Anne Moody Civil Rights Movement

Anne Moody, born Essie Mae Moody on September 15, 1940 to Elnire Williams and Fred Moody in a rural area, her hometown Centreville, Mississippi. The former Civil Rights activist was the oldest of nine children, making her the first to get a job as early as the fourth grade to help take care of the family that her father abandoned. Witnessing racial tensions at first hand, Moody endured an emotional childhood. However, the rampant prejudice did not stop her from being a dedicated student and good basketball player which earned her a scholarship to Natchez Junior College. She later graduated in 1964 from Tougaloo College on an academic scholarship. While being a student, Moody became involved with civil rights organizations such as National Association

Moody’s interest in how her culture failed to demonstrate equality and live in peace is what caused her to write an autobiography. After moving to New York, she took a break from the movement and published her book, Coming of Age in Mississippi documenting her life from when she was a child up until her involvement with civil rights organizations. Moody wanted to voice her life story about the history of prejudice and how many were tortured because of the difference in their skin color. She detailed how people preferred to be ignorant, instead of overcoming the harsh reality of racism. Moody wanted the world to live her life as a surviving black woman in Mississippi who had the courage to face a racist society on her

Prejudice begins with justifying something as being different based on personal experience and how one was raised. During Moody’s childhood in Coming of Age in Mississippi, she highlights how people were taught to hate each other by judging the difference in skin color. Upon arriving at the movie theatre, Moody and her siblings followed their white friends into an area prohibited to blacks. They were not allowed to return to the movie theatre after getting caught by their mother and her white friends stopped playing in front of Moody’s house. The author states, “Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better me. I now realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me” (34). Moody’s siblings and white friends did not know that they were different based on their skin color until that moment. Her autobiography demonstrates that one is not born to hate someone, it is a learned