Money, Mississippi

Money is an unincorporated Mississippi Delta community in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, near Greenwood.^[1] It has a population of less than 100, down from 400 circa 1950 when a cotton mill operated in the community. It is on a railroad line and lies on the Tallahatchie River. It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area

Notable events

Money became infamous as a symbol in the U.S. civil rights movement after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old native of Chicago, Illinois, was killed there while visiting relatives in August 1955. He reportedly made suggestive remarks or whistled at (accounts differ) Carolyn Bryant, a white woman working at her husband's store, Bryant's Grocery. Roy Bryant, husband of Carolyn, and his half-brother, J.W. Milam, were arrested for murdering Till, tried and speedily acquitted by an all-white jury. They confessed to the killing in an interview with William Bradford Huie in the January, 1956 issue of Look magazine.

Till's mother, Mamie Till Bradley, insisted on an open casket funeral and allowed news photographs of the body to be published, thus raising nationwide awareness of lynching. Many Southern historians suggest that the Emmett Till murder helped spark the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s by drawing national attention to injustice.

Popular culture

A bridge crossing the Tallahatchie River at Money was famously the focus of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit song "Ode to Billie Joe". That bridge collapsed in June 1972 ^[2] and has since been replaced. The November 10, 1967 issue of Life Magazine contained a photo of Gentry crossing the original bridge.

Gallery

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  The remains of Bryant's Grocery and Meat Market, where Emmett Till encountered Carolyn Bryant^[3]

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  Former Money post office

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  Leflore County Money Volunteer Fire Department

References

1. ^ "Money, Mississippi". Geographic Names Information System, U.S. Geological Survey. http://geonames.usgs.gov/pls/gnispublic/f?p=gnispq:3:::NO::P3_FID:673728. 
2. ^ Tobler, John (1992). NME Rock 'N' Roll Years (1st ed.). London: Reed International Books Ltd. pp. 239. CN 5585. 
3. ^ "Emmett Till's Legacy 50 Years Later." Jet. Johnson Publishing Company. September 19, 2005. Vol. 108, No. 12. ISSN 0021-5996. Retrieved from Google Books on July 4, 2010.

External links

Mississippi portal

• Rich Samuels' 1985 documentary, The Murder and the Movement: The Story of the Murder of Emmett Till
• "The Shocking Story of Approved Killing in Mississippi" by William Bradford Huie, Look Magazine, 1956

Coordinates: 33°39′04″N 90°12′33″W / 33.65111°N 90.20917°W / 33.65111; -90.20917