Tallahatchie River

Mississippi Central Railroad and Mississippi Highway 7 bridges over the Tallahatchie River between Holly Springs and Oxford

The Tallahatchie River flows from Tippah County, Mississippi to Leflore County, Mississippi, where it joins the Yalobusha River to form the Yazoo River.

Tallahatchie is a Choctaw name meaning "rock of waters".[1]

Though best known from the song "Ode to Billie Joe" and movie (spelled differently) Ode to Billy Joe, which has the refrain Billy Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie bridge, the river has historical significance due to the murder of Emmett Till, an African-American youth who was brutally beaten, shot, and sunk in the river by a cotton gin fan tied around his neck by barbed wire. This event is mentioned in another song, "Freedom Highway," by the Staple Singers, in the lines, "Found dead people in the forests, Tallahatchie River and lakes/Whole world is wondering, what's wrong with the United States?"

A third song that mentions the Tallahatchie river is "Tallahatchie River Blues," recorded by Mattie Delaney in 1930. This blues song records the devastation caused in the local African-American community by a flood on the normally shallow river.

As part of the Flood Control Act of 1936, an earth-filled flood control dam was constructed on the Tallahatchie near the town of Sardis, Mississippi, creating Sardis Lake (Mississippi).

The bridge, mentioned most famously by Bobbie Gentry in "Ode to Billie Joe", collapsed in June 1972.^[1]

See also

• Crybaby Bridge

References

External links

• USGS GNIS: Tallahatchie River

Watch

• Rich Samuels' 1985 documentary, The Murder and the Movement: The Story of the Murder of Emmett Till

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Coordinates: 33°32′38″N 90°10′4″W / 33.54389°N 90.16778°W / 33.54389; -90.16778