Patrick Sims’ 10 Perfect explores the essence of James Cameron’s life
A Masterpiece
A Masterpiece
By Jonathan Gramling
Part 1 of 2
Patrick Sims, assistant professor of theater and drama at UW-Madison, would
pass by the sign on I-39 on his way to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
where he had just started graduate school. The sign read “America’s Black
Holocaust Museum.” Having lived in Chicago and attended a university out east,
Sims wasn’t sure how many African Americans lived in Milwaukee. Sims’
curiosity got the best of him.
“One day, I went to the museum and I was like ‘Okay,’” Sims said in his office
in Vilas Hall. “I paid my $5 and they took you into this room and you saw the video
they did on Dr. Cameron. [James Cameron was almost lynched as a young man in
Marion, Ind. during the 1930s ] I thought ‘How the hell did I miss this?’ ‘How the
hell did I not know who this man was?’ And then, to see him walk in the room, I
was on the verge of tears. There he was and to hear his story, him tell it, and then
to hear him say that we always need to tell the truth. We need to tell the truth about
America’s history. That was something that stuck with me. I kept coming back. I
didn’t have any money, but I kept paying the $5 to get in. I would go through and
see him. And I would always stay extra time to talk with him. He kind of got hip to
it. He would take me back to his office and we would sit and chat for a couple of
hours.
Part 1 of 2
Patrick Sims, assistant professor of theater and drama at UW-Madison, would
pass by the sign on I-39 on his way to the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
where he had just started graduate school. The sign read “America’s Black
Holocaust Museum.” Having lived in Chicago and attended a university out east,
Sims wasn’t sure how many African Americans lived in Milwaukee. Sims’
curiosity got the best of him.
“One day, I went to the museum and I was like ‘Okay,’” Sims said in his office
in Vilas Hall. “I paid my $5 and they took you into this room and you saw the video
they did on Dr. Cameron. [James Cameron was almost lynched as a young man in
Marion, Ind. during the 1930s ] I thought ‘How the hell did I miss this?’ ‘How the
hell did I not know who this man was?’ And then, to see him walk in the room, I
was on the verge of tears. There he was and to hear his story, him tell it, and then
to hear him say that we always need to tell the truth. We need to tell the truth about
America’s history. That was something that stuck with me. I kept coming back. I
didn’t have any money, but I kept paying the $5 to get in. I would go through and
see him. And I would always stay extra time to talk with him. He kind of got hip to
it. He would take me back to his office and we would sit and chat for a couple of
hours.
Then he would say that he would need to move on to other things.”
Sims decided to write a play about Cameron’s near-lynching experience while he was still a graduate student, but got put off until after
he graduated. He began to focus on the play, but ran into some roadblocks. “I would send letters to America’s Black Holocaust Museum
explaining that I wanted to do this,” Sims said. “They were very protective of Dr. Cameron. All kinds of folks, I suspect, had expressed
interest. And I think some folks even tried to do something devious or possibly steal the rights to his story. He had the book and it took him a
long time to get the rights to the book back. So there is a whole another subplot where I was being kept at bay because of concerns. So here
I am this bright eyed kid saying that I wanted to write a play. But I was persistent.”
After Cameron died in 2006, Sims continued to persist. Sims talked to Rick Corley who was the artistic director of the now defunct
Madison Repertory Theater and pitched the idea. Corley agreed to do it without even seeing a script as a part of the Rep’s New Playwright
Festival. While the play would never happen at the festival — the Madison Rep disbanded in 2009 — it did propel Sims to complete the play
and obtain funding to produce and perform the show.
After about 12 years that Sims first had the idea, his play “10 Perfect: A Lynching Survivor Story will finally be performed February 5-6 in
the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall. It is a one-act play that features Sims playing 18 characters to tell the story of the
fictional character ‘James Solomon’ based on James Cameron.
The story of the near lynching itself drew Sims to the project. “Cameron was 16 years old and a couple of his buddies were out joyriding
and found Claude Dieter and I think it was his fiancé making out in the back seat of their car,” Sims said. “They put the gun in Cameron’s
hand and told him to put the gun on the couple because they wanted to rob them. He put the gun on them and said ‘Stick-en up.’ It turns out
that the guy they are robbing is one of Cameron’s best shoe-shine customers. So he says ‘Whoa, I’m out of here.’ He fled the scene, not
knowing that in the hustle and tussle, Claude Dieter gets shot. The morning papers the next day said that three Black savages raped a White
woman and killed a White man. So you can imagine that community being incensed. These were Cameron’s next door neighbors. I remember
him vividly talk about how he would help carry folks groceries and cut their grass. He really helped them out as a neighbor in the community.
And he was just so shocked to see those same folk eventually cry for his blood. Fast forward throughout that day after that event, people
were coming from all around the surrounding communities for the necktie party. So they were ready to lynch them. Sure enough, they proceed
to lynch them. The thing that got me the most was the fact they tore the door off of the jailhouse they were kept in. And they took Tom Ship and
Abe Smith out and hung them. Those are the two gentlemen who are hanging in that famous photograph. And Cameron was supposed to be
next. What he describes then is nothing less than a miracle. I quote him in the play where he says ‘For those who don’t believe in God, there
is no explanation possible. But for those who do, there is only one explanation possible.’ And he talks about how he heard a voice cry out
that said ‘Let Cameron go. He had nothing to do with it.’ This was a mob of 5,000 plus people. And anytime you can hear one voice in a body
of thousands, he said you could hear a pin drop. That same mob that kicked him and punched him and basically dragged him to his death, he
described it almost as a Christ-like, allegorical in the sense of going up to Golgotha, they parted and let him crawl back to the jailhouse
where he waited eventually to be sentenced. He served his time and began this lifelong journey.”
While Sims was working on the project, it dawned on him why he was fascinated with Cameron’s story. “My grandfather was almost
lynched,” Sims said. “My grandmother when she was pregnant with my aunt helped a gentleman escape. The boys were looking for a guy
who killed a White man, fairly heavyset. He basically sat on the guy. He took a steel cauldron and sat on the guy and crushed his chest. They
were looking for him and my grandmother gave him a place to hide. So they knew he was somewhere around, but my grandfather was out
chopping wood. He has an ax in his hand and they are out looking for any N-Word that they can find. So my grandmother stepped in and told
them ‘No, he isn’t here and you’re not going to do anything to my husband.’ And they went on. So she called their bluff. There was a risk
because they could have taken her out too. You know what history has demonstrated as it relates to African American men and women. They
could care less.”
Although the immediate draw is the near lynching that occurs, it is the deeper undercurrents of race relations in America that Sims
explores in the play. Cameron reconciled with the brother of Claude Dieter. Sims began to wonder what would have happened if Dieter and
Cameron had been childhood friends. What would the impact of a racist climate have upon them? “What would it look like as children who
are unaffected, who are innocent, who don’t know to hate,” Sims queried. “But then we see the impact of the community that they are
surrounded by, which deteriorates that relationship.”
The exploration of inter-racial relationships is at the heart of 10 Perfect.
Sims decided to write a play about Cameron’s near-lynching experience while he was still a graduate student, but got put off until after
he graduated. He began to focus on the play, but ran into some roadblocks. “I would send letters to America’s Black Holocaust Museum
explaining that I wanted to do this,” Sims said. “They were very protective of Dr. Cameron. All kinds of folks, I suspect, had expressed
interest. And I think some folks even tried to do something devious or possibly steal the rights to his story. He had the book and it took him a
long time to get the rights to the book back. So there is a whole another subplot where I was being kept at bay because of concerns. So here
I am this bright eyed kid saying that I wanted to write a play. But I was persistent.”
After Cameron died in 2006, Sims continued to persist. Sims talked to Rick Corley who was the artistic director of the now defunct
Madison Repertory Theater and pitched the idea. Corley agreed to do it without even seeing a script as a part of the Rep’s New Playwright
Festival. While the play would never happen at the festival — the Madison Rep disbanded in 2009 — it did propel Sims to complete the play
and obtain funding to produce and perform the show.
After about 12 years that Sims first had the idea, his play “10 Perfect: A Lynching Survivor Story will finally be performed February 5-6 in
the Margaret H’Doubler Performance Space in Lathrop Hall. It is a one-act play that features Sims playing 18 characters to tell the story of the
fictional character ‘James Solomon’ based on James Cameron.
The story of the near lynching itself drew Sims to the project. “Cameron was 16 years old and a couple of his buddies were out joyriding
and found Claude Dieter and I think it was his fiancé making out in the back seat of their car,” Sims said. “They put the gun in Cameron’s
hand and told him to put the gun on the couple because they wanted to rob them. He put the gun on them and said ‘Stick-en up.’ It turns out
that the guy they are robbing is one of Cameron’s best shoe-shine customers. So he says ‘Whoa, I’m out of here.’ He fled the scene, not
knowing that in the hustle and tussle, Claude Dieter gets shot. The morning papers the next day said that three Black savages raped a White
woman and killed a White man. So you can imagine that community being incensed. These were Cameron’s next door neighbors. I remember
him vividly talk about how he would help carry folks groceries and cut their grass. He really helped them out as a neighbor in the community.
And he was just so shocked to see those same folk eventually cry for his blood. Fast forward throughout that day after that event, people
were coming from all around the surrounding communities for the necktie party. So they were ready to lynch them. Sure enough, they proceed
to lynch them. The thing that got me the most was the fact they tore the door off of the jailhouse they were kept in. And they took Tom Ship and
Abe Smith out and hung them. Those are the two gentlemen who are hanging in that famous photograph. And Cameron was supposed to be
next. What he describes then is nothing less than a miracle. I quote him in the play where he says ‘For those who don’t believe in God, there
is no explanation possible. But for those who do, there is only one explanation possible.’ And he talks about how he heard a voice cry out
that said ‘Let Cameron go. He had nothing to do with it.’ This was a mob of 5,000 plus people. And anytime you can hear one voice in a body
of thousands, he said you could hear a pin drop. That same mob that kicked him and punched him and basically dragged him to his death, he
described it almost as a Christ-like, allegorical in the sense of going up to Golgotha, they parted and let him crawl back to the jailhouse
where he waited eventually to be sentenced. He served his time and began this lifelong journey.”
While Sims was working on the project, it dawned on him why he was fascinated with Cameron’s story. “My grandfather was almost
lynched,” Sims said. “My grandmother when she was pregnant with my aunt helped a gentleman escape. The boys were looking for a guy
who killed a White man, fairly heavyset. He basically sat on the guy. He took a steel cauldron and sat on the guy and crushed his chest. They
were looking for him and my grandmother gave him a place to hide. So they knew he was somewhere around, but my grandfather was out
chopping wood. He has an ax in his hand and they are out looking for any N-Word that they can find. So my grandmother stepped in and told
them ‘No, he isn’t here and you’re not going to do anything to my husband.’ And they went on. So she called their bluff. There was a risk
because they could have taken her out too. You know what history has demonstrated as it relates to African American men and women. They
could care less.”
Although the immediate draw is the near lynching that occurs, it is the deeper undercurrents of race relations in America that Sims
explores in the play. Cameron reconciled with the brother of Claude Dieter. Sims began to wonder what would have happened if Dieter and
Cameron had been childhood friends. What would the impact of a racist climate have upon them? “What would it look like as children who
are unaffected, who are innocent, who don’t know to hate,” Sims queried. “But then we see the impact of the community that they are
surrounded by, which deteriorates that relationship.”
The exploration of inter-racial relationships is at the heart of 10 Perfect.
UW Professor Patrick Sims depicts 18 characters as he
captures the essence of life behind the near-lynching of
James Cameron, the founder of tAmerica’s Black Holocaust
Museum
captures the essence of life behind the near-lynching of
James Cameron, the founder of tAmerica’s Black Holocaust
Museum
