Coming Of Age In Mississippi Book Report

Reading the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody helped me to learn many things about the American society, mostly about the racial discrimination that existed between the black and white people. Anne Moody depicted the struggles faced by the black people in a very lively way as possible for the readers to get the feeling of how tough being a black was like during those times. All the struggles she had to go through in the past shows how much things have changed now. There are many key points in this book for us to remember. Out of all those, the things that I felt most important to remember are about the racial discrimination between the black and white people during the old times, despite being a woman how Anne Moody came out strong from all those

troubles with a never give up attitude and how she made herself capable of being a social activist.
The racial discrimination depicted in the book shows the troubled American society, especially in the southern parts of the United States of America. Being a black girl, Anne had to go through lot of troubles in her life. She had to spend her childhood and teenage in the fear of white people with all the events of black people being brutally killed and tortured. She was also a victim of poverty as most of the black people. She worked in the white people’s houses where she was treated like a slave, except by few good white people. The events like separating Anne from her white friends at the cinema, the killing of a fourteen year old black boy, Emmett Till, for whistling a white woman, burning down of the Taplin family’s house, etc. shows the brutality of white people over the blacks in the society. This social discrimination of black people is a very important example of human violence; a serious crime in the current society, which makes it a very important thing to remember from the book.
Despite all these social violence and being a victim of discriminations over the black people, Anne Moody did not let herself down and continued to work her way out of the school and high school with good grades and leadership skills. During her childhood, she worked hard to earn money for her family as her father left them in the midst of poverty. Even when she was treated badly by her employers, she did not fall back from working hard. While studying at Natchez College, one day she protested against the cafeteria staffs for giving unhealthy food. She was able to make herself strong during the harsh situations and fight against what was wrong which eventually led the college president to judge in her favor. This shows how being a women also did not stop her from being a leader and fight against injustice, which is another important thing to be remembered about from the book.
This never giving up attitude was the key factor that made Anne Moody a well-known girl in her college.

So she was later recommended by her president to study at Tuscaloo, where she got chance to do what she always wanted to do. She got into the NAACP to take part in the anti-discrimination campaign along with Martin Luther King and other social activists. Unmoved by the threats from different white people, she carried on with the campaign even when her family and friends became far from her. Eventually different events like thrashing of her and other activists during a sit in and killing of one of the activists made Anne very tired and stressed out.
It was a very long time after Anne that finally the black people of the American society got freedom from the social discrimination but her contributions were also the ones that cannot be forgotten. So after reading the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi”, I learnt a lot of things about the American history about the racial discrimination between the blacks and whites through the writings of Anne Moody. The violence black people faced during those times and the revolution of blacks against the whites were the key events in the book which I will

remember.