Story of Anne Moody
Story of Anne MoodyIn 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. Yet, she was soon informed that her cousin Benty was ran out of town for �screwing a poor white girl.� These incidents made Moody fear for her own life; but more importantly, she wanted change between the relationship of whites and blacks. Many of the things that occurred around her home forced her to take summer vacations in other cities with the hope that she would not be surrounded with the incidents that disgusted her. However, she later realizes that this racial problem is everywhere and cannot be escaped. When Moody transferred to Tougaloo College as a junior, she was invited to attend its NAACP chapter by the secretary. As she reminisced on the shootings and beatings of those who were associated with the NAACP, Moody began to worry if joining the chapter would place her as well as her family in immediate danger. By the end of one semester, she had become exceptionally involved with the movement. She also participated in the voter registration process performed by SNCC. Moody�s adult life was one of stress, responsibility, and action. She participated in sit-ins, walked in marches, and stood among others in rallies. She, along with other college and high school students, were thrown in jail and cramped on trucks that were sent off to jails during marches. She made speeches in various cities even though she was banned from her own hometown. Voter registration was also an important goal during her adulthood. When blacks were too intimidated or denied access to voting, she held drives that gave the poor clothes and food in order to encourage voting. Yet, many accepted the gifts and turned away from Moody�s purpose, thus, causing great disappointment. Moody was not raised to be an activist. However, due to the incidents of her childhood as well as those that occurred in her adulthood, Moody was determined to challenge the ways of society. She sympathized with the blacks that complained about the abuse they were receiving from whites. But at the same time, she was angry with them for not taking any action for change to occur. Her speeches, her clothes drive, her sit-ins, and her demonstrations were all part of the movement on getting other African Americans to demand their own rights as Americans. During Moody�s participation in the Movement, she did not gain much support from her family. Her mother wrote her about the dangers of her participation, but soon the letters will cease to be written. Her family feared for Moody�s life as well as those of her brothers and sisters. People who knew Moody back home could be killed or beaten for her actions in these movements. Because of the movement, Moody could not even return to her former home for fear of disruption and hatred towards her. She knew that by being a part of a fight for justice within the black race, she was also taking the chance of losing her family. Yet, in the years of Moody�s strenuous life, some improvement began to show towards the end.