Sounds of Mississippi

Not known to many, the genre of rock music originated from gospel music sung on the slave plantations in early Mississippi. A common musical device used in rock music is known as “call and response”. This is where the singer sings the line and everyone else involved in the chorus repeats that line. This came from slaves working in the fields and singing songs to get through the day. Theses hymns are fondly referred to as “negro spirituals”. In Anne Moody’s novel, Coming of Age in Mississippi we revisit African Americans in Mississippi struggling not through slavery, but through the oppression of the Civil Rights Era. At the same plantation but in a different time, Jim crow has made life almost impossible for blacks to get by in the South. In a country were all men were created equal, laws were put in place to ensure that blacks could never achieve equality. Through Anne Moody’s work and through the work of musical artists Johnny Cash, and Nas, we will discover just how far we may or may not have come.
When Essie Mae is just a child, her neighbor’s house is burnt down shortly after the slaughter of 14 year old Emmit Till. Though they were not associated with any civil rights group, rumors about them participating in the movement for freedom led to the neighbors, the Taplins’, home being destroyed. According to an excerpt from the novel “I shall never forget the expressions on the faces of the Negroes. There was an almost anonymous hopelessness in them. They still, said nothing. There was something strange about that smoke. It was the thickest and blackest smoke I had ever seen.” (Moody, 414). Though saddened the blacks in the community returned to their jobs with little protest returning to the fields and cafes. Essie May had a ...

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...e get your child
'Cause he's writin' mad poems and his verses are wild"
(Nas, “Bridging the Gap”)
When he refers to reading books that were not prescribed by the school’s curriculum and the teachers negative reaction to his excessive reading he is exploring the idea that black children are perceived as stupid. Essie overcomes this theme repeatedly in the novel and her white counterparts even recognize it. Racist Mrs. Burke even says that she wouldn’t mind her going to school with Wayne because she is not like other Negroes.

In conclusion, by viewing the motifs of pain, struggle, and the search for equality both in Moody’s novel and the songs by Johnny Cash and Nas, we see how the today and yesterday are intertwined. Although we may have come a long way from slavery to civil rights to modern day, these authors want to remind us that we still have a long way to go.