Ventured up to Greenwood the other day and made a detour while there to visit the town of Money, Miss., which is just north of there. It's claim to fame is this store that is slowly disappearing as Mother Nature keeps at it. It was at this location in the mid 50s that 14-year-old Emmett Till whistled at a white woman and was later killed for it. Some folks want to tear the store down. Others want to reconstruct it. It's a piece of Mississippi's civil rights history. I just wanted to take some photos of it. I wonder how many people pass by it and never realize what occurred there? It was rainy this day. Set the mood perfectly...
Marty,
ReplyDeleteThe Till "incident" as it was referred to in those days, was in 1955---I remember the teacher who told us about it in arithmetic, with such a gloating look of "That'll show HIM," on his face. That only re-inforced my own rebellious thoughts of the times I was living in.
The store is almost the exact one that served as a "commissary" on the old "Home Place" of my children's Grandparents in the Delta---I was amazed that the farmer would go to so much trouble and expense of building such a building, with the big square business-like front facade, just to hand out sorghum and grits rations to the workers.
It even had a big Co-Cola sign on the side of the building, and those little red metal ads on the door handles, with a green Seven-Up "Thank you Come Again" on the inside of the screen. Right out there miles from anything but the farm and those people so tied to it for their survival.
When I read "The Grapes of Wrath," I knew exactly where Ma Joad "shopped."