Strength of Character as Portrayed in 'Coming of Age in Mississippi' Anne Moody College

Anne Moody’s 1968 Coming of Age in Mississippi describes her life and what lead her to become so involved in the Civil Rights Movement. Her hard-headed personality and experience working for and interacting with whites throughout her life gave her valid reasons to get involved in the Civil Rights Movement by joining the NAACP chapter at her school and working in Canton at the Freedom House. In the course of her narrative, Moody emerges as an individual who as not content to simply watch the course of history, and who instead took initiative in addressing racial injustice.

Her whole life, Moody always knew the country was destined to change. During her experience working for white women, such as Mrs. Burke, she felt she was often maltreated based on her race. The Taplin house burning down, Emmett Till’s murder, Jerry’s beating, and other crimes against blacks that whites got away with only added fuel to the fire of Moody’s anger. She was also very frustrated with the fact that blacks were so deep in poverty. She mentions how whites “had set things up making it almost impossible for the Negro man to earn a living” (226). Moody grew up in a poor family and when times seemed as bad as they could be, they would get even worse. She...