The Sherman Courthouse Riot: The Lynching of George Hughes - a podcast by Paris Brown

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.

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