August 1930 Chronology

1930

Pan-African Chronology

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August

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August 2

*Bobbie Beard, an African American child actor best known for portraying "Cotton" in several Our Gang short films from 1932 to 1934, was born in Los Angeles, California.

Bobbie Beard (b. August 2, 1930, Los Angeles, California – d. October 16, 1999, Los Angeles, California) was a native of Los Angeles, California. His older brother was Matthew "Stymie" Beard, one of the series' most popular and best-remembered characters.

As older brother Stymie was the main breadwinner for the Beard family, his success with the Our Gang series opened the door for his siblings. Bobbie Beard appeared as Stymie's younger brother in Hi'-Neighbor!, Forgotten Babies, Fish Hooky, A Lad an' a Lamp and Birthday Blues. His most memorable appearance was in A Lad an' a Lamp, in which Spanky McFarland keeps wishing that Cotton could be a monkey. Despite his notable presence in several films, Beard never spoke a word.

After departing Our Gang, Beard became an auction dealer in the Los Angeles area. In later years, Beard worked at the Hillcrest Country Club in Los Angeles and became good friends with Groucho Marx.  He later served in the Korean War, and spent his final years working for the Los Angeles School Board. 

Beard died on October 16, 1999.

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*Eddie Locke, a jazz drummer who became a member of the Coleman Hawkins Quartet in the 1960s, was born in Detroit, Michigan.

Eddie Locke (b. August 2, 1930, Detroit, Michigan - d. September 7, 2009, Ramsey, New Jersey) was a part of the fertile and vibrant Detroit jazz scene during the 1940s and 1950s, which brought forth many great musicians including the Jones brothers (Hank, Thad, and Elvin), Kenny Burrell, Lucky Thompson, Tommy Flanagan, Barry Harris,  and so many others.  

Locke began playing the drums when he was six or seven, sometimes using a homemade drum kit until his family could afford a real drum set.  Mostly self-taught, Locke performed in a popular vaudeville act Bop & Locke, along with fellow drummer, Oliver Jackson.  Bop & Locke played the Apollo Theater. 

Locke moved to New York City in 1954, and worked there with Dick Wellstood, Tony Parenti, Red Allen, Willie "The Lion" Smith, and Teddy Wilson amongst others. During this time he came under the tutelage of the great Jo Jones, and eventually became known as a driving and swinging drummer who kept solid time and supported the soloist.  Locke's big break in the big city was a regular job at The Metropole jazz club, one of the important spots in the New York jazz club scene of the '50s.  In 1958, he was hired by Eldridge with whom he performed for many years.  Locke appears on Eldridge's Swingin' on the Town for Verve in 1960, as well as on several other Eldridge recording dates and the two frequently performed together at Jimmy Ryan's club, where they were the house band off and on for about 15 years.  He also had a close relationship with Coleman Hawkins, with whom he performede until Hawkins' death in 1969.  Locke is featured on many Hawkins' albums, including In A Mellow Tone and for  Prestige and Wrapped Tight for Impulse.  Locke also performed and recorded regularly with guitarist Kenny Burrell.

A quintessential sideman, Locke did form a group with Roland Hanna in the 1980s and in later years led his own band when he could.  But for the majority of this career, he was better known as a first call drummer for jazz performances in New York. Locke was also one of the subjects from the famous photograph "A Great Day in Harlem" shot in 1958 by Art Kane.  At just 28 years of age, he was one of the youngest jazz artists appearing in the photo.  
Besides a very active performing schedule, Locke also found time to teach music both privately and at the High School of Performing Arts and the Trevor Day Music School in New York City.  He was beloved by his students and proteges, many of whom went on to great success as professional jazz musicians. 

Eddie died on Monday morning, September 7, 2009, in Ramsey, New Jersey.

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August 6

*Abbey Lincoln, an American jazz vocalist, songwriter, and actress, who wrote and performed her own compositions, was born in Chicago, Illinois.

Anna Marie Wooldridge (b. August 6, 1930, Chicago, Illinois – d. August 14, 2010, New York City, New York), known by her stage name Abbey Lincoln, was born in Chicago but raised in Calvin Center, Cass County, Michigan, Lincoln was one of many singers influenced by Billie Holiday.  She often visited the Blue Note jazz club in New York City. Her debut album, Abbey Lincoln's Affair – A Story of a Girl in Love, was followed by a series of albums for Riverside Records.  In 1960 she sang on Max Roach's landmark civil rights-themed recording, We Insist! Lincoln’s lyrics were often connected to the civil rights movement in America.

During the 1980s, Lincoln’s creative output was smaller and she released only a few albums during that decade. Her song "For All We Know" is featured in the 1989 film Drugstore Cowboy.  During the 1990s and until her death, however, she fulfilled a 10-album contract with Verve Records. After a tour of Africa in the mid-1970s, she adopted the name Aminata Moseka. 

The Verve Records albums are highly regarded and represent a crowning achievement in Lincoln’s career. Devil’s Got Your Tongue (1992) featured Rodney Kendrick, Grady Tate, J. J. Johnson, Stanley Turrentine, Babatunde Olatunji and The Staple Singers, among others. In 2003, Lincoln received a National Endowment for the Arts Jazz Master Award.  In 1956 Lincoln appeared in The Girl Can't Help It,  for which she wore a dress that had been worn by Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes (1953), and interpreted the theme song, working with Benny Carter. She also played a dancing housekeeper in the film.

With Ivan Dixon, she co-starred in Nothing But a Man (1964), an independent film written and directed by Michael Roemer.  In 1968 she also co-starred with Sidney Poitier and Beau Bridges in For Love of Ivy, and received a 1969 Golden Globe nomination for her appearance in the film.

Television appearances began in 1968 with The Name of the Game.  In March 1969 for WGBH-TV Boston,  in one episode of a 10-episode series of individual dramas written, produced and performed by blacks, "On Being Black," was her work in Alice Childess' Wine in the Wilderness. She later appeared in Mission: Impossible (1971), the telemovie Short Walk to Daylight (1972),  Marcus Welby, M. D. (1974), and All in the Family (1978).

In the 1990 Spike Lee movie Mo' Better Blues, Lincoln played the young Bleek's mother, Lillian.  Lincoln was married from 1962 to 1970 to drummer Max Roach, whose daughter from a previous marriage, Maxine, appeared on several of Lincoln’s albums.

Lincoln died on August 14, 2010 in Manhattan, eight days after her 80th birthday.

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*Robert Blair, a gospel musician and leader of The Fantastic Violinaires, was born.

Robert Earl Blair (b. August 6, 1930 – d. March 19, 2001) was the leader of The Fantastic Violinaires originating from Detroit, Michigan, from 1965 until his death. He started his music career, in 1965, with the release of Stand by Me by Checker Records. His third album, The Pink Tornado, was released in 1988 by Atlanta International Records, and this was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart. He released fourteen albums over the course of his career.

His music recording career commenced in 1965, with the album, Stand by Be, and it was released by Checker Records.  He released an album in 1988 with Atlanta International Records, The Pink Tornado, and it was his breakthrough release upon the Billboard magazine Gospel Albums chart at No. 34. His music career ended at his death in 2001, and by that time he released fourteen albums with several labels.

Blair died on March 19, 2001 of a heart attack.

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August 7

*Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith were lynched in Marion, Indiana.  There were beaten and hanged.  James Cameron survived. This would be the last recorded lynching of African Americans in the Northern United States.

On August 7, 1930, a large white mob used tear gas, crowbars, and hammers to break into the Grant County Jail in Marion, Indiana, to seize and lynch three young black men who had been accused of murder and assault. Thomas Shipp and Abram Smith, both 19 years old were severely beaten and hanged, while the third young man, 16-year-old James Cameron, was badly beaten but not killed.  Photographs of the brutal lynching were shared widely, featuring clear images of the crowd posing beneath the hanging corpses, but no one was ever prosecuted or convicted.  The haunting images inspired writer Abel Meeropol to compose the poem that later became the song "Strange Fruit".

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J. Thomas Shipp and Abraham S. Smith were young African-American men who were murdered in a spectacle lynching by a mob of thousands on August 7, 1930, in Marion, Indiana. They were taken from jail cells, beaten, and hanged from a tree in the county courthouse square. They had been arrested that night as suspects in a robbery, murder and rape case. A third African-American suspect, 16-year-old James Cameron, had also been arrested but he narrowly escaped being killed by the mob. An unknown woman and a local sports hero intervened, and he was returned to jail. Cameron later stated that Shipp and Smith had committed the murder but that he had run away before that event.

The local chapter of the NAACP had tried to evacuate the suspects from town to avoid the mob violence, but were not successful. The NAACP and the State's Attorney General pressed to indict leaders of the lynch mob, but, as was typical in lynchings, no one was ever charged for the deaths of Shipp and Smith, nor for the attack on Cameron.

Cameron was later convicted and sentenced as an accessory to murder before the fact. He served some time in prison, then pursued work and an education. After dedicating his life to civil rights activism, in 1991, Cameron was pardoned by the state of Indiana.

Shipp, Smith and Cameron had been arrested the night before on August 6, 1930, charged with robbing and murdering a white factory worker, Claude Deeter, and raping his girlfriend, Mary Ball, who was with him at the time.

A large crowd broke into the jail with sledgehammers, pulled out the three suspects, beating them and hanging them. When Abram Smith tried to free himself from the noose as his body was hauled up, he was lowered and men broke his arms to prevent such efforts. Police officers in the crowd cooperated in the lynching. The third suspect, 16-year-old James Cameron,  narrowly escaped death thanks to an unidentified woman who said that the youth had nothing to do with the rape or murder.

A local studio photographer, Lawrence Beitler,  took a photograph of the dead men hanging from a tree surrounded by the large lynch mob.  The crowd was estimated at 5,000 and included women and children. He sold thousands of copies of the photograph over the next ten days.

Mary Ball later testified that she had not been raped. According to Cameron's 1982 memoir, the police had originally accused all three men of murder and rape. After the lynchings, and Mary Ball's testimony, the rape charge was dropped against Cameron. However, Cameron did admit in interviews that Shipp and Smith had shot and killed Claude Deeter.

Flossie Bailey, a local NAACP official in Marion, and Attorney General James M. Ogden worked to gain indictments against leaders of the mob in the lynchings, but the Grant County grand jury refused to return an indictment. Attorney General Ogden then brought charges against four leaders of the mob, as well as bringing impeachment proceedings against the Grant County sheriff who had refused to intervene. All-white Grant County juries returned "not guilty" verdicts for all of the leaders charged.

James Cameron was tried in 1931 as an accessory to murder before the fact, convicted and sentenced to state prison for several years. After being released on parole, he moved to Detroit, where he worked and went to college. In the 1940s, Cameron returned to Indiana, working as a civil rights activist and heading a state agency for equal rights. In the 1950s, he moved to Milwaukee, Wisconsin.  There, in 1988, Cameron founded America's Black Holocaust Museum,  for African-American history and documentation of lynchings of African Americans.

Some other interesting notes about the lynching and the aftermath include the following:

• The night of the lynching, studio photographer Lawrence Beitler took a photograph of the crowd surrounding the bodies of the two men hanging from a tree. He sold thousands of copies over the next 10 days. The photograph became an iconic image of a spectacle lynching.

• In 1937, Abel Meeropol, a Jewish schoolteacher from New York City and later the adoptive father of the sons of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, saw a copy of Beitler's 1930 photograph. Meeropol later said that the photograph "haunted [him] for days" and inspired his poem "Bitter Fruit". It was published in the New York Teacher in 1937 and later in the magazine New Masses, in both cases under the pseudonym Lewis Allan. Meeropol set his poem to music, renaming it "Strange Fruit".  Meeropol performed it at a labor meeting in Madison Square Garden.  In 1939, the song was performed, recorded and popularized by the iconic  American jazz singer Billie Holiday. The song reached 16th place on the charts in July 1939, and has since been recorded by numerous artists, continuing into the 21st century.

• After years as a civil rights activist, in 1988, James Cameron founded and became director of America's Black Holocaust Museum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin,  devoted to African-American history in the United States. He intended it as a place for education and reconciliation.

• In 2007, artist David Powers supervised the creation of a mural, titled American Nocturne, in a park in downtown Elgin, Illinois. The mural depicts the bottom half of the Beitler photograph, showing the crowd at the lynching but not the bodies of Shipp and Smith.  The artwork was intended as a critique of racism in American society.  After it had been displayed without controversy for nearly a decade, in 2016, dissension was generated after someone posted images of the mural and lynching photo together on social media, and its origin was seen. The mural was moved from the park to the Hemmens Cultural Center. After hearing public comment, the Elgin Cultural Arts Commission recommended to the city council that the mural be permanently removed from public display. In May 2018, the artist formally requested the mural be returned to him. Thereafter, the Commission sought to formalize a response, which may include returning the artwork to the artist, loaning it out, or donating it to a local nonprofit or educational institution.

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(See also Appendix 5: A Chronological Listing of Lynchings.)

(See also Appendix 6: James Cameron.)

(See also Appendix 7: Abel Meeropol.)

(See also Appendix 8: "Strange Fruit".)

(See also Appendix 9: The Song of the Century.)

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*Edward Willard Bates, a prominent African American who served as a physician and surgeon in the 368th Ambulance Company in the 317th Sanitary (Medical) Train of the 92nd Division during World War I, died in Los Angeles, California.  For his bravery in battle, he was recommended for the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). 

Edward Bates (b. November 4, 1884, Dallas, Texas – d. August 7, 1930, Los Angeles, California)  was born on November 4, 1884 to John W. and Tyria Norwood Bates in Dallas, Texas.

Both of Bates' parents were Texas natives and were well involved in the local Baptist community. This was more defined by Bates when he entered Bishop College which was located in Marshall, Texas. Bishop College is a historically black university which relocated to Dallas in the late 20th century. It remained open until 1988 when a scandal forced the institution to close. Bates did not end his education there as he soon entered Meharry Medical College in Nashville, Tennessee.  He was a classmate and later fellow soldier of Dr. Everett R. Bailey. According to a the commencement pamphlet released on the day of his graduation on April 14, 1910, Bates was a class orator for the medical school graduates. Though Bates was listed to be from Dallas, he soon relocated to Louisville, Kentucky, and opened a medical practice in 1912. However, his time in Louisville reminded Bates of the systematic racism that still existed despite his advanced education.

In 1917, the United States joined World War I to help the Allies. The United States military urged physicians to sign up due to the shortage, and when Bates was 33 years old he volunteered for service.

Like the majority of the African-American recruits, Bates was sent for basic training at Fort Des Moines Provisional Army Officer Training School.  He was commissioned with the rank of First Lieutenant.  Fort Des Moines had been opened for training African-American men as there had been a huge influx of African-American volunteers and a petition had been initiated by the students of Howard University calling for the use of African American troops.  However, despite the hope for a new recognition and appreciation, there was still discontent at the facility as many soldiers found that they were being unfairly assessed for merely being black. After being trained, Bates was assigned to the 368th Ambulance Company of the 317th Sanitary (Medical Train) of the 92nd Division.

Once in France, the 92nd Division was essentially assigned to France to assist the French troops, as General Pershing did not want to utilize the African-American soldiers. The French were extremely relieved at the reinforcements as the Germans were hitting them aggressively. Soon after arriving in France, Dr. Bates's surgical abilities were questioned by the Lieutenant Colonel. According to records, Bates had scored around 50% on his military and medical subjects back in the United States, which made the Lieutenant Colonel want to re-evaluate Bates before sending him into the field. Bates retook the exam and proved his ability and was soon sent over to the Gas Defense School. 

The troops in France were facing repeated gas attacks from the Germans. In early October 1918, a couple weeks before the war ended, the entire Division was sent over to the Marbache sector in France and faced an aggressive assault by the Germans. Lieutenant Bates proved his capability during the attack.  One of the company commanders, a Captain Kennedy, had been gassed and wounded.  He was in the Aide Station when the German assault began.  Despite enduring intense shell fire,Lieutenant Bates helped to carry Captain Kennedy from the Aide Station to the Ambulance Station. For this meritorious service, the next day Captain Kennedy recommended Lieutenant Bates for the Distinguished Service Cross.

When the war concluded, Bates moved back to Louisville to continue his medical practice.

Bates died unexpectedly in his home on August 7, 1930. It was reported in the Chicago Defender that Bates died of a heart attack, however, an autopsy revealed that he died from a combination of mitral stenosis and nephritis (kidney disease).

Bates married Sadie B. Bates after he returned from the war and they remained together until his death in 1930.