A Childhood In Kelly Miller Smith's Hometown

107 Words1 Page
bulb-icon

Recommended: The impact of Jim Crow laws

Kelly Miller Smith had a vastly different childhood in his hometown of Mound Bayou, Mississippi than most Civil Rights activists; this tiny town was a safe haven for African Americans; in this town being an African American was a source of pride for its citizens rather than a source of shame. Most importantly, Jim Crow was non-existent there. That’s probably why Perry Monroe and Priscilla Smith decided to start a family there and on October 28, 1920 ; Their fourth child Kelly Miller Smith was born. Smith and his six siblings lived quietly in Mound Bayou with their parents who instilled traditional Christian values in their

Show More
Related

  • Summary Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi And The Naapi

    1350 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Stories of Scottsboro by James E. Goodman

    798 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Melba Pattillo Beals', Warriors Don't Cry

    2530 Words  | 6 Pages

    In the book Warriors Don't Cry by Melba Pattillo Beals, the author describes what her reactions and feelings are to the racial hatred and discrimination she and eight other African-American teenagers received in Little Rock, Arkansas during the desegregation period in 1957. She tells the story of the nine students from the time she turned sixteen years old and began keeping a diary until her final days at Central High School in Little Rock. The story begins by Melba talking about the anger, hatred, and sadness that is brought up upon her first return to Central High for a reunion with her eight other classmates. As she walks through the halls and rooms of the old school, she recalls the horrible acts of violence that were committed by the white students against her and her friends.

    Read More

  • Analysis Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

    1178 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anne Moody’s memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is an influential insight into the existence of a young girl growing up in the South during the Civil-Rights Movement. Moody’s book records her coming of age as a woman, and possibly more significantly, it chronicles her coming of age as a politically active Negro woman. She is faced with countless problems dealing with the racism and threat of the South as a poor African American female. Her childhood and early years in school set up groundwork for her racial consciousness. Moody assembled that foundation as she went to college and scatter the seeds of political activism. During her later years in college, Moody became active in numerous organizations devoted to creating changes to the civil rights of her people. These actions ultimately led to her disillusionment with the success of the movement, despite her constant action. These factors have contributed in shaping her attitude towards race and her skepticism about fundamental change in society.

    Read More

  • Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody

    1264 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Analysis of Anne Moody's Coming of Age in Mississippi

    1206 Words  | 3 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Mississippi: A Closed Society

    932 Words  | 2 Pages

    “It was like a Nazi rally. Yes, it was just that way Nuremberg must have felt.” (Lambert, 114) The Nazi rally was referred to the public address Governer Ross Barnett gave at half time during the football game between Ole Miss and the University of Kentucky. Nazi’s as well had rallies lead by Hitler. They had a notion that Jews were an inferior race, based on the idea of Eugenics. The Nazi’s and the South were alike in that aspect. The South saw African Americans as an inferior race and the only race that could be superior was the white race. In, The battle of Ole Miss: Civil Rights v. State Rights, the author Frank Lambert presents historian James Silver’s idea that Mississippi was a “closed society,” therefore diminishing any other views besides their own. Before one could consider Mississippi as a “closed society,” one must look at the history of what created Mississippi to become a “closed society,” to have strong beliefs of white supremacy and why they tried to sustain those beliefs at all cost. In this novel, Lambert address the issue that made a significant impact on Mississippi and its people. The issue of James Meridith, an African American who sought for high education from a prestigious school, Ole Miss. White Mississippians beliefs of white supremacy towards African Americans extreme. What caused Mississippi to become this society dates back to the civil war, the fear on African Americans surpassing them, and the politics.

    Read More

  • The Strange Career of Jim Crow

    1332 Words  | 3 Pages

    C. Vann Woodward’s The Strange Career of Jim Crow looks into the emergence of the Jim Crow laws beginning with the Reconstruction era and following through the Civil Rights Movement. Woodward contends that Jim Crow laws were not a part of the Reconstruction or the following years, and that most Jim Crow laws were in place in the North at that particular time. In the South, immediately after the end of slavery, most white southerners, especially the upper classes, were used to the presence and proximity of African Americans. House slaves were often treated well, almost like part of the family, or a favored pet, and many upper-class southern children were raised with the help of a ‘mammy’ or black nursery- maid. The races often mixed in the demi- monde, and the cohabitation of white men and black women were far from uncommon, and some areas even had spe...

    Read More

  • Demise of the Second Reconstruction

    2219 Words  | 5 Pages

    Race, Reform, and Rebellion: The Second Reconstruction and Beyond in Black America, 1945-2006. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.

    Read More

  • The Damnation Of Women Analysis

    1282 Words  | 3 Pages

    Anna Julia Cooper’s, Womanhood a Vital Element in the Regeneration and Progress, an excerpt from A Voice from the South, discusses the state of race and gender in America with an emphasis on African American women of the south. She contributes a number of things to the destitute state African American woman became accustom to and believe education and elevation of the black woman would change not only the state of the African American community but the nation as well. Cooper’s analysis is based around three concepts, the merging of the Barbaric with Christianity, the Feudal system, and the regeneration of the black woman.

    Read More

  • Coming of Age in Mississippi

    895 Words  | 2 Pages

    Anne Moody, writes an inspiring and heart touching autobiography of growing in rural area of Mississippi, as a poor black woman. Coming of Age in Mississippi, is not only about the life of Moody, but how Jim Crow laws affected colored folks and the struggle for civil rights. This book is especially eye opening because it shows the variation of Moody's thoughts with her age. Not only is it an autobiography but in some aspects a history book.

    Read More

  • The Coming Of Age In Mississippi Short Story

    869 Words  | 2 Pages

    The Coming of Age in Mississippi is a true story that revealed Essie Mae growing up years during the 40s, 50s, and the 60s in which she experienced hardship in a poverty-stricken environment where her parents could not afford to provide her with the luxury of life. As Essie Mae grew from childhood to adulthood, she observed the differences in the way blacks were treated as opposed to whites. “Essie Mae followed her white friend Katie and her siblings in the downstairs lobby area of the movie theatre in which blacks were forbidden” (Moody 201). Toosweet was well aware of the differences in the treatment of blacks and whites so she took her family home with strong words of discipline for Essie Mae. Because

    Read More

  • The Carter Children

    990 Words  | 2 Pages

    The parents of the seven Carter children, Mae Bertha and Matthew Carter, wanted more than a life of picking cotton for long hours and endless days for their children. When the “Freedom of Choice Act” gave them an opportunity to put their children into white schools, at the time the better schools, Mae Bertha and Matthew immediately decided that their children would attend all white schools in the following school year. Little did they know “they would be the only ones-the only black children to board the bus, the only black children to walk up the steps and through the doors of white schools” (4). That didn’t stop them though, on the morning of September 7, 1965 all seven Carter children boarded the bus for what would end up being years of torment, but also resulted in a monumental time in history. Even though this family had to face desegregating schools alone with no other black family by their side, they did it and they succeeded. A preacher in...

    Read More

  • Martin Luther King Research Paper

    1944 Words  | 4 Pages

    In April of 1963 the Southern Christian Leaders Conference (SCLC) organized a campaign against segregation in Birmingham, Alabama. African Americans in Birmingham in part with the SCLC arrang...

    Read More

  • The Life of Leaders

    1308 Words  | 3 Pages

    Fannie Lou Hamer, born in 1917, came from a family of sharecroppers, which was similar to the slavery that had been abolished some fifty-years earlier. Her father was practiced as a Baptist preacher, but held a sideshow as a bootlegger for his community. Her early background was enough cause for her to join into any Civil Rights Movement that would arise years later. Sharecropping was a way for whites in the South to keep their foot firmly on the necks of African-Americans, so they could not be a major part of actual society. With her family surviving on as little as “$300 a year,” Fannie Lou Hamer described her life as “worse than hard.” Hamer started working at a young age, and she later realized that she was tricked into working for a conniving plantation owner. She soon learned the hard way that hard work for a white plantat...

    Read More

More about A Childhood In Kelly Miller Smith's Hometown

Open Document