Money, Mississippi

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Money, Mississippi
Unincorporated community
LeFloreCountyMoneyVolFire.JPG
Leflore County Volunteer Fire Department in Money
USA Mississippi location map.svg
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Money
Location in Mississippi
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Money
Location in the United States
Coordinates: 33°39′04″N90°12′33″W / 33.65111°N 90.20917°W / 33.65111; -90.20917
Country United States
State Mississippi
County Leflore
Elevation
[1]
138 ft (42 m)
Population
 • Total
<100
Time zone UTC-6 (Central (CST))
 • Summer (DST) UTC-5 (CDT)
GNIS feature ID673728 [1]

Money is an unincorporated community near Greenwood in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, in the Mississippi Delta. [1] It has fewer than 100 residents, down from 400 in the early 1950s when a cotton mill operated there. Money is located on a railroad line along the Tallahatchie River, a tributary of the Yazoo River in the eastern part of the Mississippi Delta. The community has ZIP code 38945 in the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area.

Contents

Money is the site of events leading to the 1955 lynching of 14-year-old Emmett Till.

History

Bryant's Grocery, 2009. By 2018, it was described as "not much left" as preservation was hindered by its private owners. EmmettTillStoreMoneyMS.JPG
Bryant's Grocery, 2009. By 2018, it was described as "not much left" as preservation was hindered by its private owners.

The settlement was named for Hernando Money, a United States Senator from Mississippi. [3] Money was a stop on the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad. [4] This rural area was developed for cotton cultivation. The population in 1900 was 40. [4] The Money post office was established in 1901. [5]

Money gained international attention in 1955 after Emmett Till, a 14-year-old African-American boy from Chicago visiting his uncle, was accused of flirting, by means of whistling, with a white woman working alone at Bryant's Grocery & Meat Market in Money. Till was subsequently murdered. [6]

A historic marker has been placed in front of Bryant's Grocery, and the site draws "an ever-increasing number of tourists". The crumbling building is privately owned, which has hindered efforts to preserve it. [7] [8]

Transportation

Amtrak’s City of New Orleans , which operates between New Orleans and Chicago, passes through the town on CN tracks, but makes no stop. The nearest station is located in Greenwood, 11 miles (18 km) to the south.

Education

It is in the Greenwood-Leflore School District. Residents are zoned to Amanda Elzy High School. [9]

The town was formerly served by the Leflore County School District. [10] Effective July 1, 2019 this district consolidated into the Greenwood-Leflore School District. [11]

Notable people

A wooden bridge across the Tallahatchie River at Money was the focus of Bobbie Gentry's 1967 hit song "Ode to Billie Joe." The November 10, 1967 issue of Life magazine featured a photo of Gentry crossing the bridge. The bridge collapsed in June 1972 after being burned by vandals. [14] It has since been replaced.

The novel The Trees by Percival Everett is set in Money and depicts a mysterious series of murders that seem to follow identical patterns and involve the families of the confessed murderers of Emmett Till.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallahatchie County, Mississippi</span> County in Mississippi, United States

Tallahatchie County is a county in the U.S. state of Mississippi. At the 2020 census, the population was 12,715. Its county seats are Charleston and Sumner.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Leflore County, Mississippi</span> County in Mississippi, United States

Leflore County is a county located in the U.S. state of Mississippi. As of the 2020 census, the population was 28,339. The county seat is Greenwood. The county is named for Choctaw leader Greenwood LeFlore, who signed a treaty to cede his people's land to the United States in exchange for land in Indian Territory. LeFlore stayed in Mississippi, settling on land reserved for him in Tallahatchie County.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Itta Bena, Mississippi</span> City in Mississippi, United States

Itta Bena is a city in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 2,049 at the 2010 census. The town's name is derived from the Choctaw phrase iti bina, meaning "forest camp". Itta Bena is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area. It developed as a trading center of an area of cotton plantations.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Schlater, Mississippi</span> Town in Mississippi, United States

Schlater is a town in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 310 at the 2010 census, down from 388 at the 2000 census. It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sidon, Mississippi</span> Town in Mississippi, United States

Sidon is a town in Leflore County, Mississippi, United States. The population was 509 at the 2010 census. It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Glendora, Mississippi</span> Village in Mississippi, United States

Glendora is a village in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The population was 285 at the 2000 census.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sumner, Mississippi</span> Town in Mississippi, United States

Sumner is a town in Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. The population was 407 at the 2000 census. Sumner is one of the two county seats of Tallahatchie County. It is located on the west side of the county and the Tallahatchie River, which runs through the county north–south. The other county seat is Charleston, located east of the river. Charleston was the first county seat, as settlement came from the east, and it is the larger of the two towns.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Greenwood, Mississippi</span> City in Mississippi, United States

Greenwood is a city in and the county seat of Leflore County, Mississippi, United States, located at the eastern edge of the Mississippi Delta region, approximately 96 miles north of the state capital, Jackson, and 130 miles south of the riverport of Memphis, Tennessee. It was a center of cotton planter culture in the 19th century.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minter City, Mississippi</span> Unincorporated community in Mississippi, United States

Minter City is an unincorporated community in Leflore County and Tallahatchie County, Mississippi. It is part of the Greenwood, Mississippi micropolitan area, and is within the Mississippi Delta.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Emmett Till</span> African American lynching victim (1941–1955)

Emmett Louis Till was a 14-year-old African American youth who was abducted and lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after being accused of offending a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, in her family's grocery store. The brutality of his murder and the acquittal of his killers drew attention to the long history of violent persecution of African Americans in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the civil rights movement.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tallahatchie River</span> River in Mississippi, US

The Tallahatchie River is a river in Mississippi which flows 230 miles (370 km) from Tippah County, through Tallahatchie County, to Leflore County, where it joins the Yalobusha River to form the Yazoo River, which ultimately meets the Mississippi River at Vicksburg, Mississippi. The river is navigable for about 100 miles (160 km). At Money, Mississippi, the river's flow measures approximately 7,861 cubic feet (222.6 m3) per second.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">U.S. Route 49E</span> U.S. Highway in Mississippi

U.S. Route 49E is an 89.6-mile-long (144.2 km) U.S. Highway in the Delta region of Mississippi. It travels through Yazoo, Holmes, Leflore, and Tallahatchie counties.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Mamie Till</span> American schoolteacher and mother of Emmett Till

Mamie Elizabeth Till-Mobley was an American educator and activist. She was the mother of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old youth murdered in Mississippi on August 28, 1955, after accusations that he had whistled at a white grocery store cashier named Carolyn Bryant. For Emmett's funeral in Chicago, Mamie Till insisted that the coffin containing his body be left open, because, in her words, "I wanted the world to see what they did to my baby."

The Leflore County School District (LCSD) was a public school district headquartered in Greenwood, Mississippi, United States.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">McNutt, Mississippi</span> Unincorporated community in Mississippi, United States

McNutt is an unincorporated community located in Leflore County, Mississippi. McNutt is located west of Schlater, just off Mississippi Highway 442.

Willie Louis was a witness to the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Till was an African-American child from Chicago who was murdered in 1955 after he had reportedly whistled at a white woman in a Money, Mississippi, grocery store. Till's murder was a watershed moment in the Civil Rights Movement. Louis testified in court about what he had seen, but an all-white jury found the men not guilty. Fearing for his life, Louis moved to Chicago after the trial and changed his name from Willie Reed to Willie Louis. He was interviewed in 2003 for the PBS documentary The Murder of Emmett Till and was interviewed the next year on the CBS News television program 60 Minutes.

Amanda Elzy High School (AEHS) is a high school in unincorporated Leflore County, Mississippi, south of Greenwood, and part of the Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School District.

Amanda Belle Elzy was a pioneering African-American educator. She graduated from Rust High School in 1929 and from Rust College in 1934. She worked as Supervisor of Negro Schools in Leflore County, Mississippi, then became the first black assistant superintendent in the county, and was one of the founders of Mississippi Valley State University in the 1940s. Her sister was the singer Ruby Elzy, and their mother Emma Elzy was a teacher and prominent member of the Methodist church, in whose memory the Mississippi Conference of the United Methodist Church presents an annual Emma K. Elzy award. Emma died in 1985, aged 98. Amanda Elzy died in 2004.

Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School District (GLCSD) is a school district serves Greenwood, Mississippi and the rest of Leflore County. It was established on July 1, 2019, as a merger of the Greenwood Public School District and the Leflore County School District.

References

  1. 1 2 3 U.S. Geological Survey Geographic Names Information System: Money, Mississippi
  2. ↑ Mitchell, Jerry (August 29, 2018). "'They just want history to die:' Owners demand $4 million for crumbling Emmett Till store". The Clarion Ledger. Retrieved August 30, 2019.
  3. ↑ Gallant, Frank K. (February 16, 2012). A Place Called Peculiar: Stories about Unusual American Place-Names. Courier Corporation. p. 95. ISBN   978-0-486-48360-3.
  4. 1 2 Rowland, Dunbar (1907). Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions, and Persons, Arranged in Cyclopedic Form (PDF). Vol. 2. Southern Historical Publishing Association. p. 271.
  5. ↑ "Leflore County". Jim Forte Postal History. Retrieved November 1, 2015.
  6. ↑ "Woman Linked to 1955 Emmett Till Murder Tells Historian Her Claims Were False" . Retrieved August 7, 2018.
  7. ↑ Burch, Audra D. S.; Shastri, Veda; Chaffee, Tim (February 20, 2019). "Emmett Till's Murder, and How America Remembers Its Darkest Moments". The New York Times.
  8. ↑ Tell, David (April 2019). "Remembering Emmett Till in Money, Mississippi". Places.
  9. ↑ "School Profile". Greenwood-Leflore Consolidated School District . Retrieved May 18, 2021. Amanda Elzy currently services [...] including the towns of [...] Money, [...]
  10. ↑ "SCHOOL DISTRICT REFERENCE MAP (2010 CENSUS): Leflore County, MS" (PDF). U.S. Census Bureau . Retrieved May 12, 2021.
  11. ↑ "School District Consolidation in Mississippi Archived 2017-07-02 at the Wayback Machine ." Mississippi Professional Educators. December 2016. Retrieved on July 2, 2017. Page 2 (PDF p. 3/6).
  12. ↑ Komara, Edward; Lee, Peter (July 19, 2004). The Blues Encyclopedia. Routledge. p. 409. ISBN   9781135958329 – via Google Books.
  13. ↑ Wiggins, David K. (March 26, 2015). African Americans in Sports. Routledge. p. 401. ISBN   978-1-317-47744-0.
  14. ↑ Tobler, John (1992). NME Rock 'N' Roll Years (1st ed.). London: Reed International Books Ltd. p. 239. CN 5585.
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