James Cameron (activist)

James Cameron
Born	(1914-02-15)February 15, 1914 La Crosse, Wisconsin, United States
Died	June 11, 2006(2006-06-11) (aged 92) Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States
Occupation	political activist
Years active	1940–2006
Known for	surviving an attempted lynching
Notable work	Founding America's Black Holocaust Museum
Spouse	Virginia Hamiliton ​ (m. 1938)​
Children	5

James Cameron (February 25, 1914 – June 11, 2006) was an American civil rights activist. In the 1940s, he founded three chapters of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in Indiana.^[1] He also served as Indiana's State Director of the Office of Civil Liberties from 1942 to 1950.

In the 1950s he moved with his family to Milwaukee, Wisconsin, where he continued as an activist and started speaking on African-American history. In 1988 he founded America's Black Holocaust Museum in the city, devoted to African-American history from slavery to the present.

Cameron was a survivor of a lynching attempt, which occurred when he was a 16-year-old suspect in a murder/robbery case in Marion, Indiana; two older teenagers were killed by the mob.^[1]