Coming Of Age In Mississippi Thesis

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Coming of Age in Mississippi
“Coming of Age in Mississippi” is an autobiography written by Anne Moody in 1968. The book was about the life of Anne Moody when she was a child and to a point where she got involved in getting civil rights for her people. Anne Moody played a significant role in the civil rights movements. She encountered many challenges growing up as a poor black girl. The author successfully depicts what it was like to live in rural Mississippi during the civil rights movement of the 1950’s and 1960’s through her personal experiences. She categorized her life story into four stages: her childhood, high school, college and the movement. The book described in details about problems black people faced when being black and since it …show more content…

Carter’s plantation with her family: her father, Diddly; her mother, Toosweet; and her younger sister, Adline. Moody had faced discrimination and hunger when growing up. She felt sick of how black people were being mistreated and killed, yet, none of them stood up and fought back. Instead, they simply accepted the racial indignities. They rather ignore and do nothing about the injustices they were facing. Moody spent her entire childhood watching her people being mistreated so when she got to college; she took a lot of courage to get involved in an organization that she believed would help her people. She also feared for her family’s safety because her getting involved in such organization can get her family in trouble. However, she got motivated and got through the struggle and …show more content…

At the movie, Negroes supposed to sat upstairs while the White people sat downstairs. Essie made a mistake and accidently ended up in the white lobby. Her mother dragged her out and said that she could not sit downstairs among white people. Racial inequality has not come to Essie’s mind, but after the movie incident, Essie knew that she was different from the others. She began asking questions about why people treat black people and white people differently. She thought to herself that “not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me. Their whiteness provided them with a pass to downstairs in that nice section and my blackness sent me to the balcony.” (Moody, 38) It was heartbreaking for a child like her to be thinking like that at the age of nine. She felt injustices at a very young age that after the incident, she did not feel the same way