Analysis Of Anne Moody's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

Anne Moody’s autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, is set in her home state of Mississippi. The novel tells Anne’s life story from the age of four to twenty-three. Born in 1940, Moody bore witness to some of the worst prejudice and violence towards African Americans. She grew up in a small, poverty stricken town in Wilkerson County. Moody and her siblings survived by her parents working on various plantations. Anne’s father soon left the family, and Moody’s mother, and eventually Anne herself, worked as housekeepers for different white families. Anne felt it was her responsibility to help her mother support her siblings. Working for white families, and living and attending college in the south during the Civil Rights Era, Anne witnessed first hand the prejudice and unfair treatment towards African Americans. It was not until 1955, when Emmett Till was murdered, that Anne gained an activist mindset. She dreamed of one day overthrowing such institutions that oppressed the blacks, and bringing change to the African American community for good. Anne’s family, mainly her mother, did not understand her ambitions. We see throughout the book that this is due to the two women being of different generations. Such differences among the generations of African Americans, such as with Anne and her mother, meant that change would be achieved slowly in Mississippi. The different generations of African Americans viewed activism from different perspectives. The older generation did not believe they should speak up and fight and therefore most protestors and activists of the time were of the younger generation. For Moody’s mother, her daughter’s activist actions were dangerous. In many ways, Anne’s mother represents the older generation of African Americans in the deep South. She is constantly struggling to survive yet terrified of risking what little she has to challenge the system of inequality. She believed Moody was stepping out of line with the ways African Americans had traditionally acted in the South. Anne’s mother grew up in a time when African Americans stayed to themselves and took whichever job they could find, usually jobs working in the fields or working for the whites who had once owned their ancestors. They received little pay and had few rights. African Americans, including Anne’s mother, lived their lives in fear of whites. According to Moody’s mother, there were unspoken rules for African Americans, and death at the hands of the whites, was the penalty for not following them. Such fear and intimidation was deeply rooted in the entire African American community. Anne saw her mother’s inability to stand up for herself, and over the years she grew to have less respect for her. Although Anne’s autobiography mainly focuses on herself, she also distinguishes differences between her own generation and the generation of her mother. Being of the younger generation, Anne had certain opportunities her mother did not. These experiences, mainly attending college, in addition to her witnessing the passiveness of her mother, made Moody determined to never end up as her mother did. Ever since she was a child, Moody knew what she needed to do to ensure her life would not end up as her mother’s had. Moody used this as fuel and worked to prove how she was different from her mother. Anne saw how every time her mom had a child, she sank deeper into poverty. In order to avoid her …show more content…
Although she faced criticism from the attitudes of the older generation, including her mother, Anne remained focused. Anne decided to take part in the sit-in at the Woolworth lunch counter, where she again witnessed the hatred and prejudice in Mississippi. Moody put herself in harm’s way for what she believed in, something her mother would have never done. Because she grew up with anger, Moody did not fear the same things her mother feared. Moody’s mother feared death at the hands of the whites, while Moody feared one day accepting oppression such as her mother had. By participating in the sit-in, and all of Moody’s activist activities in general, Moody resists the rules of white society and stands up against the oppression that her mother always seemed to fall victim