Coming of Age in Mississippi

Coming of Age in Mississippi      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.

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 by Anne Moody      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

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.

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

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

Greene 1 "There are few cases in history where a social movement of such proportions can be attributed to the work of a single individual" (Kovach) At the age of thirty-nine, a woman by the name of Dorothea Dix devoted the rest of her life as an advocate to the humane

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 in Mississippi vs. The Jungle Paper There is an argument that states that Anne Moody's tale in Coming of Age in Mississippi

Moody’s position as an African American woman provides a unique insight into these themes through her story. As a little girl, Moody would sit on the porch of her house watch her parents go

     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.

Unable to adjust to the new circumstances, Ella became increasingly unhappy and entered into a difficult period of her life. Her grades dropped dramatically, and she frequently skipped school. After getting into trouble with the police, she was taken into custody and sent to a reform school. Living there was even more unbearable, as she suffered beatings at the hands of her caretakers.

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.

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.