Coming Of Age Throughout Mississippi By Anne Moody

Anne Moody, the author of the autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi, grew up in Southwest Mississippi during the heat of the Civil Rights Movement. As a child, she had many unanswered questions about why people with a different skin color were treated differently. She sought out the answers to her questions but no one never could fully explain the color barrier the young girl. A lack of explanation led Anne Moody to join the Civil Rights Movement.

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.

I feel that Anne Moody story is a blunt open description of how hard live was for Blacks.

During the post-reconstruction era from 1877 to the mid-1960s, primarily southern and border states operated under a racial caste system referred to as Jim Crow. Not only did Jim Crow refer to anti-Black laws and restrictions such as Black codes and poll taxes; it was a way of life dominated by widely accepted societal rules that relegated Black people to the role of second class citizens. In the autobiography of Anne Moody entitled Coming of Age in Mississippi, Moody describes growing up as a poor Black woman in the rural south and eventually getting heavily involved with the Civil Right Movement during her college years. The detailing of her experiences expressed not only the injustices inflicted on Black people as a monolith by the Jim

     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

Anne Moody's book is a remarkable testimony, but there were a few things in the way she wrote, which were distracting to the main story as a whole. First of all, her style makes it seem as if this whole time she had kept a diary of her life and for the book she just went back through and edited it to make complete sentences. Although her family was very, very poor, she did not focus on that. This almost makes the reader feel as if Miss Moody grew up in a black family with an adequate income and decent education. Her writing shows otherwise with some comments here and there. For instance: on page twenty-five Moody "was mad with her [mama] because we ate beans all the time. Had she taken the money, I thought, we could

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.

     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.

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

Another force that shaped Moody’s thoughts on race was her interactions with the whites that she worked for within her hometown. This started her questioning of why there was such an emphasis on race. Anne’s job description consisted of cooking, cleaning, ironing, and maintaining houses for whites in her community. With each family Moody worked for, the anger within her grew and the prejudice toward her also grew. Moody expresses how much she desperately wanted to understand the racial inequality that was a part of her world. Some of the kind whites educated her, while others tried to engrain in her mind that she should not try to step out of her role as an African American. One of the rude white families that she worked for was the Burkes. Mrs. Burke, an active member in a local Citizens’ Council and a character that was prejudice towards blacks, had many encounters with Anne. Anne’s interactions with Mrs. Burke make her question the societal norms between whites and blacks. Mrs. Burke tells Anne how to behave and all Anne can do is act as if she understands and agrees with what Mrs. Burke says, but inside, all she can do is question why society is like this. For example, one interaction went like this: “When they had finished and gone to the living room as usual to watch TV, Mrs. Burke called me to eat…Mrs. Burke

As Moody grew up in the South, in the middle of the Civil Rights Movement, she began to understand segregation on a larger context. Her work experiences tell us a lot about racial segregation and inequality. As work offered women new opportunities outside the house, it was different for African American women. They would work in trades least affected by mechanism, like domestic services, such as maids for white families. Moody and her mother both worked to help support the family and worked domestic service jobs. After Linda Mae moves away, Moody had to work somewhere to help support the family, so she worked for Mrs. Burke, even though she was very racist. Moody explains the reason she stuck with it and worked for Mrs. Burke, “I had to help secure that plate of beans” (Moody 116). Moody and African Americans a like, were working for more than just making

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 curious about why murders, lynching and mysterious fires were taking place in and around her community. Every time she went to her mother for advice or discussion on race relations, she was immediately redirected to a subject less controversial. If Anne wanted to figure any of these issues out, she was going to have to do it on her own.

     The most drastic incident that happened to Anne was when she was working in Canton, Mississippi for a cause of voter registration. People involved in the movement are dying left and right, and this becomes very discouraging to her. She finds out that she is on the KKK black list and fears for her life. She finds out that her family is also afraid and they stop talking to her. She quits her job and moves back to Canton and goes back to her family. She sees how complacent her family is and this frustrates her. Her family treated her like a stranger, and when she graduated from Tougaloo, no one showed up for her graduation. In the end of the book, McKinley is murdered in front of nonviolent civil rights activists. Anne Moody wonders if things will ever work out.

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.