Coming of Age in Mississippi
Encyclopedia
Coming of Age in Mississippi is a 1968 memoir by Anne Moody
about growing up in rural Mississippi in the middle of the 20th century as an African American
woman. The book covers Moody's life from childhood until her late 20s, including her involvement in the civil rights movement
, which began when she was a student at the historically-black Tougaloo College
. It details her struggles both against racism
among white people and sexism
among her fellow civil-rights activists.
, is divided into four sections. In the first section, titled "Childhood," Moody remembers her early years amid the grinding poverty of rural Mississippi. Even though her parents labor as sharecroppers from dawn to dusk almost every day of the week, they are barely able to feed and clothe their children. At age nine Moody starts doing domestic work for white families. After her father abandons the family, she works several hours a day after school and on weekends to help feed her siblings. The opening section of the autobiography
concludes with her recollection of her first calculated act of resistance to the southern racial codes. Anne is very clueless about everything going on around her in her childhood.
Her political awakening begins during her teenage years, and Moody chronicles those years in the book's second section, titled "High School." During her first year in high school Emmett Till
, a fourteen-year-old black boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago
, is lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His murder is a defining moment in Moody's life and in her political education. For the first time she realizes the extent to which many whites in Mississippi will go to protect their way of life and the appalling powerlessness of the blacks to challenge the existing arrangements. Their helplessness is manifest in their fear: When Moody asks black adults for information on the circumstances of Emmett Till's murder, she is told to shut up. When she asks her mother for the meaning of "NAACP" (referring to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
), her mother tells her never to mention that word in front of any white persons and orders her to complete her homework and go to sleep. Shortly thereafter Moody discovers that there is one adult in her life who could offer her the answers she seeks: Mrs. Rice, her homeroom teacher. Like Mrs. Bertha Flowers in Maya Angelou
's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Mrs. Rice plays a pivotal role in Moody's maturation. She not only answers Moody's questions about Emmett Till and the NAACP, but she volunteers a great deal more information about the state of race relations in Mississippi. Moody's early curiosity about the NAACP resurfaces later when she attends Tougaloo College.
Titled "College," the third section of the autobiography reveals Moody's increasing commitment to political activism. During her second year at Natchez College, she helps organize a successful boycott of the campus cafeteria when a student finds a maggot in her plate of grits. It is Moody's first experience in organizing a group of individuals to launch a structured revolt against the practices of an established institution. While a junior at Tougaloo College
she joins the NAACP. The third section ends with Moody's recounting of a terrifying ordeal in Jackson, Mississippi
. On a shopping trip there with Rose, a fellow student from Tougaloo College, Moody – without any planning or support mechanism in place – decides to go into the "Whites Only" section of the Trailways bus depot. Initially the whites in the waiting area react with shock, but soon a menacing white mob gathers around the two young women and threatens violence. Just before Rose and Moody are assaulted, a black minister, probably alerted by someone witnessing the event, arrives on the scene to rescue them and drive them away to safety.
The fourth and final section of the autobiography, titled "Movement," documents Moody's full-scale involvement in the struggle for civil rights. In the opening chapter of the final section Moody narrates her participation in a sit-in
at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson. She and three other civil rights workers – two of them white – take their seats at the lunch counter. They are, predictably, denied service, but the four continue to sit and wait. Soon a large number of white students from a local high school pour into Woolworth’s. When the students realize that a sit-in is in progress, they crowd around Moody and her companions and begin to taunt them. The verbal abuse quickly turns physical. Moody, along with the other three, is beaten, kicked, and "dragged about thirty feet toward the door by [her] hair" (266). Then all four of them are "smeared with ketchup, mustard, sugar, pies and everything on the counter", (266). The abuse continues for almost three hours until they are rescued by Dr. Beittel, the president of Tougaloo College who arrives after being informed of the violence. When Moody is escorted out of Woolworth's by Dr. Beittel, she realizes that "about ninety white police officers had been standing outside the store; they had been watching the whole thing through the windows, but had not come in to stop the mob or do anything" (267). This experience helps Moody understand "how sick Mississippi whites were" and how "their disease, an incurable disease," could prompt them even to kill to preserve "the segregated Southern way of life" (267). In the chapters that follow she comments on the impact of the assassinations of Medgar Evers
and President John F. Kennedy
on the civil rights movement, the escalating turmoil across the South. The short final chapter ends with her joining a busload of civil rights workers on their way to Washington, D.C.
As the bus moves through the Mississippi landscape, her fellow travelers sing the anthem of the civil rights movement: "We shall overcome
" (384). As she listens to the words of the song, Moody wonders. The autobiography ends with two short sentences: I WONDER. I really WONDER"(384).
Anne Moody
Anne Moody is an African-American author who has written about her experiences growing up poor and black in rural Mississippi, joining the Civil Rights Movement, and fighting racism against blacks in the United States beginning in the 1960s-Life:Born Essie Mae Moody, she was the oldest of nine...
about growing up in rural Mississippi in the middle of the 20th century as an African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
woman. The book covers Moody's life from childhood until her late 20s, including her involvement in the civil rights movement
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
, which began when she was a student at the historically-black Tougaloo College
Tougaloo College
Tougaloo College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts institution of higher education founded in 1869, in Madison County, north of Jackson, Mississippi, USA.Academically, Tougaloo College has received high ranks in recent years...
. It details her struggles both against racism
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
among white people and sexism
Sexism
Sexism, also known as gender discrimination or sex discrimination, is the application of the belief or attitude that there are characteristics implicit to one's gender that indirectly affect one's abilities in unrelated areas...
among her fellow civil-rights activists.
Structure and content
The book, which is a popular subject of study in high schools in the United StatesUnited States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, is divided into four sections. In the first section, titled "Childhood," Moody remembers her early years amid the grinding poverty of rural Mississippi. Even though her parents labor as sharecroppers from dawn to dusk almost every day of the week, they are barely able to feed and clothe their children. At age nine Moody starts doing domestic work for white families. After her father abandons the family, she works several hours a day after school and on weekends to help feed her siblings. The opening section of the autobiography
Autobiography
An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...
concludes with her recollection of her first calculated act of resistance to the southern racial codes. Anne is very clueless about everything going on around her in her childhood.
Her political awakening begins during her teenage years, and Moody chronicles those years in the book's second section, titled "High School." During her first year in high school Emmett Till
Emmett Till
Emmett Louis "Bobo" Till was an African-American boy who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Till was from Chicago, Illinois visiting his relatives in the Mississippi Delta region when he spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married...
, a fourteen-year-old black boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
, is lynched for allegedly whistling at a white woman. His murder is a defining moment in Moody's life and in her political education. For the first time she realizes the extent to which many whites in Mississippi will go to protect their way of life and the appalling powerlessness of the blacks to challenge the existing arrangements. Their helplessness is manifest in their fear: When Moody asks black adults for information on the circumstances of Emmett Till's murder, she is told to shut up. When she asks her mother for the meaning of "NAACP" (referring to the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, usually abbreviated as NAACP, is an African-American civil rights organization in the United States, formed in 1909. Its mission is "to ensure the political, educational, social, and economic equality of rights of all persons and to...
), her mother tells her never to mention that word in front of any white persons and orders her to complete her homework and go to sleep. Shortly thereafter Moody discovers that there is one adult in her life who could offer her the answers she seeks: Mrs. Rice, her homeroom teacher. Like Mrs. Bertha Flowers in Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou
Maya Angelou is an American author and poet who has been called "America's most visible black female autobiographer" by scholar Joanne M. Braxton. She is best known for her series of six autobiographical volumes, which focus on her childhood and early adult experiences. The first and most highly...
's I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings, Mrs. Rice plays a pivotal role in Moody's maturation. She not only answers Moody's questions about Emmett Till and the NAACP, but she volunteers a great deal more information about the state of race relations in Mississippi. Moody's early curiosity about the NAACP resurfaces later when she attends Tougaloo College.
Titled "College," the third section of the autobiography reveals Moody's increasing commitment to political activism. During her second year at Natchez College, she helps organize a successful boycott of the campus cafeteria when a student finds a maggot in her plate of grits. It is Moody's first experience in organizing a group of individuals to launch a structured revolt against the practices of an established institution. While a junior at Tougaloo College
Tougaloo College
Tougaloo College is a private, co-educational, liberal arts institution of higher education founded in 1869, in Madison County, north of Jackson, Mississippi, USA.Academically, Tougaloo College has received high ranks in recent years...
she joins the NAACP. The third section ends with Moody's recounting of a terrifying ordeal in Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson, Mississippi
Jackson is the capital and the most populous city of the US state of Mississippi. It is one of two county seats of Hinds County ,. The population of the city declined from 184,256 at the 2000 census to 173,514 at the 2010 census...
. On a shopping trip there with Rose, a fellow student from Tougaloo College, Moody – without any planning or support mechanism in place – decides to go into the "Whites Only" section of the Trailways bus depot. Initially the whites in the waiting area react with shock, but soon a menacing white mob gathers around the two young women and threatens violence. Just before Rose and Moody are assaulted, a black minister, probably alerted by someone witnessing the event, arrives on the scene to rescue them and drive them away to safety.
The fourth and final section of the autobiography, titled "Movement," documents Moody's full-scale involvement in the struggle for civil rights. In the opening chapter of the final section Moody narrates her participation in a sit-in
Sit-in
A sit-in or sit-down is a form of protest that involves occupying seats or sitting down on the floor of an establishment.-Process:In a sit-in, protesters remain until they are evicted, usually by force, or arrested, or until their requests have been met...
at a Woolworth's lunch counter in Jackson. She and three other civil rights workers – two of them white – take their seats at the lunch counter. They are, predictably, denied service, but the four continue to sit and wait. Soon a large number of white students from a local high school pour into Woolworth’s. When the students realize that a sit-in is in progress, they crowd around Moody and her companions and begin to taunt them. The verbal abuse quickly turns physical. Moody, along with the other three, is beaten, kicked, and "dragged about thirty feet toward the door by [her] hair" (266). Then all four of them are "smeared with ketchup, mustard, sugar, pies and everything on the counter", (266). The abuse continues for almost three hours until they are rescued by Dr. Beittel, the president of Tougaloo College who arrives after being informed of the violence. When Moody is escorted out of Woolworth's by Dr. Beittel, she realizes that "about ninety white police officers had been standing outside the store; they had been watching the whole thing through the windows, but had not come in to stop the mob or do anything" (267). This experience helps Moody understand "how sick Mississippi whites were" and how "their disease, an incurable disease," could prompt them even to kill to preserve "the segregated Southern way of life" (267). In the chapters that follow she comments on the impact of the assassinations of Medgar Evers
Medgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
and President John F. Kennedy
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald "Jack" Kennedy , often referred to by his initials JFK, was the 35th President of the United States, serving from 1961 until his assassination in 1963....
on the civil rights movement, the escalating turmoil across the South. The short final chapter ends with her joining a busload of civil rights workers on their way to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
As the bus moves through the Mississippi landscape, her fellow travelers sing the anthem of the civil rights movement: "We shall overcome
We Shall Overcome
"We Shall Overcome" is a protest song that became a key anthem of the African-American Civil Rights Movement . The title and structure of the song are derived from an early gospel song by African-American composer Charles Albert Tindley...
" (384). As she listens to the words of the song, Moody wonders. The autobiography ends with two short sentences: I WONDER. I really WONDER"(384).