Coming of Age in Mississippi-Book Report

“Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody is an autobiographical account of a black woman living in South struggling against the centuries old racial discrimination by the white. She passed through almost identical incidences like other members of her race bearing humiliation and disgraceful treatment from the upper white class. Anne Moody narrates the story of herself growing up in Mississippi when racial discrimination against the blacks was the peak.

In her account, Anne Moody describes the adversities of living in the “south” where the black population had just started their struggle for equal rights. The life was pathetic for the Negroes with little hopes for emancipation. The details are well described in an easy language and style moving the reader by the depth and emotional appeal it contains. The sentence structure is not so good for Moody not being a professional writer. Anne Moody tells the incredible events of her early childhood living in a household of divorced parents and extreme poverty.

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She provides a glance over the several death warnings and intentional massacre of her family members and friends by the powerful whites. She developed a consequent hatred not only for the whites for her own race too as she writes in the book, “I was 15 years old when I began to hate people... I hated all the whites who were responsible for the countless murders... But I also hated Negroes. I hated them for not standing up and doing something about the murders” (129).

The life for her and other blacks was no different from that in the slavery days of pre-Civil War period. She tells about a society in which no one wanted to live in peace and tranquility. Anne Moody’s narrative includes events comparable to both Martin Luther King’s and Henry David Thoreau’s Civil Rights tactics, Anne was highly influenced by King. Her book is written in into four parts covering different stages of her life; childhood, high school years, college years and participation in the civil rights movement.

These stages greatly resemble King’s four point program of gathering facts, self-purification, negotiation, and direct action (King 290). “Black Boy” by Richard Wright is another account similar to Anne’s. an autobiography initially published in 1945, focus on the many hardships African Americans faced as individuals and families. Similar to Anne’s, Richard's father his family when he was very young. They were left with their mother making her to be devastated by and ending up with a stroke.

Richard had to start working at a prime age to look after his mother and siblings. The two narratives are only different being penned by and from a male and female perspective. Anne’s book is about the inner struggle within her and about the conflicts she had with society and her own fellow blacks. The title of the book, “Coming of Age in Mississippi” clearly talks of the subject matter inside. It is a story of growing up or coming of age, getting mature in a highly divided society in the state of Mississippi undergoing a struggle and change.

It provides an insight and understanding of historical importance of the events taking place in the years of Civil Rights Movement. The book gives a good evaluation of the sufferings of the black population and their hard struggle for getting petty and basic rights. Works Cited King, Martin Luther Jr. “Letter from Birmingham City Jail” from A Testament of Hope. Harper Collins, 1991 Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi. Delta, New York, February 2004 Wright, Richard. Black Boy. Harper Perennial Modern Classics. September 1, 1998

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