Coming of Age in Mississippi

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Summary: Realistic view of the struggle for Civil Rights in the South
Review: I read this book while attending Hunter College. This book is one that I will never forget. I will be forever grateful for her contributions to the struggle for Civil Rights. It made you feel the terror that several African Americans felt while living in Mississippi during the 40's and 50's. Ms. Moody inspired me to be strong in the face of danger and opposition at all costs. Ms. Moody's accurate portrayal of life in the South gives the reader a chance to understand the inner turmoil she experienced while attempting to make changes in the Jim Crow South. She faced difficulties with her family as well as the whites who lived in her town. She exerted strength at a time when most African Americans were barely looked upon as members of society. She preservered despite the racial bigotry that she faced on a daily basis. She managed to obtain scholarships to college to improve her life and the lives of her family members. She vividly describes the consequences of African Americans who chose to oppose the Jim Crow Laws in her hometown. She later emerged as an activist in the early demonstrations at Woolworth lunch counters that refused service to African American patrons. She faced eminent danger from the Ku Klux Klan due to her dedication to the Civil Rights Movement. Finally she portrayed the damaging effects of white supremacy on African American's self image, by noting the conflicts between darker skinned African Americans and lighter skinned African Americans. This is a truely influential book that will offer the reader a history lesson on what it felt to be involved in one of the most important moments in American history.

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Summary: Coming of Age in Mississippi - a book well worth the read
Review: Believe it or not, I was actually forced to read the book, "Coming of Age in Mississippi" as a freshman this past year by my college history professor. It was such a thick book, and I was sure that, knowing my professor's tastes, it would be a boring read. However, upon reading it, I had a pleasant surprise. It was such an insightful, moving, and eye-opening book. It had me glued from page one. As a book about a young black girl's (the author) struggle to overcome racism in the south, it is a very potent history lesson. I had thought that I understood what it was like for young African-Americans of the 1950's and '60's, but I couldn't have been more wrong. This book opened up my eyes and made me truly see the harsh reality of growing up as Anne Moody did. She has many recollections of childhood and adult aquaintances murdered by the Ku Klux Klan, as well as the story of her Mississippi Freedom Summer when she had to hide at night in high grass to avoid the Klan. It was at this time that she realized that she was on their so called "Black List." These very vivid circumstances were a slap in the face that almost made me tremble right along with the characters. Furthermore, Ms. Moody's use of common language, and the very realistic way in which she describe's her life, greatly aided me in fully understanding the enormity of the situation at that time.Another book that can be compared to this one is, "I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings" by Maya Angelou. Although this book is much more harsh and gritty than Ms. Moody's, it gave me much of the same feeling of insight.The only disappointment in Anne Moody's book to me was that the ending left me feeling somewhat unsatisfied. Unlike Maya Angelou's book, it does not have a sequel. But then again, this may be part of the book's genius in that it mirrors Anne Moody's own disatisfaction with the sluggishness of the Civil Rights Movement and shows that there is no conclusive end to the struggle against racism

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Summary: I would read this book again!
Review: What if you were a child that had to take on the responsibilities of getting a job to help out your family because you were going through tough times?
Anne Moody is a determined and pertinacious female, who has many dire straits as a teenager. Moody is the oldest out of seven children and sees the need to help her family because although her parents work, there still wasn't enough money to feed the family, so at the age of nine, she gets an after school job.
It wasn't until Moody was a student in high school, before she had 'a completely new insight of Negroes in Mississippi.' She started to see the hardship blacks had to encounter everyday and believed she could make a change. During her studies, at Tougaloo College, she joined the NAACP, a coherent group of African-Americans.
Coming of Age in Mississippi is an astonishing book that made me think about how life is so different now, than when the author was growing up. Anne Moody made me feel her sorrow and pain when I was reading this book. In comparison to other authors, Anne Moody used her own experience to help you feel what she felt in the most difficult time of her life. Moody's way of writing is a page-turner; she gets you caught in the moment so well that you have to see what happens next. Furthermore, the ending of this book leaves questions that you can only answer yourself and leaves things to the imagination.
Coming of Age in Mississippi is a historical autobiography that I would
recommend to you if you are a person who enjoys reading autobiographies about the struggles of African-American people in the 1950's and 60's. I would recommend Coming of Age in Mississippi because it teaches you about how people lived back then when the color of your skin really mattered.

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Summary: Real and personal book about the rural South in the sixties
Review: We are a group af students from Denmark who have actually read this book to know a little bit more of everyday life in the rural South and how some of the blacks fought for their rights.

We did find the book very interesting because it told us in detail about a black girl living in very poor conditions, how she grew up and how the children were left at home alone because the parents had to work. Later on how she managed to go to college without having any money, and finally on how she became a Civil right activist. It really told us how it was growing up black in Mississippi from the forties to sixties. But also seen from a historical point of view the book gave us a very good description of the historic events happening at that time like the Civil Rights march as well as the murders of Emmett Till, Medgar Evers and John F Kennedy.

As an autobiography you feel it so real and personal and the author Anne Moody has actually been through all these troubles and racial problems. Growing up in so poor conditions and all the hate the blacks felt everywhere must have been awful but Anne was a girl who had the power of trying to fight against it.

Sitting in Denmark we find it quite difficult to understand how badly the blacks were really treated but we think this book gave us a good idea and we will continue to investigate this very exciting but also horryfying subject.

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Summary: An excellent autobiographical exposure of racism in the USA
Review: I am late in coming to know of Anne Moody, however I grew up in NYC, with a mother who was very active in civil rights. She was a member of CORE in the 60's and took me to the l963 March on Washington when I was 18years old. I also learned first hand about her experiences in Selma, Alabama, and during her participation in desegregating lunch counters. However, even armed with knowledge I was not aware of how hard life was for Black people in Mississippi at that time until I read this book. I was particularly saddened by the fear and feelings of unworthiness that seemed to have pervaded the souls of these folks. I was shocked at the sacrifices that Mr. and Mrs. Chinn made in the struggle for equality. Throughout, the book I was forced to question what I would have done in her shoes, since the only difference between us is that I grew up in the North at the same time. I can't help but wonder how strong I would have been, how militant, and how self-sacrificing I would have been. All I can say is that when I think of all she went through and all she did I can only feel very proud that I come from an indomitably proud race of people. RIGHT ON,ANNE!

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Summary: Essie Mae to Annie Mae
Review: Anne Moody is a great and classical writer. After reading Coming of Age in Mississippi, I had a better understanding of how African Americans lived in the 1940s-1950s. Moody takes us back to that past time and relives her childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Her childhood was very uneasy especially when her mother separated from her father and she was left with a younger sister. Her Mama bears another three children with a different man who she was not yet married to. Food was scarce and she had to work and help out to survive. Times got harder when Moody entered high school and college. Blacks were getting killed left and right because of discrimination in Mississippi.

One good thing about the book is that Moody shows how hard she worked to get to where she is now. I was amazed during her childhood and her years in high school when she overcame many obstacles. She overcame most of her fears except one. "There was a new fear known to me- the fear of being killed just because I was black"(125). She had been scared about a murder that happened in a nearby town. A black boy was killed because he came out of his home with a white woman. So white men went after him and killed him and how sad it was that he was only 14. She overcame this fear later when she entered college and when the movement began.

Another good thing about Moody is that she speaks out for herself. She began to hate people especially the white men that killed Negroes. She also looked upon Negro men as cowards (129). Moody realized how Negro men could smile and be nice to white men, but behind closed doors, they kill innocent black men and women. She shows an abundance of courage later in the book and stands up for herself and other blacks. It was difficult to be black and earn money. Times were hard but she made it and made a difference.

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Summary: What I thought
Review: I bellieve that this book is very good. I think that every high school student should read and get educated. I liked this book because of the way it was writen. As though you were there with her. Going threw the things she went threw. I recommend this book to anyone who's looking for something they can sit down and read and get into. It's something that'll grab you as soon as you pick it up.

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Summary: Couldn't put it down
Review: This was a book that I was required to read for my college history class. I'm usually not big on books that are required, so I decided to get a headstart on this one so I could keep up in class. The book starts a little slow, but by the time she gets to about middle school, and especially high school, I found myself unable to put the book down. The imagery is amazing. As Anne gets a little depressed and unmotivated, I could feel myself become unmotivated and read the book less. I felt ackward reading about the situation with her mother when she and her sister were living together, you can just feel the tension in the dialogue. This is a really good book to read, whether it's a requirement or not because it is full of a lot of personal insights.

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Summary: Coming of Age in Mississippi
Review: Anne Moody was an African-American civil rights activist who was raised in Mississippi. Growing up in a racially mixed community, she knew more than most people her age would know. Everyday, she heard about beatings of fellow blacks in the community and desired to take action to gain back their rights. As Anne Moody got involved NAACP and SNCC in college, she became very popular as a "troublemaker" by the whites within her whole state and beyond. To the fellow African-Americans, she was a heroine. Anne Moody was known to lead groups of protesters, joining whites and blacks who wanted to end racial violence. She was not as famous as Rosa Parks, but she fought for the same cause and perhaps did more to help her people. I thought she was a very brave person because she stood up against so many whites opposing her beliefs. She was more than just a bystander; she believed that she could make a difference, and she did. I like how she never gave up, and also how all of her friends and family helped her to realize what was going on outside her little town.
Coming of Age in Mississippi is a five-star book, and anyone who is interested in the socials wars fought between the whites and the blacks should read it. Many people should know what happened before everyone was equal. This is a heartwarming book about bravery and courage. Anne Moody takes you through her life, changing the way you look at your country.

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Summary: Go slow, said Booker T; no, said W.E.B.
Review: In the United States, the protest has always been an important tool of democracy, a way for the minority to let itself be heard.

Take the Civil Rights movement. Today's race relations are better than they were fifty years ago because a relatively small group of people convinced enough of the country that racism was a disease that would kill everything that made America special.

These people were following in the footsteps of an earlier generation. Long before Martin Luther King Jr. and Malcolm X, people like Ida B. Wells, W.E.B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington took on racism to both heckles and cheers. Their message was simple: if the U.S. Constitution failed for one race, it would fail for everyone.

...

It was scary for Ann Moody, an author and one of the leaders of the modern Civil Rights movement. Moody knew that only loud, public protests could change laws and sentiments. Others had driven that point home long before she was born. And Today, as in Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi, about life in the rural South during the 1940s and 1950s, the creed is the same: staying quiet means suffering the consequences.

Some had preferred a more timid approach. In his speech at the Atlanta Exposition of 1895, Washington, who created the Tuskegee Institute, a trade school, urged a largely white audience to embrace black people and take advantage of their menial skills.

"While doing this," he told the audience, "you can be sure in the future, as in the past, that you and your families will be surrounded by the most patient, faithful, law-abiding, and unresentful people that the world has seen."

But others, like Wells, a journalist during the Reconstruction, were resentful toward white people and angry at the suffering of the "young manhood of the dark race."

"They have cheated him out of his ballot, deprived him of civil rights or redress in the Civil Courts thereof, robbed him of the fruits of his labor, and are still murdering, burning and lynching him," Wells writes in a pamphlet in 1892.

To the lynching, she had this solution: "A Winchester rifle should have a place of honor in every black home, and it should be used for that protection which the law refuses to give."

It was a violent sentiment, but Moody, more than half a century later, would have approved. She, too, faced a powerful establishment, and as it grew more violent, Moody grew more hateful of white people. She hated them because they hated black people.

"But I also hated Negroes," she writes. "I hated them for not standing up and doing something about the murders. In fact, I think I had a stronger resentment toward Negroes for letting the whites kill them than toward the whites."

Moody yearned for equality. But equality, according to Washington, was a privilege to be earned.

"The wisest among my race understand that the agitation of questions of social equality is the extremest folly," Washington said in his address, "and that progress in the enjoyment of all the privileges that will come to us must be the result of severe and constant struggle, rather than of artificial forcing."

But there is nothing artificial about fighting racism. Oddly, Washington called for "constant struggle" while denouncing the "agitation of questions of social equality." He might have been able to do two opposite things at once, but, as today's activists are aware, without agitation there is no struggle. People like Du Bois knew it a hundred years ago.

"Separation in railway and street cars, based simply on race and color, is un-American, undemocratic, and silly," Du Bois wrote in 1903, several years after Washington's address. "We protest against all such discrimination."

And his belief in the protest, the barest and most direct form of democracy, lives on today. It is an American way of life, a constant reminder that power in the United States rests with the people. The Constitution says so, and it's been that way one generation after another.

Sometimes the generations blur, as they did for Moody when she observes a limping, old man - old enough to have heard Washington tell white people the equivalent of: "Don't be scared, let us be your servants - lead demonstrators up to a throng of policemen. Several of them had just finished beating a black man to unconsciousness.

"They wore helmets and were armed with rifles, pistols and billy sticks," Moody writes. "As the old man got within a few yards of the wall of cops, he picked up his cane and seemed to walk straight up to them without a limp at all.

"I think every Negro who saw this happen was toughened by the way that old man faced those cops."

And the legacy lives on.