Janice Branch Tracy - The Juke Joint King of the Mississippi Hills: The Raucous Reign of Tillman Branch

Published by The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2014 by Janice Branch Tracy

All rights reserved

Front cover, background: A. Lindenkohl. Created/published by U.S. Coast Survey, A.D. Bache, super intendent, 1865. Library of Congress, Geography and Map Division, Washington, D.C., 10540-4650, call number: G3980 1865 .L53; inset: Tillman Branch, pictured in 1928 while serving as a trusty at Parchman Prison Farm near Drew, Mississippi. Branch Family Photo Collection.

First published 2014

e-book edition 2014

ISBN 978.1.62584.969.4

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tracy, Janice Branch.

The juke joint king of the Mississippi hills : the raucous reign of Tillman Branch / Janice Branch Tracy.

pages cm

print edition ISBN 978-1-62619-436-6 (paperback)

1. Branch, Tillman, 1901-1963. 2. Criminals--Mississippi--Holmes County--Biography. 3. Murder--Mississippi--Holmes County--Case studies. 4. Holmes County (Miss.)--History. I. Title.

F345.3.B73T73 2014

976.2625063092--dc23

[B]

2014003551

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To the living we owe respect, but to the dead we owe only the truth.

Voltaire (16941778)

This book is dedicated to my paternal grandparents, Clark Commander Branch and Lelia Porter Branch. They were born in Attala County, Mississippi, to parents whose ancestors had arrived there in the 1800s and who never ventured too far away from where they grew up. My grandparents were survivors of some very hard times early in their lives, having experienced the effects of the great Mississippi flood of 1927 and the severe economic conditions caused by the Great Depression. Throughout their lifetimes, they saw their friends, her brother, his nephews, their son, two grandsons and a great-grandson serve in the military during wars and conflicts that spanned a period of more than fifty years. Thanks to technological advances later in their lives, my grandparents were able to experience the conveniences and the benefits of three inventions my generation takes for granted: the telephone, the radio and the television. My grandparents experienced a variety of changes in social and political issues during their lifetimes, including the passage of the Civil Rights Act almost two decades before their deaths. And my grandmother lived long enough to see strong women like her finally given the right to vote in Mississippi, a right that also allowed a woman to serve as a juror in a court of law. They are my heroes, and I feel so fortunate to have known them.

CONTENTS

PREFACE

As a young girl, I always heard the adults on my fathers side of the family tell stories about their relatives and ancestors. Although most of the storytelling took place during once-a-year family gatherings in Goodman, Mississippi, when we celebrated the birthday of Claudia Baldridge Branch, my paternal great-grandmother, I heard other stories at home throughout my childhood. I was somewhat intrigued by what they said, especially the story of how one of our relatives, Tillman Branch, was a known bootlegger who sold liquor during a time when it was illegal in Mississippi. Older Branch relatives told how Tillman operated a nightclub, where his customers, mostly local black residents, drank, danced and gambled until the wee hours of the morning. I was still a child when I first heard how Tillman made a living, and I was certainly too young to understand anything about illegal liquor or what went on inside a nightclub. But as I grew older, I began to understand that some of Tillmans business dealings were illegal.

Fast-forward to 1997, when I began in earnest to research my Branch familys history. Very soon into the process, I traced my grandfathers ancestry back to a Virginia-born man named Edward Tillman Branch, my fourth great-grandfather. Later, research results showed there were four men of the name, including the Tillman Branch who owned a nightclub near Goodman, Mississippi, and that that Tillman was my fathers first cousin, twice removed. After researching the Branch family in Virginia and in Mississippi for almost two decades, I decided to write about the man, one I never met, who was the subject of so many family discussions. Without a doubt, Edward Tillman Branch, the third man to bear that name and known simply as Tillman, was my most colorful relative. And this book will tell his story.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Writing this book took the efforts of many individuals, and I would like to thank those who contributed their time and talents to help complete the project. First and foremost, I would like to thank my family, who supported the book when it was barely an idea and who were always available to help with whatever tasks needed to be done. I owe a mountain of gratitude to my husband who listened patiently as I read aloud pages of draft manuscripts and who helped ferret through miles of newspaper microfilms while we searched for relevant material about Holmes County, Mississippi. He also functioned as a second set of ears during some of the interviews. I am forever grateful to Christen, my editor, who was always available when I needed advice and guidance and whose edits and comments kept me on track with the books content, as well as its schedule for publication. And there are so many othersfriends and family who acted as sounding boards and offered suggestions during the planning process when I talked for hours about ideas for the book. I also want to thank the cousins, both old and new, who I encountered along the way. You were friendly and helpful, and you always made me feel welcome as you assisted me in sorting out time frames and many complicated relationships. One of those cousins to whom I owe special appreciation is Jim H. Branch, who grew up in Greenwood, Mississippi, but who now lives in Alabama with his wife, Ann. Jim spent many hours of painstaking efforts to ensure that I had access to some old and irreplaceable family photographs, and he helped match up names and faces in those photographs. Jim and another Branch cousin, Andy McCrory; my brother, Arthur Branch; my father, James L. Branch; and Jennette Moore of the Goodman Library, assisted in taking (and retaking) various photos for the book. And I simply cannot forget to thank Ann Breedlove, a longtime genealogy researcher in the Attala County Library in Kosciusko, Mississippi, for faithfully assisting me with family research over a period of almost ten years. And to others who helped provide details for the bookincluding Bobbie Nance; Eloise Alderman, a historian in Lexington; and staff at the Mississippi Department of Archives and History who guided and assisted us with research activities on siteI offer my sincere appreciation.

INTRODUCTION

Most of the older residents of Attala, Holmes and a few surrounding counties have heard about the murder of Tillman Branch. And some of the younger people may have heard the story from their parents or grandparents when they were growing up about how he was shot and killed by a black man on Easter Sunday morning in 1963. Very few individuals I talked to during the course of writing this book, however, recalled the name Matthew Winter, the young man who killed Tillman. Strangely, some of these individuals included Tillmans close relatives. Generally speaking, Tillmans death went unnoticed in 1963 by most of Mississippi, primarily because some nationally significant events that same year kept local and national newspaper reporters and television stations otherwise engaged throughout the state. In March 1963, prior to Tillmans murder in April, the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) led a voter registration drive in Greenwood, Leflore County, adjacent to Holmes County, where he was killed. And just the week before Tillman was shot and killed, a contentious voter registration event took place in Lexington, Mississippi, the seat of Holmes County.