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The Sherman Riot of 1930 was one of a number of major incidents of racial violence that occurred in the United States at the onset of the Great Depression. On May 3, 1930, George Hughes (b. 1889), a black farm laborer, was accused of assaulting a white woman during a wage dispute. For the May 9 trial, local officials suspected they would need help keeping the increasingly agitated crowd under control and appealed to Governor Dan Moody, who sent the Texas National Guard and Texas Rangers.
The morning of the trial, Hughes was transported to the Grayson County Courthouse. An estimated five thousand person crowd called for Hughes to be given to them, and the courthouse was set alight by the mob. Hughes was hidden in a two-story documents vault where he subsequently suffocated as the courthouse burned down. The mob blocked fire department efforts to extinguish the flames.
Hours later, the mob dynamited open the still-standing vault and threw Hughes’ lifeless body out of a window where it was dragged to the city’s black business district, hanged from a tree and burned. The mob set fire to black-owned businesses on Mulberry Street including the office of William J. Durham, a civil rights attorney.
Gov. Moody declared martial law the next day, lasting until May 24. Sixty-six Grayson County citizens were taken into custody with 14 indicted for crimes. Three were considered for trial, and one was convicted for arson of the courthouse and incitement of a riot. No one was charged with lynching or murder. Hughes was buried in an unmarked grave at the Grayson County Poor Farm. (2021) |
