Anne Moody Racism

Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi and Eyes on the Prize characterize life for African-Americans during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s as full of tension, fear, and violence. Eyes on the Prize is a documentary series that details major figures and events of the movement, while Anne Moody gives a deeply personal autobiographical account of her own experiences as an African American growing up in deeply segregated and racist Mississippi and as a civil rights activist during and after college. These two accounts are very different in their style yet contain countless connections in their events and reflect many ongoing struggles of the movement. These sources provide an excellent basis for discussion of nonviolence versus violence

She said “Before Emmett Till, I had known the fear of hunger, hell and the Devil, but now there was a new fear known to me – the fear of being killed just because I was black.” Moody’s mother is terrified that Moody knows about the murder because she recognized this awareness of the blatant discrimination and savage violence of whites towards blacks would make young Moody inclined to speak out and act in retaliation. One of the large obstacles that the Civil Rights movement faced in Moody’s later experience was a lack of participation from people like who mother who were so brainwashed by white dominance that they would rather live as inferiors rather than risk meeting the wrath of segregationists. Moody is infuriated by the African-American community’s acceptance of it’s lowly position in society. In one incident later in the book, Moody is giving out donated clothes to black in need, and the immense crowd that shows up maddens her with their hypocrisy. “ ‘Here they are,’ I thought, ‘all standing around waiting to be given something. Last week after the church bombing they turned their heads when they passed this office. … After I give them clothes, they probably won’t even look at me next week, let alone go and register to vote.” Her prediction is correct, as only about 80,000 out of the 400,000 African Americans in Mississippi participate in the Freedom vote, designed to demonstrate

Throughout her life, Moody finds that nonviolent protests by African Americans are only met by violent retaliation from whites. In her first peaceful protest where she sat in a whites only waiting area of a bus station, she was harassed by the white people in the section who eventually form a mob and try to pursue her even when she leaves. In a later sit in she and several other African Americans sat down to be served in a whites only restaurant, and another mob formed that threw condiments at her group and violently attacked them. Then she is deeply shaken by the murder of Medgar Evers, a leader of the NAACP whom she knew personally who advocated nonviolence. This event was a tragedy for everyone involved in the civil rights movement. In Eyes on the Prize, Medgar’s wife says “When Medgar was felled by that shot and I rushed out and saw him lying there … I don 't think I have ever hated as much in my life as I did at that particular moment with anyone who had white skin … I can recall wanting so much to have a machine gun or something in my hand and just stand there and mow them all down.” Moody experiences a similar indignant anger over this devastating catastrophe, and in the aftermath she has loses all hope in preventing white violence through black nonviolence, to the extent that she begins to view nonviolent leaders like Martin Luther King Jr. with disdain and