Coming Of Age Throughout Mississippi By Anne Moody

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.

In his powerful memoir, Mississippi, Anthony Walton explores race relations in Mississippi in a historical context in an attempt to teach readers about Mississippi’s dark and muddled past. In the third section of the memoir, entitled “Rebels”, Walton focuses on the history of Mississippi through the lens of famous and not so famous changemakers who shaped Mississippi as it is today. Walton purposefully tells this story in chronological order, so that the reader can see the evolution of the Mississippi rebel; beginning with union and confederate troops, and ending with civil rights leaders and white supremacy groups. Walton’s purpose of creating such structure becomes abundantly clear at the end of the section, where he juxtaposes the success of the civil rights movement with that of the white supremacy movement in Mississippi. Walton argues that the ability of a cause to inspire fear ensures its continued survival.

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

Coming of age is a recurring theme that is universally known throughout many different pieces of literature. Whether it’s influenced on true experiences, childhood memories, or even based on one’s current juvenile reality, many of theses works have a correlation between them that include many similar ordeals and struggles that the character goes through in order to metamorphosize into taking their first step out of childhood. One prominent theme that often appears is how one experiences and faces a time of tribulation and other walls that stand in one’s path. In effect, hardships mature and enlighten one, causing the loss of something such as childhood innocence. Lastly, these three combined points finally lead to one’s metamorphosis out of childhood. All in all, these three factors take one out of childhood, and slowly allows one step out into the reality of this world.

     The autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody is the story of her life as a poor black girl growing into adulthood. Moody chose to start at the beginning - when she was four-years-old, the child of poor sharecroppers working for a white farmer. She overcomes obstacles such as discrimination and hunger as she struggles to survive childhood in one of the most racially discriminated states in America. In telling the story of her life, Moody shows why the civil rights movement was such a necessity and the depth of the injustices it had to correct. Moody's autobiography depicts the battle all southern African Americans faced. She had a personal mission throughout the entire

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

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.

In the autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, by Anne Moody; Anne writes about violence, racial discrimination, and white privileges in the text. Throughout her childhood and adulthood Anne witnessed the murders, beatings, and major moments of civil rights movements during her time in Mississippi. Anne`s narrative gives a vivid description of each hopeless moment during her lifetime. Meanwhile, Moody experiences such despair that she begins to question if Mississippi will ever overcome racial oppression.

Coming of Age in Mississippi is the amazing story of Anne Moody's unbreakable spirit and character throughout the first twenty-three years of her life. Time and time again she speaks of unthinkable odds and conditions and how she manages to keep excelling in her aspirations, yet she ends the book with a tone of hesitation, fear, and skepticism. While she continually fought the tide of society and her elders, suddenly in the end she is speaking as if it all may have been for not. It doesn?t take a literary genius nor a psychology major to figure out why. With all that was stacked against her cause, time and time again, it is easy to see why she would doubt the future of the civil rights

Coming of Age in Mississippi is an autobiography by Anne Moody. It is the story of a black girl growing up in Mississippi at a time when racial discrimination was taken for granted and the NAACP movement had no formal name. In her autobiography, Anne Moody displays the hardships of living in the "rural south" while the Negroes were just starting their fight for equality. Her story is amazing. Life was difficult for all poor Southerners. But for a poor black family with little hope and living with the constant threat of harm and loss of life, her optimism is awe-inspiring. I found this book to be very moving and easy to read, though the structure of her writing was very distracting.

Anne Moody did not want to give up what she relied on, and she fought for her rights with everything she had in her. Her willingness to stand for what she thought was right was always there and the reluctance of her family to fight as well as her confidence that she could be regarded as equal within the white community were reasons that sustained her transition into the activist. Throughout her childhood, she was taught about social norms that could not be broken by blacks if they wanted to gain the semblance of acceptance. However, she always questioned the arguments as to why the black community had to be segregated. And even among the black community she belonged to, there was a division between the darker and lighter skinned blacks.

Reading this nonfiction novel by Anne Moody is like listening to the sorrows and troubles of a person about racial inequality and the struggle to overcome racism. It is one of the best autobiographies in American literature. Anne Moody was born on September 15, 1940 in Wilkerson County, Mississippi, United States. She is was a writer, a Civil Rights activist in Mississippi, an organizer for Congress of Racial Equality in Washington D.C from 1961-’63, and a fundraiser in 1964. She also wrote Mr. Death: Four Stories, foreword by John Donovan, Harper, 1975.