Analysis Of Coming Of Age In Mississippi By Anne Moody

The Civil Rights Movement was a long and hard fought battle. The end goal was to end racial segregation and discrimination against African Americans and to secure and protect their rights as United States citizens. Throughout the autobiography, “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody, readers are brought through Moody’s own battles and participation in the Civil Right Movement. Towards the very end, readers are introduced to Gene Young, who is young, bright, and fresh-minded. His views compared with the much older Moody’s are drastic. Although these differences are neither’s fault or intentions, Moody’s much more pessimistic outlook is clearly justified after learning of all the struggles she had experienced in her life simply due to the
In her home life, especially, Moody sees this lack of willingness from her own mother. Mama, as Moody calls her, can be looked at as a both an individual and also as a representation of the older generation of rural African Americans. Through the autobiography she struggles to survive yet is too afraid to risk what little she has in order to fight for equality. It is due to this that she is unwilling to support Moody’s decision to join the movement. She is scared for Moody’s health and safety and because of that does not believe this fight is worth the risks. Young as part of an even younger generation than Moody was not as exposed to these disagreements and was more commonly around those who are both younger and ready to fight for a change. On the last page of the autobiography, Moody says, “I wonder. I really wonder,” (Moody, 424). This disappointment and skepticism are not caused by the movement itself, however, with the amount of whites in Mississippi whom are holding on so hard to racial inequality and by the willingness of so many blacks to counteract for the prejudices. Moody, her whole life, has been surrounded by an older population, therefore the very fact that she was able to still fight for the movement and not become discouraged until years after fighting
She has watched as so many people have given up their lives for the movement and others who could care less and believes there has been little to no change. Moody had always wanted to focus on the economics, such as allowing black farmers to buy their own land. It was not until after the march on Washington, when Moody’s uncertainty about the movement had increased. She had already felt like the leaders of the movement were out of touch with the basis of the movement, as their emphasis fell onto voting rights for the poor in the rural black population of Mississippi instead of poverty relief. She felt that these conflicts of issues arose due to the fact that these leaders of the movement were in no way “leaders”. At one point in her autobiography she says, “we had ‘dreamers’ instead of leaders leading us,” (Moody, 335). Moody may have disagreed with Martin Luther King Jr’s “I Have a Dream” speech, but she allowed for a new door to open. Many people would disagree with Moody’s statement and lack of agreement towards the King’s speech, however she allowed readers to understand that this population of those who disagreed did exist. As someone who was so dedicated to the Civil Rights Movement, for her to voice her on opinion against this speech shows that she is not pessimistic about the way the