The Sherman Courthouse Riot: The Lynching of George Hughes

Paris' lifelong search for her family's genealogical records leads her to investigate the reason they are missing: the lynching of a 41-year-old African American man named George Hughes in 1930. Accused of assaulting a white woman in Sherman, located within Grayson County, Texas, George never gets his day in court. Instead, locals burn down the courthouse with Hughes trapped inside and later carry out a postmortem lynching. Special guest Melissa Thiel, a public historian and a native of Grayson County, joins Paris later in the episode to discuss her efforts in getting an historical marker placed at the county courthouse to memorialize this significant crime and to discuss artifacts from this case that she's uncovered in her own research. This episode provides little-known background information on George Hughes, his accusers, and the town of Sherman during the Jim Crow era. Please sign Melissa Thiel's historical marker petition at shermanriot.org and visit the Historical Marker for the 1930 Sherman Riot Facebook group for updates and more information about this true crime.

If you like this episode, please subscribe, rate us with 5 stars on iTunes or your favorite podcatcher, and consider supporting this one-woman show at Patreon. Apologies for the sound quality of this episode; I'm in a new recording studio which has not yet been fully soundproofed.

Host: Paris Brown

Produced, written, & edited by: Paris Brown

Music:

Dr. Frankenstein. “Theme for ‘The Mad Thinker’” from The Cursed Tapes: Stolen Songs from Dr. Frankenstein’s Lab, 2005 

and

Canción Triste by Luis Enrique Guerra Naveda (royalty-free music)

Credits:

Podcast artwork by: Nathalie Rattner ([email protected])

Logo lettering by: St. Anchor Graphics

Featured photo: Texas Standard.

Social Media:

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Reddit discussion group

Sources:

Associated Press. “Guilty Plea in Sherman Riot; 2-Year Sentence.” Fort Worth Star Telegram, 2 July 1931, p. 2.

Boessenecker, John. Texas Ranger: The Epic Life of Frank Hamer, the Man Who Killed Bonnie and Clyde. Thomas Dunne Books, 2016.

Crabb, Beth. “May 1930: White Man’s Justice for a Black Man’s Crime.” The Journal of Negro History, vol. 75, no. 1/2, 1990, pp. 29-40.

“Farmer’s Case in Sherman Riot Set for Monday.” The Marshall News Messenger (Marshall, Texas), 31 May 1931, p. 1.

Honey Grove Signal Citizen, 16 May 1930.

Kumler, Donna J. “They Have Gone from Sherman”: The Courthouse Riot of 1930 and Its Impact on the Black Professional Class. 1995. University of North Texas, PhD dissertation.

Lipke, Alan. “Lynching’s End? The Texas Courthouse Riot.” Listening Between the Lines. February 2008.

McElroy, Njoki. 1012 Natchez: A Memoir of Grace, Hardship, and Hope. Brown Books, 2009.

Phillips, Edward H. “The Sherman Courthouse Riot of 1930.” East Texas Historical Journal, vol. 25, no. 2, October 1987, pp. 12-19.

ADDITIONAL SOURCES LISTED ON LINKED WEBSITE BELOW.