Coming of Age in Mississippi
Racial Inequality and Civil Rights Movement in Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi
Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi is one of the most important autobiographical stories from the Civil Rights Era that is widely read today. The book covers Moody's nineteen years of life. The story begins when Moody was four years old and concludes with her participation in a march against racial inequality when she was twenty three. Moody tells her story of growing up in Mississippi and her struggles against racial inequality during the Civil Rights era. As Moody demonstrates, African-Americans in Mississippi faced racial inequality in virtually all areas: political, social, and economic. But while Moody discusses political and social inequality that African-Americans suffered from, she specifically emphasizes how destructive economic inequality was. She became somewhat disillusioned with Civil Rights Movement because Civil Rights activists primarily addressed political and social rights whereas their activism failed to improve the economic conditions of African-Americans in Mississippi and the rest of the United States.
Moody tells in the book how she became conscious of social inequality when she was a child. She recalls how she could play with white children as a young child without any significant consciousness of race. But the situation changed when she tried to enter a movie theater with her white playmates at the age of seven. Moody was dragged out of the white section of the theater by her mother. Her mother scolded her saying that it was unacceptable to break the etiquette of racial norms. After the incident, Moody explains, her white playmates stopped playing with her. She then realized that "not only were they better than me because they were white, but...
The efforts of the Movement would be frustrated by the conditioning of those in the older generations who had only known crushing poverty. To them, the goals of freedom and equality seemed so far away that to fight for them was impractical. For them, political imperatives were a distant priority behind whatever means could be gathered for survival. This demonstrates the power that poverty has had in detaining the
Coming of Age in Mississippi In the United States, the minority populations of the country have been historically marginalized and minimized in importance. This has been true for all minorities but particularly for those who are African-American. The Civil Rights Movement was a series of organized protests against the oppression of African-Americans in the United States by members of the white majority population, particularly in the American south where African-Americans were
Despite herself, Anne Moody gets drawn into the fight for civil rights, knowing the challenge is exceptionally easier said than done but knowing she has no other course to take. For her, the civil rights movement is such an essential part of her whole being. The various economic, social racial and physical injustices that took place in the general African-American public from her childhood until she became an adult was
But as it is, it seems like Moody had nobody on her side. In this situation, I think I would have done as Moody describes most people as doing: complaining about the white people behind closed doors, while acting in public in a way that would keep me out of trouble. Overall, I think the situation would have taken my strength and made me feel helpless, rather than giving me
Did she on some subconscious level realize this irony and dichotomy? She does not deal with it in her book, but on some Freudian level it is certainly possible that she did. To recap, both of the authors Elaine Tyler May and Ann Moody see the institution of the family as something that was a mixture of limiting and liberating influences both for men and women during the 1940s, 1950s,
Coming of Age in Mississippi" by Anne Moody In her article "Coming of Age in Mississippi," dating from 1968, Anne Moody tells the story of her participation in a blood shed sit-in demonstration at Woolworth's lunch counter. She was a student at Toogalo College in Jackson Mississippi, member of the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People). The Association, under the leadership of John Salter, Moody's social
Our semester plans gives you unlimited, unrestricted access to our entire library of resources —writing tools, guides, example essays, tutorials, class notes, and more.
Get Started Now