Anne Moody 's Coming Of Age

In the south, African Americans could not go to the same school as the white children. That made them mad because they were made equal. In the the book, The Watsons go to Birmingham, their cousins marched to have rights and to show that there should be no segregation between African Americans and whites. In the book ,The Watsons go to Birmingham it says “ White children often attended large, well equipped , modern schools while African American students went to one-room schoolhouses without enough books or teachers.”(207 -208) They treated them unfair because the African Americans got the hand me downs of the white kids.This is an example for how segregation fits in the book and when it really happened.

Segregation had had many effects on the black nation, to the point that it started building up ones character, “See the depressing clouds of inferiority begin to form in her little mental sky and see her begin to distort her little personality by unconsciously developing a bitterness towards white people”, King shows readers that segregation is even affecting little children, that it is starting to build up a young girls character and is contributing to the child developing hatred “bitterness” towards the white Americans. King makes readers imagine a black cloud settling in a young girls brain mentally, when instead she should have an image of a colorful blue sky with a rainbow, isn’t that suppose to be part of a 6 year-old’s imagination? King gives readers an image of destruction civil disobedience had created in the black community, especially in the young innocent little children.

Starting her second education, she was forced to drop out to care for her ailing grandmother. With Jim Crow’s Law, heavily in affect, her childhood was greatly influenced by the segregation between white people and black people in almost every part of their lives.

Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, depicts the various stages of her life from childhood, to high school, then to college, and ends with her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. In the novel, Anne tells the reader her story through events, conversations, and emotional struggles. The reader can interpret various elements of cultural knowledge that Anne Moody learned from her family and community as a child. Her understanding of the culture and race relations of the time period was shaped by many forces. Anne Moody’s family, community, education, interactions with various races, and her experiences outside of her hometown, shaped her into a devout activist for equal rights. As a child, the most important

prevalent in the south during the pre Civil Rights period. Ms. Moody learns how badly White

I liked everything about the Johnson’s house… It was everything ours wasn’t” (Moody 41). This was the beginning of her racial consciousness between whites and blacks. However, fully understanding what was going on around her in the world between white and blacks would be very difficult for a young girl. Even though this is a very basic theme of segregation, this was the first experience Moody had to it, and it was the beginning to her charge for equality. Through work, Moody would slowly start to realize more things about segregation and how it impacts African Americans and her life.

Elijah’s daughter, Luvenia, struggles to get a job and into college in Chicago while her brother Richard travels back to South Carolina. Abby’s grandson, Tommy works with civil rights and protests, and tries to get into college for basketball. The story ends with Malcolm, Richard’s grandson, getting his his cousin Shep, who is struggling with drugs, to the family reunion. In reading this story one could wonder how the transition from slavery to segregation in the United States really occurred. The timeline can be split into three distinct sections, Emancipation, forming segregation, and life post-Civil War, pre-civil rights.

The first main event that I believe led to Anne Moody becoming an activist for Civil Rights was when she was younger, her cousin George Lee was babysitting and he burned down the house in a fit of rage and when Daddy gets home he blames it on Essie Mae (Anne Moody). This foreshadows all of life’s injustices that will be thrown her way. The next time was when she made friends with white neighbors and they decided to go to the movies, Anne couldn’t sit with her friends, she had to sit in the balcony with all of the other blacks. She did not understand why it was this way. Another event was when she was in high school, she changes her name to Anne Moody, and a white boy, whose name was Emmitt Till who was visiting from Chicago, whistled at a

Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi is a narrated autobiography depicting what it was like to grow up in the South as a poor African American female. Her autobiography takes us through her life journey beginning with her at the age of four all the way through to her adult years and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The book is divided into four periods: Childhood, High School, College and The Movement. Each of these periods represents the process by which she "came of age" with each stage and its experiences having an effect on her enlightenment. She illustrates how important the Civil Rights Movement was by detailing the economic, social, and racial injustices against African Americans she experienced.

Coming of Age in Mississippi is an eye-opening testimony to the racism that exemplified what it was like to be an African American living in the south before and after the civil rights movements in the 50's and 60's. African Americans had been given voting and citizen rights, but did not and to a certain degree, still can not enjoy these rights. The southern economy that Anne Moody was born into in the 40's was one that was governed and ruled by a bunch of whites, many of which who very prejudice. This caused for a very hard up bringing for a young African American girl. Coming of Age in Mississippi broadened horizon of what it was like for African Americans to live during the 40's, 50', and 60's.

If society was asked what defines “coming of age,” what would it say? Some would say people come of age when they act more mature, think grown up thoughts, or do certain actions. This quote by someone unknown helps form an explanation of what coming of age is: “Maturity doesn’t mean age; it means sensitivity, manners, and how you react.” In the literature piece “The First Part Last,” the author Angela Johnson writes about two teenagers, Bobby and Nia, who struggle with the difficulties of teen pregnancy. Throughout the book, they both face many hardships that put their relationship, patience, and responsibility to the test. With the help of a red balloon, a basketball, and family pictures in a doctor’s office, Bobby comes of age after paying attention to these symbols and signs throughout the novel.

Anne was immediately confused by their presence because they seemed to be just like her except for skin color. On one occasion all the children were playing together in the lobby of a movie theater. Anne was with some local white children playing, but when it was time to enter the movie lobby the white children went in one direction and Anne went in after her friends. Her disapproving mother quickly stopped Anne and they left the theater. Before this instance Anne had never considered the coincidence that all the white children watched the movie from the bottom terrace and all the African America children from the top terrace. While thinking about the difference Anne realized that the bottom terrace and side entrance was much more luxurious than the raggedy top terrace, where she and her mother usually sat (38-2). After this the difference in skin color became much more apparent to her in everyday life. Anne was motivated to find the answers as to why she was treated differently because of the color of her skin.

The major theme in this movie is participation within change. Two works related that turns into a great friendship among a maid named Odessa and the lady of the Thompson’s house, Miriam. Both ladies faced multiple of challenges in the era, where segregation was the ordinary way of living. In 1955, the boycott had started in Montgomery, Alabama; shortly after Rosa Parks, a second African-American woman to be arrested due to a sitting arrangements by Jim Crow law on a public transportation. This affected the southern part of the United States by storm. The African-Americans sought to use this opportunity to make a change “in the pivotal case of Plessy v. Ferguson in 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that racially separate facilities, if equal, did not violate the Constitution. Segregation, the Court said, was not discrimination.” The two women had changed their own personal views and empowered, influencing those changes amongst others. The narrator of this story was by Miriam Thompson’s daughter, Mary Catherine and she states at the beginning of the movie, “There’s always something extraordinary about someone who changes and then changes those around her.” Everyone who had participated in the boycott were uncomfortable, tired of the normal living activities (segregation), feared of the motion about change, and had the courage to overcome fear about change.

She was prejudiced by the group because of her ethnicity. Another example of the significance of segregation in the movie were the children in the classroom. The children refused to sit in parts of the room that did not consist of people of their own ethnicity. The children reasoning comes from their belief that they will get beat up if they sit next to another individual of a different ethnicity; they would fight, for they have “beef” with one another.

Of course, like all controversial movements, a lot of people did not agree with this at all, more so in the south. But that’s something you learn in junior high social studies. Anyhow, the 1960’s is where this book took place. The main character, Lily was 14 and basically raised by her maid, a black woman by the name of Rosaleen. Lily knew and personally understood the unnecessary discrimination that black people received. Her (verbally and physically) abusive father gave her multiple lessons on that. Negative times having to deal with her father and racism caused Lily to run away with Rosaleen, they ended up in a house with three black sisters. Now I won 't give away too much about the book because I don 't plan on ruining it for you, (I personally understand the hatred given towards spoilers and I refuse to take any part of that system unless it’s unleashing my wrath on them) but Lily didn 't see color. She saw people, she saw equality. Racism was (is) a lifestyle that she didn 't care for, however, many people did. And those racist people were bothered by that, a little white girl living in a house with four grown black women was "wrong" or "disgusting" I still don’t see how it was any of their personal business or how it affected them in any personal way for