Coming of Age in Mississippi

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.

There was one moment in the book where she had to make probably one of the most difficult choices in her life, yet she did not hesitate to make that choice. Jeannette’s older sister, Lori, always wanted to move to New York to escape her delusional parents. However, she did not have enough money to pay for a bus ticket, wiping out any hope that she had. " ‘I'll never get out of here,’ Lori kept saying. ‘I'll never get out of here.’ ‘You will,’ I said. ‘I swear it.’ I believed she would. Because I knew that if Lori never got out of Welch, neither would I.” Then one day, Jeannette was offered $200 and a bus ticket back to Welch to take care of a woman’s two toddlers in Iowa for the summer. Instead, she insisted that the woman, Mrs. Sanders, should take Lori and her payment be a “bus ticket to New York City.” The fact that Jeannette easily made the decision of sacrificing her ticket for Lori amazes me; she knew how important the trip the New York was for her, so she wanted to make that dream happen. When Lori left, Jeannette still did not give up on her dream to go to New York and become a journalist. She joined just about “every extracurricular event at the school” to gain the attention of colleges, particularly in New York. The motivation that can be found in this is that you cannot give up on your ambitions

Her passion for teaching became an actuality when she met her second cousin, Edward Bang, at a family party. Bang was fourteen years older than Dorothea, but it was love at first sight. He told Dorothea that if she wanted to being teaching, she should start a "little dame school", where young girls were taught in private because they weren't able to attend public schools. Bang found her a location where she could begin to teach, and therefore he was able to continually visit and accompany her. From that day on, Dorothea was forever grateful to Edward for making her dream an actual reality. (<a href="http://www.psych.org/pnews/98-10-16/hx.html">http://www.psych.org/pnews/98-10-16/hx.html</a>)

Anne Moody grew up in the south as a sharecropper on a plantation in the postwar south that still had Jim Crow controlling what the black population was able to do and what they couldn’t do. The Moody family was poor and was trying to make a living working for a white farmer. They and the other black plantation workers lived in a tiny two bed shack without electricity and plumbing, while the Carter’s house had both. Anne’s childhood was very difficult when her father decided to leave the family and have an affair with another black women. After this happened Anne, her mother, and her siblings moved around a lot while Anne’s mother, Toosweet, look for work. Eventually working as a waitress and as a maid for white families. Even while the family is struggling Anne continues to do well in school and decides to start working part-time as well to help put food on the table for the family. She was only in fourth grade. Some of white families that she worked for even encouraged her to continue her studies as she got to high school, while others were extreme racists and accused her and her brother of doing things that they didn’t do. As time went on Anne’s mother meets Raymond Davis and start a relationship with each other and Anne starts to enjoy her new life, but starts to get into several conflicts with her mother.

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

college. Even though she might have grown up with a hard life, she fought for different ways to

     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

Marie developed an independent personality early on and rarely relied on her family for help. She was accustomed to collecting her school records from one school and enrolling her-self in the next school. A particular principle stands out in her memory, by looking at her records, which were from Texas, he told her that he was going to hold her back a year as the Texas school system was behind the Pennsylvania school system. This made Marie very angry because she sure didn’t want anyone to think she had failed. So she bargained with the principle, asking him to let her be in the grade she should be in and if she couldn’t do the work

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.

&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;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.

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.

When Essie finished high school, like so many black Mississippians, She left the state and headed for California to realize her dream. She was part of an exodus of blacks leaving the South during the early and mid 19 century to escape the “Jim Crow Laws”.

     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.

After Paul’s funeral, Emily went forth with the abortion. Instead of returning to Grenfell County High School, she was sent to Amherst School for Girls, an all-girl boarding school. Being a poet herself, Emily Beam was interested in the history of the school, being that it educated the famous poet, Emily Dickenson. Aside from her supporting new roommate, K.T., Emily uses poetry as a way to find herself once again and put her mind at peace with her heartbreaking past events.