The Battle of the Bottle

August 6, 1966 was an infamous day in Greenville, Mississippi, as it was in the State of Mississippi. As the historic marker pictured above states, the "Jigger and Jug," owned by the Azar Brothers, became the first legal liquor store in the state. Still in business today, the store is advertised in McRae's Business Directory as a "specialty" retail store that sells liquor.

It is difficult for many people my age to remember that manufacturing and selling liquor was illegal in Mississippi for over half a century. But the fact that liquor was not legal in Mississippi did not prevent those who wanted to buy a "bottle" from making a trip across the Mississippi River Bridge to a liquor store in Louisiana or from buying from local sources known as "bootleggers."

Throughout the prohibition years, local law enforcement officers and political and religious leaders alike waged very public wars against the sale of alcohol while often looking the other way when dealing with those who were selling it. Non-drinking private citizens, some with both money and influence, often took up the controversial cause. One of those private citizens was Hazel Brannon Smith, a newspaper editor who owned the Lexington (MS) Advertiser. Mrs. Smith's frank and revealing editorials in the 1940's eventually led to the arrests of a number of Holmes County bootleggers.

The illegal sale of liquor, however, continued until the law was changed in the mid-sixties. When the new local option law became effective on July 1, 1966, Mississippi entered a new era: it became the last state to end prohibition.

New Graveyard Rabbit Blog for Holmes County, MS

Today I am announcing the birth of another "Graveyard Rabbit," a new addition to a now international group or "bury" of rabbits known as "The Association of Graveyard Rabbits" founded by Terry Thornton, another Mississippian, and a fellow blogger who writes "Shades of the Departed" under the name "footNote Maven." Terry also writes his own blog, "The Graveyard Rabbit of Hill Country." The Association was formed in October of this year, and already it has bloggers who write from many states in the U.S., from Canada, and from England, Australia, New Zealand, and the Netherlands.

On the new blogspot, "The Graveyard Rabbit of Holmes County," I will be writing about old graveyards located in Holmes County, Mississippi, Attala County's neighbor to the west. I hope that you will join me on this journey in search of my ancestors. Maybe you will find some of your ancestors, too, as we travel to cemeteries located in Lexington, Tchula, Coxburg, Ebenezer, and other communities throughout Holmes County.

Welcome to the "rabbit trail!"

"The Baddest White Man in Mississippi"

David "HoneyBoy" Edwards, well-known Delta blues musician from Shaw, Mississippi, mentions Tillman Branch in his 1997 autobiography "The World Don't Owe Me Nothing." One of the references to the man simply known as "Tillman" states that he owned a "whiskey store on Highway 61." This store was actually located on Highway 51 in Goodman, Mississippi, and during the 1950's and until Tillman's death in 1963, the Goodman, Mississippi business was known as "The Long Branch."

Tillman Branch's family had deep roots in Attala County, Mississippi. His ancestors were respected pioneers, descended from old, well-known colonial families of Virginia, but Tillman's business operations were quite different from those who came before him. His businesses existed in the form of "juke joints" located near Tchula in Holmes County and other outlying areas around Attala County. Tchula's location in the place where the "Hills" meet the "Delta" made it the perfect place for these clubs that became peformance venues for blues musicians, such as Elmore James, Sonny Boy Williamson, and HoneyBoy Edwards, who later became very well-known in their field. Some blues afficianados, such as Junior Dougherty who writes at www.deltablues.net, even believe that Tillman Branch played a crucial, even vital, role in the development of the music form that later became known as the "Mississippi Delta Blues."

Tillman's operation of "juke joints" or "night clubs" was the outgrowth of his alleged reputation as a fairly successful "bootlegger" during the days when local law enforcement seemed to be tolerant of that illegal activity. According to the book written by HoneyBoy Edwards, Tillman also had a reputation for being a womanizer and a "bad man.." and "...all the white folks was scared of him." Rumored reports of Tillman's relationships with women during those years indicate that he routinely ignored local society's racial boundaries that existed at that time and in that place, much to the chagrin of his legal wife and others who knew him.

Although label-bearing hard liquor was not legal in most counties in Mississippi until the late 1960's, it was still easy to find it for sale throughout the state if one knew where to look. And moonshine or "white lightning" was even more available, particularly behind the closed doors of the juke joints. Not only were Tillman's clubs frequented by many blacks who came to drink and to listen to the blues music that reflected events in their own lives, but they were also frequented by white locals who were seeking a lively Saturday night far away from the ever-vigilant eyes of their God-fearing neighbors. It goes without saying that Tillman's businesses existed outside mainstream society of either Attala County, Holmes County, or for that matter, anywhere in the State of Mississippi at that time.

But times were changing, although not favorably for Tillman and "juke joints" in general. And one of those changes involved cracking down on "liquor racketeers," according to an article that appeared in Time magazine. The voice of Hazel Brannon Smith, longtime editor of the Lexington Advertiser and Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, became instrumental in forcing law enforcement to take a second look at illegal activities previously "overlooked" by local authorities. According to the article, sixty-four indictments were handed down in 1946 alone.

I have found no written proof that Tillman was among those indicted on charges of illegal activities involving liquor, but the end to an era of uncontrolled proliferation of juke joints and the illegal activities that went on inside their doors was coming to an end. Another period in Mississippi, however, was beginning, the era of desegretation, with events, changes, and even human casualties that would alter the course of history in the state and in the country. Tillman Branch, the man called by some as "The Baddest White Man in Mississippi" would become one of those casualties, perhaps even a casualty of his own making, when he was died in 1963 from a gunshot allegedly fired by a black man who reportedly disagreed with his actions toward a woman they both knew.

Some Things Never Change

In late August, I published a post that included a thought-provoking poem by "Anonymous," that I found in an article written by James T. Buck in the Lexington Advertiser. I thought the poem worthy of reposting , especially today when the U. S. Senate will vote on a rescue bill for the U. S. economy.

Ironically, the poem was published in 1936. Even more ironic is the fact that the poem could have been written in 2008 about our current society and some of its pervasive problems.

I hope you read the poem, and I would love to hear your comments.


Too many hours that we don't toil;
Too many highways, too many cars;
Too many people behind the bars;
Too much poverty, too much wealth;
Too many people have poor health;
Too much politics, too much booze;
Too many wearing high heel shoes;
Too many loafing, too many bets;
Too many failing to pay their debts;
Too many spending their dough for gas;
Too many talking of Europe's sass;
Too many buying beyond their means;
Too many buying canned corn and beans;
Too many sowing a crop of wild oats;
Too many candidates after your votes;
Too many hiring their washing done;
Too many playing bridge for fun;
Too many looking to Uncle Sam;
Too many people don't give a d---;
Too many poets, too much prose;
Too many girls without underclothes;
Too much buying of goods on time;
Too many people don't save a dime;
Too much bail, too much play;
Too many officers on big pay;
Too much taxes, too much rent;
Too many folks spend every cent;
Too much fun, too much ease;
Too many rips in my BVD's;
Too much reform, too much law;
The darndest mess you ever saw.
-Anon