William Burns Robert Hughes
CUMBERLAND, MD -- 12/20/21 -- Allegany County is about 8% Black. These residents, like many historically Black communities, have had to deal with predatory housing and policing policies, and a lack of representation in government and other public services. These are the downstream effects of a history of racial predjudice, discriminaiton and terror. William Burns, aka Robert Hughes, was lynched here by a Cumberland mob in 1907. He was 18 years old. The history of this murder is still divisive in this Appalacian town⦠André Chung/ICTJ