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Ann Moodys Coming of Age in Mississippi: civil right movement
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Anne Moody memoir Coming of Age in Mississippi is a depiction of the life of Anne in
the different stages of her life from childhood, through her education in high school and college,
and finally in her active participation in the south Civil Right Movement. The autobiography
essentially is a chronological tale of events, emotional distresses, conversations, struggles and
tribulations that characterize her life as a black woman facing the hardships of growing up in a
white supremacy environment. Her story is like no other diction of the Civil Rights movement as
it stands out from the numerous concourses of the movement accounts from others that
participated in fighting for their Civil Rights. The reality of most of the members of her
community succumbing to struggle with their identity and race compelled her to take a stand
contrary to their complacency ergo making her the unique pieces in a rather maze puzzle. Anne
embodied each aspect of her life as a reason to prompt her into engaging in the Civil Rights
Movement essentially putting her at the pedestal of the fight for freedom and differentiated her
from other that participated in the struggle for equity. The book Coming to Age in Mississippi
shows how her environment and people around her helped culminate her struggle for civil right
from her family, race, experiences intrinsic and extrinsic to her hometown in the six years she
actively participated in the struggle.
Annes life in Mississippi developing from childhood to adulthood in a society bent on
accepting their inferiority to the white community, primarily instigated her somewhat uncanny
desire to devote her life into establishing a life of equality to the white race. Describing the
attitude of her pears as almost unanimous hopelessness1 her desire was not of a sentimental
appeal on the basis that the black community was already renounced as the inferior race but
rather in an acutely firm display of resolution to the fact that both races should equally coexist in
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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all merit of their existence without succumbing to inferiority discourse in the name of the
variance in their skin tones warranting differentiated treatment2. The negative experiences shat
Anne faced in her coming to age each shaped her devotion into seeking an active role in the fight
for Civil Right with each episode molding her conscious into realizing the reality of what it
entailed to being black in a white superiority environment. The autobiography Coming of Age
in Mississippi unlike most cases where the term coming of age denotes the transformation
from adolescence to adulthood through sexual maturity, the case of Annes transformation is
more of a mental evolvement through her resolution to transpire from being an accomplice to the
problem and rather becoming a part of the solution that cures the enthusiastic spread of racism in
her society.
Annes consciousness to the underlying meaning of being a black woman developed from
her childhood and mostly in reference to the struggles of her family and more specifically to her
life and insinuations of her mother. Through her mothers depiction of the white race, Anne
devolved her own account of what it entailed to being of the dark skin essentially provoking
her resolution to choosing a different life for herself. Annes mother raised her on the premise
that the white race and the black race existed as two completely different cogs of the society and
she should not in any way try to blur the line that separated the two independent communities
mostly in fear of the consequences of disobeying the white mans laws3. However Anne was
unwilling to accept this disparity from her early childhood life to her later adult life irrespective
of her conscious and unconsciousness to the magnitude represented by the differences. In one
case when Anne and her family were vising a theater, she saw her white friend from her
neighborhood go through a separate entrance and when she attempted to go through the same
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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entrance, her mother promptly stopped her and instead of giving a logical explanation to her
actions, she scolded her for trying to go to the theatre through the white folk entrance. Anne was
only in the fifth grade at the time but consciousness to the nature of her environment had already
started forming and she began wondering what the reasons for the difference in treatment were as
quoted in her thought process stating," They were white, and their whiteness made them better
then me. I now realized that not only were they better then me because they were white, but
everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available
to me... It really bothered me that they had all these nice things and we had nothing4." This only
preceded the numerous other episodes that eventually cemented her active participation into
Civil Rights Movement.
Moody empirically learns of the economic plight that her community and family
succumb to through observation and activities that she is forced to adhere to in the progression of
her life defined only by her skin tone. In the time she was in high school, she had to live with the
consequences of being part of the discriminated Black race despite the unjust characterization
that came with the label. The schools used a segregated system where the white children
benefited from a more superior education whereas the black children had to condone a
diminished quality of education propelled by inexperienced teachers and an environment that
undoubtedly depreciated the morale to learn as characterized by her likeness of her class room to
"the little rotten building had big cracks in it, and the heater was just too small5". This and the
diminished ability of the black community ability to consolidate funds required for their children
education led to most of the students failing to attain a college education. Her father who had left
her mother to raise two children by herself in pursuit of a life unbound by responsibilities
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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especially after Annes cousin George burns their house. Her mother unable to raise the children
from with the little earnings she was able to salvage decides to marry Raymond only to realize
that even with their earnings combined, they could not still equitably provide for the family.
Combined with the fact that the two, Anne and Raymond relationship was on the fringes, she
now had to work for considerately minimal wages for the white people after a long day at school
just to keep the family afloat and to also have some funds to purchase her school clothes6. The
black and white communities also lived in separate environments with the white community
living in posh estates while the black community lived in housing projects in complete isolation
from the white premises. She described the difference in the two living situations in the
statement we all lived in rotten wood two-room shacks without electricity or indoor
plumbing..at night, the lights in Mr. Carter's house looked even brighter, like a big-lighted
castle7. Through these economical plights, she forms an unwilling attitude towards accepting to
live in these conditions forced on the black community ergo responding by participating in the
Civil Rights Movement.
The murder of Emmet Till was one of the key stones to the Annes involvement in the
Civil Right Movement and also a symbolism of the superiority complexes of the white
community superiority over African Americans. The young man was allegedly lynched by a mob
of white people for simply winking and whistling at a white woman. Provoked by the incident
she states I was sick of pretending, sick of selling my feelings for a dollar a day8. The murder
of the young African American Till forms her evaluation of the societal values of her community
vividly when she states I was fifteen years old when I began to hate people. I hated the white
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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men who murdered Emmett Till and I hated all the other whites who were responsible for the
countless murders I vaguely remember from childhood... But I also hated Negroes. I hated them
for not standing up and doing something about the murders... I had a stronger resentment toward
Negroes for letting the whites kill them then toward the whites9.".
When Anne later discovered that Till was murdered not out of the reported incident but
from his involvement in dealings with NAACP, an acronym for National Association for the
Advancement of Colored People, she becomes invested in finding out more about the group and
what it entailed10. NAACP is reiterated to her again by her teacher Mrs. Rice who explains to her
the organization was going out of its way to fight for African American equality stating, You see
the NAACP is trying to do a lot for the Negroes and get the right to vote for Negroes in the
South11. Incidentally soon after telling Anne about NAACP, she completely vanishes from
existence. The disappearance of her teacher and past memories of episodes such as the shooting
of Samuel OQuinns prompted great fear into her but her resolution overweighing her
condoning to the norms of the society fear of the white community, she states I worried what
might possible happen to me or my family if I joined the NAACP. But I knew I was going to
join, anyway. I had wanted to for a long time12. She later joined the group NAACP soon after
enrolling in Tougaloo College located in Mississippi marking her inception into active
participation in Civil rights Movement despite the danger she thought she was placing on herself
and her family.
Anne joined numerous other groups that intended to push the fight for civil rights.
Groups such as the SNCCC (Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee) despite the
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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continuous threats from white people even graduating to bombing their offices remained resilient
to their goal campaigning for African American registration for voting13. However the success of
most initiatives was hampered by fear of the fellow Black community ability to break from the
mold of dependency and perception of the white community. According to Anne Many Negroes
were afraid to comeNegroes had been brainwashed so by the whites, they really thought that
only whites were supposed to vote14. The white community in Mississippi believed in
preserving the state of segregation at all costs as evident when they killed five high school
students for simply aiding Annes group, CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) in setting up the
voter registration campaign in Canton15.
The black community was not only afraid of death from contradicting what was entailed
of them by the segregation, they were afraid that the fight for Civil Rights was a hoax that could
not succeed hence they preferred to secure their current jobs and source of food instead of
participating in the revolutionary movement. It is for this reason that most of the African
American remained quiet and loyal to the white community irrespective of the hardships that
came with the complacency. People that joined Anne Moody in the fight for Civil Right through
voter registration in the south mostly experienced cruel deaths in the process at the hands of the
white supremacy but their resilience and that of Moody remained untarnished.
Bibliography
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
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Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
Moody, Anne. 1968. Coming of age in Mississippi. New York, N.Y.: Dell Pub. Co.
