Marion Legacy is a project of artist Samuel Levi Jones with the architectural and design support of LAA Office. It will be a site of remembrance, equity, and cross-cultural understanding in Marion, Indiana which acknowledges the impact of the events and subsequent lynching that took place in 1930.

On the evening of August 7th, 1930, a mob of Marion residents lynched J. Thomas Shipp, Abraham S. Smith, and James Cameron on the lawn of the Grant County courthouse. A lurid photograph of the event was published nationally and inspired the poem Bitter Fruit written by Abel Meeropol which was later recorded as Strange Fruit by Billie Holiday in 1939. The song’s mournful tone and vivid lyrical imagery helped catalyze social justice movements across the US and galvanized many in their push for civil rights reform. The events of 1930 created a scar in Marion’s identity that never truly healed.