Coming of Age in Mississippi

As if growing up wasn't turbulent enough, Anne Moody grew up during a crucial time in American History. It was during this time that race and civil rights took center stage in her home state of Mississippi. Young women face many physical and emotional changes during their teenage years, regardless of when and where they grew up. However, for Anne Moody, and other young black women, there was the instability in race relations to deal with as well.

During her younger childhood years, Anne was never exposed to the reality of how blacks and whites truly got along. Fortunately for her, she was never the victim of a racially motivated attack. Therefore she never truly knew how bad it was. She was always surrounded with white people who saw the best in her, and treated her with equality. The white people she worked for, as a young child, gave her many opportunities that most whites wouldn't even consider offering their black "help."

On top of all these tolerable experiences with white people, she was never introduced to the reality of race relations at home. Her mother and Raymond never talked about racial occurrences around their community. She was never taught by her family, why it was that the color of her skin could get her killed. Whenever she approached her mother about things that were going on outside their home, her mother came up with some quick excuse of why it was none of her business and to just forget about it. "You go

on to work before you is late. And don't let on like you know nothing about that boy being killed before Mrs. Burke them. Just do your work like you don't know nothing. That boy's a lot better off in heaven than he is here."1

Anne Moody was a typical teenager, in the sense that she struggled t...

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...fought for what she thought was right. No amount of protection, that her mom tried to offer, could keep this woman from doing what she was meant to do.

When Anne first began to realize how the white people really treated the blacks, she had a sense of hopelessness, and anger. But she came to understand that it's not hopeless, and no matter what challenges she was facing within herself, her mother or with the outside world that civil rights for all, was worth the fight. She overcame natural obstacles that all teenagers face as well as ones that were racial motivated. "That summer I could feel myself beginning to change. For the first time I began to think something would be done about whites killing, beating, and misusing Negroes. I knew I was going to be apart of whatever happened."4

4Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (new York:Laurel, 1968), 254