Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

Coming of Age in Mississippi Upon reading Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, in my honest opinion I thought the book would be boring, I am happy to say that I was wrong. This memoir about Anne’s life was really interesting and inspiring. Throughout Anne’s memoir I read about all the discrimination that went on in her life, the constant change that kept happening, with the death in the family her father leaving and marrying someone else and all the half siblings she had. Through all that Anne still wanted to make a difference despite the odds and all the negativity and lack of support from her family. This memoir shows a lot of racism, discrimination, judgement based on race, color, level of education, and wealth. Living through

Burke. Mrs. Burke was the owner of the plantation that Anne’s family lived on and farmed, this women was always rude, cruel, and mean to Anne because she was black which is not right. Mrs. Burke said a lot of nasty things to Anne that were just plain terrible, I think the reason why Mrs. Burke did not like Anne so much was in light of the fact that Anne was a smart and brilliant young lady, I believe that Mrs. Burke was intimidated by Anne. Anne was a smart girl she took education serious and got good grades and had a lot of potential. It was impressive to read about such dedication to school that Anne had, she talked about how afterschool everyday she would go to work for hours to put food on the table for the family along with helping on the plantation that her family lived on and was still able to get good grade and tutor kids in the

The boy was from Chicago. Negroes up North have no respect for people. They think they can get away with anything" pg. (132) this quote was said after Emmett Till was shot for whistling to a white girl. Anne did not believe that was right and gave her a terrible fever in light of the fact that blacks were treated unfair and unequally. Due to this event Anne learned about the NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) from Mrs. Burk who was talking bad about them. Then the death of Samuel O’Quinn changed Anne’s view on the harshness of racism in Mississippi. Samuel O’Quinn was killed because he was trying to recruit black loyalist for the NAACP. A reward of five hundred dollars was given to whoever kills Samuel. This scared Anne later when thinking about joining this group when she is in college. Events that even happened once she got older example, the murder of Medgar Evers, and the church bombing in Birmingham helped charge Anne’s fire to become an activist the fight for the rights of blacks. During Anne’s junior year of college she was asked to join the NAACP at Tougaloo College, which brought memories and fear from what happened to Samuel O’Quinn. After attending the first meeting Anne joined the NAACP and in her senior year of college she was more involved and joined CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and later in her life time her and her friend joined COFO (Council of Federate Organizations).