From Anne Moody’s childhood to her adult life, she encountered various individuals and families that affected her either positively or negatively. Irrespective of the light in which they are viewed, each one helped to shape the resilient, young black lady that she (Anne Moody) turned out to be.
After Toosweet (Anne’s mother), quit a domestic job she had with a lady that worked her so hard, she got another domestic job with the Johnson’s. Mrs. Johnson was a school teacher and Mr. Johnson was a rancher who bought and sold cattle. The Johnson were very nice to Anne and her family. However, it was Mr. Johnson mother, Miss Ola, who lived with the Johnson’s that appeared to have impacted Anne the most in the household. Though Anne did a lot of chores for Miss Ola, Anne learned to like Miss Ola very much and they had lots of fun together. Miss Ola would bake cookies for them every Saturday and had a bell she would ring when she had cooked something for them or wanted them to do something for her. The old lady (Miss Ola) who would call
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her and read stories to Anne who barely heard any stories that were read as she would fall asleep almost immediately Miss Ola started reading. The most significant impact of Miss Ola’s in Anne’s life was the fact the Miss Ola taught her a lot of words; how to spell them and how to write them also. Due to Miss Ola’s assistance, Anne made straight A’s in her reading and spelling class. Working with Mrs. Claiborne was Anne’s second job. Mrs. Claiborne, a friend of Mrs. Johnson, was a Home Economics teacher at a white school. Anne liked the job with Mrs. Claiborne because she was making as much money as her mother. In addition to that, Anne learned a lot from Mrs. Claiborne. She taught Anne how to set a table, what a balanced meal was and how to cook food Anne and her family did not eat at home. Even though eating meats, vegetables, and salads or setting a table (as they each had only one fork or spoon at Moody’s home) was not something that was useful at home, she like learning these things. Anne even at ate the same table with the Claiborne’s, an act that showed that they were treating a negro girl as their equal – as their own child! Mrs. Claiborne corrected Anne when she spoke wrongly, commended her on how smart she was – making straight A’s, and also on the fact that she was just ten years old and working to help herself and her siblings in school. Mrs. Claiborne’s encouraged Anne to go to college after high school, telling her how much she could achieve if only she had a chance. Anne’s first encounter with Mrs. Burke was when she was working for Mrs. Jenkins, Mrs. Burke’s daughter. Mrs. Burke was mean and Anne did not like her. Mrs. Burke hated the fact the Anne addressed her daughter as Linda Jean instead of Mrs. Jenkins. Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins were moving and strange to Anne, Mrs. Burke asked her if she would work for her after Linda Jean and her family left town. Anne never planned on working for Mrs. Burke. Faced at home with crying babies, a sick mother, an unemployed step-father and a plate of dried beans, Anne reported for work at Mrs. Burke’s place the day following the Jenkin’s departure from town. Unlike Mrs. Burke, her son, Wayne and her mother, Mrs. Crosby were nice to Anne. Anne learned resilient working for Mrs. Burke, who always liked to have things done her own way. Anne was not going to allow Mrs. Burke control her the way she controlled her own family. It first began with Mrs. Burke asking Anne to re-iron fourteen shirts just because Mrs. Burke did not like the way in which Anne ironed the shirts. Even though Anne did redo the shirt the way Mrs. Burke showed her, Anne was back to doing it “Anne’s” way the very next day. Mrs. Burke did not ask Anne to redo the shirts this time. The day following, Mrs. Burke made Anne enter the house through the back door despite that fact that Anne had always come in through the front door. Anne obliged but the next day, Anne was let in through the front door by Mrs. Crosby after she had been knocking for what seemed like ten mins. When she entered the house, Mrs. Buke was in the living room and had obviously heard her knocking. Anne still always entered the house through the front door! Anne first heard about the NAACP when she overheard Mrs. Burke discussing it with a ladies’ group. Mrs. Burke on difference occasions confronted Anne on what she thought about the Supreme court’s ruling on the integration of schools and about the death of Emmet Till. These questions really made Anne uneasy around Mrs. Burke, especially with her frequent clandestine meetings. Wayne became fond of Anne who taught him and a group of his friend’s algebra. Mrs. Burke was not going to have any part of that and did all she could to break up the close bond that was forming between Wayne and Anne. The camel’s back for Anne got broken when Mrs. Burke suspected Anne’s brother of stealing her change purse. Mrs. Burke shook Junior down but found nothing on him. Anne saw this happen. Mrs. Burke later found the purse and Anne quit working with Mrs. Burke that same day. Mrs.
Rice, another influence on Anne’s Moody’s life, was her homeroom teacher. She became like a mother to Anne. She told her all she wanted to know about the civil right movement. This was unlike her birth mother, Toosweet, who always shut her off when she asked questions about the killing of blacks or the civil right movement. Mrs. Rice was the first person to teach Anne what the NAACP was about. She explained that it was a Negro organization that was established to help Negroes gain a few basic rights. It was through Mrs. Rice that Anne first accumulated knowledge about Negroes being butchered and slaughtered by whites in the South. Anne also got to know more about the killing of Emmet Till; a murder which had bothered her so much. Mrs. Rice warned Anne that sharing the information she was receiving from her could make her lose her job. At the end of the year, Mrs. Rice was fired; Anne never knew why neither did she see Mrs. Rice
again. When Anne arrived in Canton, C. O. Chinn and his wife, restaurant owners, were the wealthiest African-Americans in town. Mr. Chinn. was a powerful man in the town. The blacks respect him, and the whites feared him. Anne afterward also came to respect his support for the civil rights movement. She viewed the Chinn’s as a Negro family who had put their necks on the chopping block for the movement. His support of the civil rights workers brought more African Americans to the cause. As a result of his involvement, Mr. Chinn loses his business. He eventually ends up serving on a chain gang in jail. Despite his difficult situation, when he saw Anne, he waved and tried to appear happy.
In this autobiography of Anne Moody a.k.a. Essie Mae as she is often called in the book, is the struggles for rights that poor black Americans had in Mississippi. Things in her life lead her to be such an activist in the fight for black equality during this time. She had to go through a lot of adversity growing up like being beat, house being burned down, moving to different school, and being abuse by her mom's boyfriend. One incident that would make Anne Moody curious about racism in the south was the incident in the Movie Theater with the first white friends she had made. The other was the death of Emmett Tillman and other racial incidents that would involve harsh and deadly circumstances. These this would make Miss Moody realize that this should not be tolerated in a free world.
When Anne Moody was a young child she was not entirely aware of the segregation between whites and blacks. However, as time went on she began to see the differences between being black and being white and what that meant. One of the contrasts that Anne first encountered was that whites generally had better
However, when a black person was found out to even be chatting with identified members of the NAACP or SNCC, their jobs were immediately at risk. This threat to their one, limited source of income (often used to support entire families), meant that until job security was addressed, Moody would never see the number of black people voting that was needed to change their situation. The irony was that unless things changed, most black people would remain limited and tied to the bonds of debt and poverty. When Moody 's stepmother Emma was accidentally shot in the foot after becoming involved in a black married couple’s fight regarding money and the husband’s frustrations at not finding work, Moody admired Emma because she did not blame the husband; rather, “she placed the blame where it rightfully belonged," on the white people who created and supported a system where it was “almost impossible for the Negro men to earn a living” (226). Despite her hope, Moody admits that from the beginning that she knew the cause was hopeless. Until the issue of money and the access to opportunities to earn that money were fair and equal between black people and white people, black people would “never stop being scared” of the white people who held the positions of power
“Coming of Age in Mississippi” an autobiography by Anne Moody gives a beautifully honest view of the Deep South from a young African American woman. In her Autobiography Moody shares her experiences of growing up as a poor African American in a racist society. She also depicts the changes inflicted upon her by the conditions in which she is treated throughout her life. These stories scrounged up from Anne’s past are separated into 4 sections of her book. One for her Childhood in which she partially resided on a plantation, the next was her High School experiences that lead to the next chapter of her life, college. The end of Anne’s remarkable journey to adulthood takes place inside her college life but is titled The Movement in tribute to the
Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary. Her roommate asked, “why don’t you become a member” (248), so Anne did. Once she went to a meeting, she became actively involved. She was always participating in various freedom marches, would go out into the community to get black people to register to vote. She always seemed to be working on getting support from the black community, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Son after she joined the NAACP, she met a girl that was the secretary to the ...
Throughout all of history there is someone around to see it happen and give record of what they saw. “Coming of Age in Mississippi” written by Anne Moody is a first person autobiography set in Mississippi. Being an autobiography the story mainly follows Anne Moody growing up, showing her different ways of thinking as she grows older. From poverty filled childhood to becoming an activist within the Civil Rights Movement. The story feels authentic, adding a realistic perspective showing her struggles of living in Mississippi. She faces various obstacles which disillusion her in the fight for equality. Although the novel only gives one perspective the novel’s authenticity relies in the reality of raci...
Work and racial consciousness are themes during the Civil Rights Movement that made Anne Moody’s autobiography a unique story. Her amazing story gave the reader a great deal of insight on what it was like to live in rural Mississippi in the middle of a Civil Rights Movement. As an African American woman, she also provided the reader on how her gender and race impacted her life. Coming to Age in Mississippi was an awe-inspiring autobiography of the life of Anne Moody, and provided a lot of information about the social and political aspects of what was going on during her life.
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.
Anne Moody's story is one of success filled with setbacks and depression. Her life had a great importance because without her, and many others, involvement in the civil rights movement it would have not occurred with such power and force. An issue that is suppressing so many people needs to be addressed with strength, dedication, and determination, all qualities that Anne Moody strived in. With her exhaustion illustrated at the end of her book, the reader understands her doubt of all of her hard work. Yet the reader has an outside perspective and knows that Anne tells a story of success. It is all her struggles and depression that makes her story that much more powerful and ending with the greatest results of Civil Rights and Voting Rights for her and all African Americans.
The Author of this book (On our own terms: race, class, and gender in the lives of African American Women) Leith Mullings seeks to explore the modern and historical lives of African American women on the issues of race, class and gender. Mullings does this in a very analytical way using a collection of essays written and collected over a twenty five year period. The author’s systematic format best explains her point of view. The book explores issues such as family, work and health comparing and contrasting between white and black women as well as between men and women of both races.
Her employer at the time, Mrs. Burke, even blamed his death on his getting “out of place with a white woman.” (pg. 132) This Tragedy showed her the horrors that blacks had to deal with simply because of the colour of their skin. It showed her that you could be killed simply because you were black. Soon Mrs. Burke started inviting women over for “guild meetings” (pg. 133) Moody was dismissed from work early on these days out of fear that she was eavesdropping. This meeting, however, is the first place that moody heard of the NAACP, an organization which she would later
Moody herself was only nine years old when she was first employed by a white family as a domestic worker. She worked all day and into the night and was treated like an animal for a mere seventy-five cents and two gallons of soiled milk. She did this in order to try to provide some food security for her family (39-41). Moody’s mother, Toosweet, worked for many white families and lived on their land. For example, they live on Mr. Carter’s plantation, Mrs. Cooks’ land, and Mrs. Johnsons’ pasture (3, 13, 31). One time when Toosweet had to quit her job they were kicked out of the house the very next day; “the white lady was so mad she couldn’t get Mama to stay that the next day she told Mama to leave to make room for the new maid” (31). This caused Moody to be able to sympathize with people of Canton and to recognize and fight for their needs. Moody said on page 341 of Coming of Age in
When I first saw "Mama" Charlotte hill O'Neal I could tell this is going to be very interesting assignment, I just did not know how interesting and or inspiring. Being the wife of a former black panther, Peter O'Neal, she dealt with challenges that were not her own. She inherited Peter challenges and political dilemmas. However, her love for Peter, allowed her to look past these challenges and dilemmas. The love between Peter and Charlotte did not exist only between them, but it also spread throughout the communities in which they resided. They were able to embark on a journey together that has been known to touch the hearts and minds of people throughout the world.
Her parents meet at a social gathering in town and where married shortly thereafter. Marie’s name was chosen by her grandmother and mother, “because they loved to read the list was quite long with much debate over each name.” If she was a boy her name would have been Francis, so she is very happy to have born a girl. Marie’s great uncle was a physician and delivered her in the local hospital. Her mother, was a housewife, as was the norm in those days and her father ran his own business. Her mother was very close with her parents, two brothers, and two sisters. When her grandmother was diagnosed with asthma the family had to move. In those days a warm and dry climate was recommended, Arizona was the chosen state. Because her grandma could never quite leave home, KY, the family made many trips between the states. These trips back and forth dominated Marie’s childhood with her uncles and aunts being her childhood playmates.
Margaret Walker was born on July 7, 1915 in Birmingham, Alabama to Reverend Sigismund C. Walker and Marion Dozier Walker (Gates and McKay 1619). Her father, a scholarly Methodist minister, passed onto her his passion for literature. Her mother, a music teacher, gifted her with an innate sense of rhythm through music and storytelling. Her parents not only provided a supportive environment throughout her childhood but also emphasized the values of education, religion, and black culture. Much of Walker’s ability to realistically write about African American life can be traced back to her early exposure to her black heritage. Born in Alabama, she was deeply influenced by the Harlem Renaissance and received personal encouragement from Langston Hughes. During the Depression, she worked for the WPA Federal Writers Project and assists Richard Wright, becoming his close friend and later, biographer. In 1942, she was the first African American to win the Yale Younger Poets award for her poem For My People (Gates and McKay 1619). Her publishing career halted for...