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In America, the fortie s and fifties was a time of racism and racial segregation. The Declaration of Independence states “all men are created equal” and America is viewed as the land of equal opportunity. However, blacks soon found the lack of truth in these statements; and with the Montgomery bus boycott marking the beginning of retaliation, the civil rights movement will grow during the mid – sixties. In the autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody describes the environment, the thoughts, and the actions that formed her life while growing up in the segregated southern state of Mississippi. As a young child, Moody accepted society as the way it was and did not see a difference in the skin color of a white person as opposed to that of a black. It was not until a movie incident did she begin to realize that the color of her skin made her inferior. “Their whiteness provided them with a pass to downstairs in that nice section and my blackness sent me to the balcony. Now that I was thinking about it, their schools, homes, and streets were better than mine.” Soon after Moody entered high school, Emmett Till, a fourteen-year-old boy from Chicago, was killed for whistling at a white woman. “Emmett Till’s murder had proved it was a crime, punishable by death, for a Negro man to even whistle at a white woman in Mississippi.” Although her mother refused to give an explanation of the organization, Moody learned about the NAACP from one of her teachers soon after the incident. It was at age fifteen that Moody really began to hate people. Not only did she hate the whites that committed the murders, but she also hated the blacks for allowing the horrid actions to occur. When there were rumors about black men having sexual relationships with white women, Negro men became afraid even to walk the streets. One of Moody’s high school classmates, Jerry, was beaten after being accused of making telephone calls to a white operator with threats of molesting her. Even more tragic was the Taplin fire. A whole family was burned in the Taplin family home and although the police tried to blame it on a kerosene lamp, the blacks knew it was purposely started with gasoline. To get away from all the horrifying things going on in her town, Moody leaves to stay with family members in Baton Rouge.
The forties and fifties in the United States was a period dominated by racial segregation and racism. The declaration of independence clearly stated, “All men are created equal,” which should be the fundamental belief of every citizen. America is the land of equal opportunity for every citizen to succeed and prosper through determination, hard-work and initiative. However, black citizens soon found lack of truth in these statements. The Montgomery Bus Boycott and the murder of Emmett Till in 1955 rapidly captured national headlines of civil rights movement. In the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, the author, Anne Moody describes her experiences, her thoughts, and the movements that formed her life. The events she went through prepared her to fight for the civil right.
Currently in the United States of America, there is a wave a patriotism sweeping across this great land: a feeling of pride in being an American and in being able to call this nation home. The United States is the land of the free and the home of the brave; however, for the African-American citizens of the United States, from the inception of this country to midway through the twentieth century, there was no such thing as freedom, especially in the Deep South. Nowhere is that more evident than in Stories of Scottsboro, an account of the Scottsboro trials of 1931-1937, where nine African-American teenage boys were falsely accused of raping two white girls in Scottsboro, Alabama and no matter how much proof was brought forth proving there innocence, they were always guilty. This was a period of racism and bigotry in our country that is deeply and vividly portrayed though different points of view through author James E. Goodman.
In this autobiography of Anne Moody a.k.a. Essie Mae as she is often called in the book, is the struggles for rights that poor black Americans had in Mississippi. Things in her life lead her to be such an activist in the fight for black equality during this time. She had to go through a lot of adversity growing up like being beat, house being burned down, moving to different school, and being abuse by her mom's boyfriend. One incident that would make Anne Moody curious about racism in the south was the incident in the Movie Theater with the first white friends she had made. The other was the death of Emmett Tillman and other racial incidents that would involve harsh and deadly circumstances. These this would make Miss Moody realize that this should not be tolerated in a free world.
Ida B. Wells-Barnett is an investigative journalist who wrote in honesty and bluntness about the tragedies and continued struggles of the Negro man. She was still very much involved with the issue even after being granted freedom and the right to vote. Statistics have shown that death and disparity continued to befall the Negro people in the South where the white man was “educated so long in that school of practice” (Pg. 677 Par. 2). Yet in all the countless murders of Negroes by the white man only three had been convicted. The white man of the South, although opposed to the freedom of Negroes would eventually have to face the fact of the changing times. However, they took every opportunity and excuse to justify their continued horrors. There were three main excuses that the white man of the South came up w...
Her employer at the time, Mrs. Burke, even blamed his death on his getting “out of place with a white woman.” (pg. 132) This Tragedy showed her the horrors that blacks had to deal with simply because of the colour of their skin. It showed her that you could be killed simply because you were black. Soon Mrs. Burke started inviting women over for “guild meetings” (pg. 133) Moody was dismissed from work early on these days out of fear that she was eavesdropping. This meeting, however, is the first place that moody heard of the NAACP, an organization which she would later
To the modern white women who grew up in comfort and did not have to work until she graduated from high school, the life of Anne Moody reads as shocking, and almost too bad to be true. Indeed, white women of the modern age have grown accustomed to a certain standard of living that lies lightyears away from the experience of growing up black in the rural south. Anne Moody mystifies the reader in her gripping and beautifully written memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, while paralleling her own life to the evolution of the Civil Rights movement. This is done throughout major turning points in the author’s life, and a detailed explanation of what had to be endured in the name of equality.
Moody herself was only nine years old when she was first employed by a white family as a domestic worker. She worked all day and into the night and was treated like an animal for a mere seventy-five cents and two gallons of soiled milk. She did this in order to try to provide some food security for her family (39-41). Moody’s mother, Toosweet, worked for many white families and lived on their land. For example, they live on Mr. Carter’s plantation, Mrs. Cooks’ land, and Mrs. Johnsons’ pasture (3, 13, 31). One time when Toosweet had to quit her job they were kicked out of the house the very next day; “the white lady was so mad she couldn’t get Mama to stay that the next day she told Mama to leave to make room for the new maid” (31). This caused Moody to be able to sympathize with people of Canton and to recognize and fight for their needs. Moody said on page 341 of Coming of Age in
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, talked extensively about the civil rights movement that she had participated in. The civil rights movement dealt with numerous issues that many people had not agreed with. Coming of Age in Mississippi gave the reader a first hand look at the efforts many people had done to gain equal rights.
As a result, they were powerless to prevent the white from segregating all aspects of their lives and could not stop racial discrimination in public accommodations, education, and economic opportunities. Following the 1954 Supreme Court’s ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional, it remained a hot issue in 1955. That year, however, it was the murder of the fourteen-year-old Emmett Louis Till that directed the nation’s attention to the racial discrimination in America. Till was an African American schoolboy in Chicago, and he went to visit his uncle in Mississippi. He reportedly “wolf whistled” at a white grocery store attendant, Mrs. Bryant, and was kidnapped by her husband and her husband’s half brother that following night.
In her autobiography, “The Life of an Ordinary Woman, Anne Ellis describes just that; the life of an ordinary woman. Ellis reveals much about her early—ordinary if you will—life during the nineteenth-century. She describes what daily life was like, living a pioneer-like lifestyle. Her memoir is ‘Ordinary’ as it is full of many occurrences that the average woman experiences. Such as taking care of her children, cleaning, cooking the—world’s greatest—meals. It also contains many themes such as dysfunctional families, insensitive men, and negligent parents that are seen in modern life. The life of Anne Ellis is relatable. Her life is relatable to modern day life, however, very different.
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
The book, “My Soul Is Rested” by Howell Raines is a remarkable history of the civil rights movement. It details the story of sacrifice and audacity that led to the changes needed. The book described many immeasurable moments of the leaders that drove the civil rights movement. This book is a wonderful compilation of first-hand accounts of the struggles to desegregate the American South from 1955 through 1968. In the civil rights movement, there are the leaders and followers who became astonishing in the face of chaos and violence. The people who struggled for the movement are as follows: Hosea Williams, Rosa Parks, Ralph Abernathy, and others; both black and white people, who contributed in demonstrations for freedom rides, voter drives, and
The United States of America, the land of the free. Mostly free if the skin tone matches with the approval of society. The never ending war on racism, equality, and segregation is a huge part of American culture. Prior to the Civil Rights Movement equality was laughed at. People of color were highly discriminated and hated for existing. During the years nineteen fifty to nineteen seventy, racism began to extinguish its mighty flames. Through the lives of numerous people equality would soon be a reality. Through the Autobiography “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody first person accounts of all the racism, social prejudice and violence shows how different America used to be. The autobiography holds nothing back, allowing the author to give insight on all the appalling events and tragedies. The Re-telling of actual events through Anne Moody’s eyes, reveal a connection to how wrong segregation was. The “Coming of Age in Mississippi” is an accurate representation of life in the south before and during the Civil Rights Movement.
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi is a narrated autobiography depicting what it was like to grow up in the South as a poor African American female. Her autobiography takes us through her life journey beginning with her at the age of four all the way through to her adult years and her involvement in the Civil Rights Movement. The book is divided into four periods: Childhood, High School, College and The Movement. Each of these periods represents the process by which she “came of age” with each stage and its experiences having an effect on her enlightenment. She illustrates how important the Civil Rights Movement was by detailing the economic, social, and racial injustices against African Americans she experienced.
Diversity, we define this term today as one of our nation’s most dynamic characteristics in American history. The United States thrives through the means of diversity. However, diversity has not always been a positive component in America; in fact, it took many years for our nation to become accustomed to this broad variety of mixed cultures and social groups. One of the leading groups that were most commonly affected by this, were African American citizens, who were victimized because of their color and race. It wasn’t easy being an African American, back then they had to fight in order to achieve where they are today, from slavery and discrimination, there was a very slim chance of hope for freedom or even citizenship. This longing for hope began to shift around the 1950’s during the Civil Rights Movement, where discrimination still took place yet, it is the time when African Americans started to defend their rights and honor to become freemen like every other citizen of the United States. African Americans were beginning to gain recognition after the 14th Amendment was ratified in 1868, which declared all people born natural in the United States and included the slaves that were previously declared free. However, this didn’t prevent the people from disputing against the constitutional law, especially the people in the South who continued to retaliate against African Americans and the idea of integration in white schools. Integration in white schools played a major role in the battle for Civil Rights in the South, upon the coming of independence for all African American people in the United States after a series of tribulations and loss of hope.