 7, 1930. The location: Marion, Indiana.

Three black men, accussed of murdering a white man and raping a white female, were forcefully taken out of the jail by a mob to be hung.

As the graphic cover of A Lynching in the Heartland (call # 305.896 MAD) shows, two of these black teenagers did not survive the lynching. The third, James Cameron, was lucky enough to not be hung. Cameron was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter, which was later pardoned by the governor.

Throughout the rest of his life, James Cameron declared that he was innocent. Cameron wrote a book about his life and devoted his time to organizing the Black Holocaust Museum.

Author James Madison writes about the political and social changes that occurred, explaining how such an awful event could happen.

c Waterloo Public Library 2007