Analysis Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.
Moody begins with her childhood and the way her mother struggled to keep the family from going hungry. She recollects the poor living conditions and the insufficiency of money and food her family suffered in. She was the oldest child in her family and later recognized that the only alternative to assist out her family was to work for worthless pay. Throughout her childhood, Moody lacked the intellectual knowledge of prejudice but she knew she was treated unlike the rest of the children. Her first encounter dealing with the issue of race was when she made friends with neighboring white children. She does not know what made her white friends different from her and why they have better toys than her. She initiates to play doctor to revea...

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... became the idea of people with different skin color. To this day, I believe we still have the same attitude towards certain “races”.
From a young age, Moody noticed something unusual about race relations than those around her. She blossomed into an intelligent, strong-minded young woman with an aspiration to create changes to the racial perspective in the South. For years she worked determinedly to help bring about those changes, but in the end she became disillusioned. She understood who she was, and she realized that she needed to help make a difference, but she did not know if she could. Ultimately, Anne Moody feels "old" and alone towards the end because she is so too upset with the civil rights movement. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society. "I WONDER. I really WONDER".