Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi: An Analysis

As if growing up wasn't turbulent enough, Anne Moody grew up during a crucial time in American History. It was during this time that race and civil rights took center stage in her home state of Mississippi. Young women face many physical and emotional changes during their teenage years, regardless of when and where they grew up. However, for Anne Moody, and other young black women, there was the instability in race relations to deal with as well.

The Civil Rights Movement symbolized the challenge and opposition to the racial injustices and segregation that had been engrained in American society for hundreds of years. Events that took place in the 1950s and 1960s, such as the Montgomery Bus Boycott, the March on Washington, sit-ins, speeches and numerous protests define this momentous time in United States history. Speeches during this period served as a means to inspire and assemble a specific group of people, for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X it was the black community that needed to rise up in hopes of achieving equal rights and voting rights for the blacks.

In the book Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, it shows about a Moody growing up in Mississippi poor and in the during Civil Rights era. Throughout the book it shows the experiences that Moody went through growing up and how they affected her views on the Civil Rights movements. First, during her childhood the experiences of growing up as an African-Americans in the southern limited Moody to what she can achieve in life. Then in the teenager years of Moody life the experiences are more against the hatred the white people had against the black community, also in her 20s her past experiences helped her get involved with Civil Rights programs. Finally, with her involvement in the Civil Rights movements affected her way see different views and resolves compared to other people. In the book, Moody’s experiences throughout her life affects her views and resolves during the Civil Rights movements and her involvement in the movement.

The Civil Rights Movement began with the presence of enslaved blacks in the new world (Litwack 2009) with the European societal enslavement and oppression; and still lives on today. The African American experience remains the bleakest time in the history of America. It is this story of a resilient people of color that refused to be seen as inferior and demanded equality for all. As we look at the era of slavery, it is evident that this is where activism and liberation begins.

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

I am reading the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi. This book is written by Anne Moody, it covers most of Anne Moody’s life living period from four years old until the time she steps into college. The book is divided into four parts: Childhood – when she was young, how her family struggled to make a living under the control of white people. She also starts to work for some white families since she attends fourth grade. High school and college - she keeps working for white families, there also some content includes that she got a lot of attention from the surrounding. Also, she started to develop a doubtful idea about the difference between white and black, which made her have a squabble with her mother, and eventually move out of her mother’s

There is an argument that states that Anne Moody's tale in Coming of Age in Mississippi

     Moody was a very eager learner and constantly exceeded her classmates. She was an excellent student and though she far surpassed the performance of her white cousin, she was not considered to be equal, let alone superior. She did not let this affect her in any way. One word to describe Moody would be fighter, a fighter in what she believed to be fair and fighting to stand up for these beliefs. She always wanted to understand her surroundings and became very interested in the NAACP. Moody gets drawn into the fight for civil

Coming of Age in Mississippi is an autobiography of the famous Anne Moody. Moody grew up in mist of a Civil Rights Movement as a poor African American woman in rural Mississippi. Her story comprises of her trials and tribulations from life in the South during the rise of the Civil Rights movement. Life during this time embraced segregation, which made life for African Americans rough. As an African American woman growing up during the Civil Rights movement, Moody has a unique story on themes like work and racial consciousness present during this time.

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

Before this, Moody was under the impression that "Evil Spirits" were to blame for the mysterious deaths of African Americans, "Up until his death, I had heard of Negroes found floating in a river or dead somewhere with their bodies riddled with bullets . . . When I asked her (Mama) who killed the man and why, she said, ‘An Evil Spirit killed him. You gotta be a good girl or will kill you too.' So since I was seven, I had lived in fear of that ‘Evil Spirit.'" She became very upset and feared "being killed just because I was black. This was the worst of my fears." Moody eventually comes to learn about the NAACP and what they stood for, that this organization is trying to help improve the situation for African Americans like her. Unfortunately, when she tried to ask her mother about this she does not get any answers. Instead, her mother gets upset with her and asks her to never mention it around any white person. Moody felt frustrated that all these years that she had been sheltered from the truth and she felt dumb for never having opened her eyes to all the horror.

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.

     Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, talked extensively about the civil rights movement that she had participated in. The civil rights movement dealt with numerous issues that many people had not agreed with. Coming of Age in Mississippi gave the reader a first hand look at the efforts many people had done to gain equal rights.

Her entire time spent in Canton is met with little support, if not disgust, by whites as well as blacks. While the county is primarily black citizens, they still remain submissive to the white citizens in the area. This truly confuses and annoys Moody. She is looked upon with contempt by nearly all of the elder blacks, and can only seem to reach a small number of teenagers. This is when she privately realizes that if a change is to come, it has to come with the younger generations, not with the older. She again refers to the elder blacks as brainwashed and afraid to take what is theirs. The blacks in the county held nearly half the land, yet most were barely doing well enough to feed their families. She seems to initially think that the inferior thinking is only prominent in Centerville and Woodville, but when she realizes that this same mentality is present in Canton as well as all other parts of Mississippi, as well as New Orleans, this is only another nail in the coffin of her dream.

She became frustrated at her own people because they would not stand up for themselves while there were horrible things were happening to blacks. How can you not sympathize with someone who believed so much in equality and freedom that her picture was on the Ku Klux Klan black list? She worked so hard for Negro equality that she risked her life day in and day out and came close to starving to death just trying to recruit other Negroes to join her cause. Her family begged her to stop helping with the movement in fear of their lives as well as hers. Moody could not even return to her own town out of concern for her safety and that of her family.