Most-Read Posts According to Blogger Stats

Although I have tried, I cannot predict how many readers will be attracted to a particular post. On a number of occasions, I have researched and written posts that I thought would be of interest to a large audience, only to find the actual number of readers was very low.  In other instances, the opposite was true.  Nevertheless, I continue to analyze the popularity of posts on topics that have appealed to the largest number of readers of this blog, and today I thought it might be fun to list the top five posts, according to Blogger statistics.  So here they are, listed in the  order of reader popularity.


Robert Johnson's Grave and a Trip to Tallahatchie Flats, June 16, 2009


"One Night of Madness" - A True Account of the Leon Turner Murder Case,
October 20, 2009


Burel Family - Pennsylvania>Union County, SC>Gwinnett County, GA, March 28, 2009

Uriah Conner and His Descendants - November 19, 2009


The Netherland Family of Holmes County, MS - February 22, 2009

"One Night of Madness," A Book Review

Mississippi, a state long recognized for its great writers and their widely-recognized literary contributions, has a new author on the scene. Stokes McMillan, a native of Attala County who now lives in Houston, Texas, has recently published his first book, "One Night of Madness," and early sales show the book is already a huge success. McMillan's book, which grew out of his interest in a scrapbook he inherited from his mother that contained photos taken by his late father, is the result of over seven years of research, interviews, and skilled writing that brings the details of the story all together.

The setting for "One Night of Madness" is Attala County, Mississippi, where several generations of McMillan's own family once lived and where his father was a photographer for the local newspaper owned by his family, The Star-Herald. The cover of the book itself is a copy of an actual photograph taken by the author's father, Billy McMillan, a photograph that won him an award for Best Picture of 1950 from the National Press Club.

As he develops the backdrop for this book about the murder of a black family by three white men, McMillan, uses his personal knowledge of Attala County and his appealing and easy-to-follow descriptive writing to intricately tell a story that began several decades before the tragic events of early 1950 unfolded. His keen use of detailed information gleaned during personal interviews with certain central characters in the book allow the reader to become intimately acquainted with the real people about whom the story is told. Throughout the book, the author further documents this true story that drew national attention with copies of more photographs taken by his father and with facts about the people and the events he uncovered during years of research in various archives.

"One Night of Madness" is a book that I highly recommend. It has all the elements of a successful movie, including love, race, fear, revenge, politics, and courtroom drama. And for me, reading the book was a spell-binding experience, one that I will not forget. I expect we will see more books by this talented new author - I sincerely hope so.

To read more about Stokes McMillan and a recent article about the book in Jackson, Mississippi's Clarion Ledger, click on the link provided here.

Edward Tillman Branch, 1901-1963

As I mentioned in my post yesterday, I am reading "One Night of Madness," a true account of tragic events that took place in Attala County, Mississippi in early 1950. Interestingly, Stokes McMillan, the author, has included a brief description of one of my paternal grandfather's cousins, Edward Tillman Branch. An excerpt from the newly-published book containing a brief biographical sketch of "Tillman" as Branch was known, is included here:

"Tillman Branch was ten years older than Leon (Turner.) Born to a prominent Attala County Beat 4 family, he was a big, mean fellow rumored to be involved in moonshining, prostitution, bribery, and bootlegging. He had killed at least two men through the years and had served time in the state prison. Twice married to white women, Tillman also kept black mistresses in a house trailer off Highway 51 near Goodman. One of the wives, fed up with these extra-marital affairs, kidnapped her husband's favorite black mistress and sent her packing to Detroit. Tillman found his lover and returned her to the trailer. Beneath his unsavory aspects, Branch was a keen businessman. His most lucrative business was located just south of the Goodman city limits, where Tillman owned one of the most popular juke joints around.

Although the white bars along (MS) Highway 51 were unruly, disorderly businesses of unrestrained debauchery, none of them could compare to the sheer, uninhibited wildness of Tillman's juke joint, the Blue Flame. Also called "The Spot" by locals, the Blue Flame had it all: boozing, dancing, fighting, gambling, cockfighting -- and an occasional shooting to keep things lively.

Tillman worked the bar in his joint and was the only white person there, but he was bad enough that no one messed with him. He ruled the Blue Flame with a blue-steel snub-nosed .32 caliber pistol, whose trigger guard was bent from pistol whippings of unruly patrons.

Leon Turner and Tillman Branch somehow met and being two of a kind, they formed a relationship of mutual interests and respect. Tillman, a successful entrepreneur with money, power, and prestige was a role model to Leon. The men got along but at a distance -- they were too alike to fraternize closely.

Branch's Blue Flame did a brisk business selling moonshine. Tillman owned several local stills to supply this commodity: he also bought from independent operators like Leon."

Although the lives of Leon Turner and Tillman Branch intersected many times, by no means did they parallel one another. But their deaths bore one similarity: neither man died of natural causes. Additional details about the life of Tillman Branch and his death on April 14, 1963, at the hands of a gunman that he allegedly knew, are not included in McMillan's book. But "One Night of Madness," does chronicle the life and subsequent death of Leon Turner. Fortunately, for those involved, the tragic events related in the book finally came to an end when Turner died at Mississippi's Parchman State Penitentiary in February 1968. I encourage you to read the book for the entire story.

Saints and Sinners of Attala County, Part 1: "The Bully Boys"

Ed Huchison, author of "Yesterday," a book about Attala County families, has encouraged me for some time to write about a convicted murderer named Leon Turner and the Attala County murder case that skyrocketed Attala County into the national news in early 1950. I have chosen, until now, to write stories primarily about my own relatives (no murderers included!) and the ups and downs of their personal lives, and sometimes, their deaths.

But today, the day before All Souls' Day, I have decided to write the story of Leon Turner as the first in a series that I am calling "Saints and Sinners." When you finish this article, I am certain you will know who fit which category.

I had never heard the story about the ex-convict and moonshiner named Leon Turner and two brothers, Malcolm and Wendell Whitt, until I talked to Ed about his book. I don't think anyone in my family ever mentioned this tragic event instigated by these three Attala County men. The incident was likely too controversial to discuss at the time, or even more likely, it was one that I was just too young to remember. The initial incident that led up to the later murder began as the home invastion and intimidation of a sharecropper, his wife, and his children was instigated by Turner and his two brothers. Because the incident was triggered by bigotry and fueled by "white lightning," the trio would later be called "The Bully Boys" by a national news magazine.

The murders involved the shooting of four residents of Attala County, Thomas Harris and three young children. The shooters were Leon Turner and his two brothers. From the beginning, the murder, the trial, and the subsequent conviction of the three accused men became controversial. It was an interracial incident that occurred at a time of racial uncertainty in Mississippi in particular and in the Deep South, in general. While violent events involving racial incidents were certainly not rare in Mississippi during those tumultous years, the accused were three white men, the victims were a man and three children, and all four victims were black.

News accounts indicate the Mississippi State Legislature publicly disapproved of the actions of Turner and his two brothers and called for a speedy prosecution of the accused, but the incident apparently "split" many of the residents of Attala County. Allegedly, some residents, including the mayor of the town at the time, called for a day honoring the victim and calling for donations for his wife and survivors left in his household. Other residents who supported the accused men began accepting donations of monies for a defense fund.

Ultimately, justice prevailed when the trial ended in a conviction that became the first in the history of the State of Mississippi in which a white man was convicted of murdering a black man.

The story of this unfortunate event was published in Time magazine and can be read at

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,858555-1,00.html.