09/05/2025
I'm honored to announce, on this 95th anniversary, that I've been working on a true crime book tentatively titled, *The Sherman Courthouse Riot: A Lynching in North Texas and the Destruction of a Modern-Day Athens.*
The synopsis: In May 1930, the trial of an African American man, accused of the sexual assault of a white woman, was interrupted by a mob intent on handing down a death sentence well before any verdict had been decided. Part true crime mystery and part hidden history, this is the little-known story of a respected north Texas town whose notion of vigilante justice spiraled wildly into a lynching, the destruction of a county courthouse, an erasure of a Black-owned business district, a declaration of martial law, an evasion of accountability and, finally, a battle for a state historical marker and a quest to openly confront the legacies of racialized extrajudicial violence and economic devastation in the United States.
I've written over 200 pages and am getting close to finishing it up. I want to thank two of the many heroes of this saga, Melissa Loe and Kurt Cichowski, for their invaluable assistance and hard work in ensuring the victims' stories weren't lost to time.
I hope all the true crime community and other avid readers will look forward to the book's publications. It's an incredible tale, and just when you think nothing more could possibly happen in the storyline--it does. Thanks for your support, and I'll post updates as they occur.
