Coming Of Age In Mississippi Analysis

- “In an act of extraordinary bravery, Moses Wright took the stand and identified Bryant and Milam as Till's kidnappers and killers. At the time, it was almost unheard of for blacks to openly accuse whites in court, and by doing so Wright put his own life in grave danger.”

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 Emmett Till murder shined a light on the horrors of segregation and racism on the United States. Emmett Till, a young Chicago teenager, was visiting family in Mississippi during the month of August in 1955, but he was entering a state that was far more different than his hometown. Dominated by segregation, Mississippi enforced a strict leash on its African American population. After apparently flirting with a white woman, which was deeply frowned upon at this time in history, young Till was brutally murdered. Emmett Till’s murder became an icon for the Civil Rights Movement, and it helped start the demand of equal rights for all nationalities and races in the United States.

On September 19, 1955 Emmett’s murder had became an outrage. Because blacks and women were not allowed to serve jury duty, Bryant and Milam were judged in front of an all white male jury. At the end of the case the two white men were found innocent. This really made a lot of chaos. To add to the madness, a couple months later they admitted the crime to Look magazine for four thousand dollars.

. . but specifics [to him] didn’t matter because the victims were now symbols of injustice: a NAACP cause” (78). Especially given the long-past, over-60-years-old nature of the lynching, Wexler’s goal, and therefore also her writing, must more profound, and compelling, than this, and therefore she, unlike White, is interested in the specifics: “Roger and Dorothy Malcolm, and George and Mae Murray [the lynching victims] . . . I have tried to bring them to life” (266). Wexler succeeds in that, rather than merely mentioning these victims in the context of the lynching, she includes detailed biographies of each, as well as of their relations, and describes their actions long before and immediately leading up to the lynching, in an attempt to give the reader a better understanding of and greater empathy for them.

(128) She soon heard about the crimes being committed toward black people just because of their skin color. Emmett Till’s death was the first she had heard about a hate crime and she was confused. When she asked different people to explain it, she got many answers that were not clear. She did notice, though, that her mom was afraid to talk about it and told Moody to “just do your work like you don’t know nothing.” (130) while the white people she knew were openly having conversations with each other about it. Moody figured that if she wanted information, she was just going to have to pay attention to what was said around

The documentary, narrative "The Lynching of Emmett Till" by Christopher Metress, tells Emmett's story of death through various points of view. On August 24, 1955, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old African American boy from Chicago, entered a rural grocery store of Money, Mississippi. Because the young child had been gloating about his bond with white people up north, his southern cousins had dared him to go into the store and say something to the women working the register. Emmett accepted their challenge; seconds later he was at the counter, set on purchasing two items. What he did or said next will never be known for sure, but whatever passed between these two strangers from two different worlds set off a chain reaction that would forever

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

     Soon after Moody entered high school, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, was killed for whistling at a white woman. After hearing about the murder, Moody realized she really did not know much about what was going on around her. ?Before Emmett Till?s murder, I had known the fear of hunger hell and the Devil but now there was a new fear known to me ? the fear of being killed just because I was black.? Moody?s response to this was asking her high school teacher, Mrs. Rice, about Emmett?s murder and the NAACP.

Coming of age in Mississippi is an autobiography written by an activist Anne Moody, also known as Essie Mae, about growing up in the poor southern part of Mississippi as an African American in the middle 20th century. It consist of four part; childhood, high school, college and The Movement. The absurdity of racial distinctions, the evil of disunity among blacks in the face of white oppression and the destructive power of prejudice are the three theme of this autobiography.

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.

Emmett Louis Till was an 14 year old African-American boy who was lynched in Money, Mississippi after reportedly flirting or whistling with a Carolyn Bryant ( white woman). Days After the incident Carolyn husband and his brother J. W. Milam went to Emmett's uncle's house and abducted him. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before shooting him and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Emmett’s body was discovered and retrieved from the river. Emmett’s mother Mamie Carthan decided to have an open casket and public funeral to bring awareness and attention not only on American racism and the barbarism of lynching but also on the limitations and vulnerabilities of American democracy. In September 1955, Bryant

She furthered the NAACP’s progress with the help of Martin Luther King Jr. who was elected president of the NAACP in 1929. Rosa Parks stood up to many white people before she did on the bus on December 1, 1955. The main reason that Rosa Parks is such a well known activist is because of her actions on that day. She was sitting in the front of the black section on a segregated bus in Montgomery and all the spots in the white section were filed so she and three others were asked to get up. The other three got out of their seats and resorted to standing on the bus.

Emmett Till was just a fourteen year old boy in 1955 when his life was viciously take from him. He had reportedly flirted with a white woman while visiting his relative in Mississippi. His attackers took him out of his family’s home in the middle of the night, and tortured him and then eventually disposed of his body in the Tallahatchie River. After his body was discovered, his mother insisted that his body be sent home to Chicago in order for the family to bury him. At his funeral, his mother had an open casket so everyone could see what had happened to her poor boy. Racial violence, as expressed through music, imaging, and poems, is a problem that continues even today and reflects America’s challenging history with slavery and segregation.

A question as to why lynching was accepted for people in the past. The writer touched on points that some of the readers may had not previously associated with lynching, from the different types of lynching (spectacle and underground) ,the economic benefits and consequences generated from lynching, the animalistic behavior of white mobs during, before and after a lynching; most importantly, to the strength and quiet rebellion that many of the black communities answered the violation during the Great Depression, Reconstruction, the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. Another argument that is left to be unsettled is why the government allowed such horrific treatment and death just happen as if the African Americas meant nothing but animals in the "white world". Lynching was a shindig for whites. Whites waited to see an African American be lynched for whatever means, to them it was a way of life. In the novel the author expresses that no consequences existed to the people that performed the disgusting crime instead they remain looked up to for the