Milwaukee Public Library Features Work Of James Cameron
by Chuck Quirmbach
A photo at the exhibit shows James Cameron Marching with a sign opposing the Ku Klux Klan. Milwaukee Public Library – Chuck Quirmbach/WPR
An exhibit honoring lynching survivor and African-American civil rights activist James Cameron was unveiled over the weekend in Milwaukee.
Cameron founded America’s Black Holocaust Museum in 1984, 54 years after a white mob tried to lynch him in Indiana. The site had exhibits on slavery and other oppression of African-Americans over hundreds of years.
The museum is now mainly online, but occasionally, small displays are placed in the community, including a new one at the Milwaukee Public Library. It marks the recent digitization of many of Cameron’s writings.
Maria Cunningham, the rare books librarian and a member of the Cameron Legacy Foundation, said Cameron’s words are still relevant, including those about police community relations.
“He’s basically saying, ‘I do not fear the police and any of their injustices. They can’t scare me and if I die, or something happens to me, I will protest it even in my grave,’” Cunningham said.
She said Cameron also wrote about the role of race in politics
“Certain political parties … would use race and fear to turn people’s opinions to something they might not believe,” Cunningham said.
In all, the Milwaukee Public Library has digitized 38 of Cameron’s self-published pamphlets that the library holds in its collection. Wisconsin Public Radio,
© Copyright 2016, Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System and Wisconsin Educational Communications Board.