Lynching of Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith

J. Thomas Shipp (March 1, 1911 – August 7, 1930) and Abraham S. Smith (October 14, 1910 – August 7, 1930) were two young African-American men who were murdered in a spectacle lynching by a group of thousands on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana. They were kidnapped from their jail cells, beaten, and hanged from a tree in the county courthouse square. They had been arrested that night as suspects in the attack of a white couple. They were accused of robbing and murdering a white man and raping his fiancée. A third African-American suspect, 16-year-old James Cameron, was also arrested and taken by the mob, but narrowly escaped the same fate. Just before he was going to be lynched, an unknown woman in the crowd claimed he was innocent, after which the mob returned him to the jail.

In his memoirs, Cameron stated that Shipp and Smith had committed the murder, albeit the version of events were different from what the mob claimed. Cameron admitted to initially participating in the robbery under peer pressure, but said he got cold feet and ran away upon recognizing the man, who was a friend. Cameron said he then heard Shipp and Smith shoot and kill the man as he fled. During his trial, the alleged rape victim admitted there had been no rape.

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. Eight people were indicted for the lynching. However, the case was dropped after two of the defendants acquitted.

Cameron was convicted of being an accessory before the fact to manslaughter and served four years in prison. Afterwards, he pursued work and an education. After dedicating his life to civil rights activism, Cameron was pardoned by the state of Indiana in 1991.