The Civil Rights Movement, Fall 2014

Following Anne Moody in her autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, one can personally follow her own change in demeanor towards what she terms "the movement". Beginning with her college years, Anne is exposed to people and lifestyles much different than what she grew up with in Centreville. The section of her novel entitled "The Movement," follows her experiences post college joining the CORE, as well as her mentality through these changes. 

Two statements stood out to me within the beginning of this section:

The first being, "It no longer seemed important to prove anything. I had found something outside myself that gave meaning to my life." (263). Although Moody worked hard (with pressure stemming from her mother) in school, and made all A's, once in college, she immersed herself within something that wasn't going to be beneficial for just her. In fact, joining her local NAACP while at Natchez benefitted anyone but her-- it put her and her family in danger. It was as if she knew that her grades would only get her so far with scholarships, and education like that wouldn't continue her entire life. She knew she needed to joins something that she had been curious about since childhood.

After Moody's first sit in, she stated, "…how sick those Mississippi whites were. They believed so much in the Southern segregated way of life, they would kill to preserve it." (267) In relation to another class I am taking, I'm building a thesis about the Southern and Republican way of life during this time, and exactly how groups like the KKK were so involved in keeping it alive. Moody's comment expresses this frustration that it seemed that anyone-- white or black-- involved in gaining rights for blacks whether by voting or by sit ins were considered threats, and had to be taken down.