Effects Of Brown Vs Board Of Education By Anne Moody

The memoir of Anne Moody is the personal story of a young black woman that becomes unforgettable to its reader, shedding light on what it is like to be black in the Jim Crow south. The majority tries tirelessly to say that all this racist oppression was hundreds of years ago so there is no reason to think that any of what happened then should effect how a person of color is able to succeed today. Through powerful stories such as Anne Moody’s we can see how her family was effected long after the Civil War and so called freeing of all black people from the power of white oppression. All the way from the effects of 1896 ruling of Plessy v Ferguson to the ruling of Brown vs. Board of Education, Anne Moody provides a detailed account of how these

The effects of Jim Crow were deeply imbedded into the culture of America. Jim Crow became a powerful force in white America through legislation, racism, and housing differences. After the falling out of the white supremacist ability to hold power, the elite whites found “loopholes” to pass legislation in order to maintain the racial hierarchy to oppress. A major turn in this was the Supreme Court decision of Plessy vs. Ferguson in 1896, ruling that “separate but equal” is constitutional. Therefore, leading to all public areas to become segregated with signs distinguishing “Whites only” and “Colored.” Described in Coming of Age in Mississippi, Essie Mae goes to the movies with her white friends, discovers that she is not allowed to sit with them. She is forced to sit on the balcony with the other black kids. This is her first encounter with the difference in race, something she will battle for the rest of her life through activism

Black and brown people are seen as savages, uncivilized individuals not even seen as people. This kind of attitude thrived in white communities during the Jim Crow era. The attitudes of racist whites towards black people, held an esteem of white supremacy, used violent enforcement onto black individuals and held a low regard of black men ‘targeting’ white women, despite the fact that many white men had black women as a mistress. As seen with Sherriff Deputy Fox, in Anne Moody’s memoir, he has a young mistress that he takes advantage of behind his wife’s back. “Just about every young white man in Centreville had a Negro lover. Therefore, Fox even though he was deputy sheriff, wasn’t doing anything worse than the rest of the men.” The black community did not see Fox’s actions out of line for what the rest of the white men did. So, when the community learned of Fox’s actions this news caught quick and discouraged other young officers to participate in such behavior. This gossip began to turn over new gossip, questioning if a white man has a black lover, is the black man sleeping with their ‘innocent’ white girls. “This gossip created so much tension, every Negro man in Centreville became afraid to walk the streets.” The fear they faced was understandable, because although a white man