Coming of Age in Mississippi
Coming of Age In Mississippi: Writing Assignment 2
Moody, Anne. Coming of Age In Mississippi. Third Printing, 1969. Anne Moody’s autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi the 1940s and 1950s are portrayed through the eyes of Moody. This era was riddled with prejudice and hatred, aimed at African Americans and also found within the African American community. Moody writes about her first-hand experience with these topics and many others. This essay will acknowledge and analyze her observations and experiences with race, gender, and class inequality; it will also analyze the autobiography as a whole. Early on in the autobiography Moody has her first encounter with race and realizes that there are indeed racial barriers. She and her family had gone to the movies, and Moody had accidentally wandered into the white lobby and proceeded to get scolded by her mother for doing so. “Up until that time I had never really thought about it…I knew we were going to different schools but I never knew why.” (26) Moody, being only a child at this point, decides that what separates the races is their privates. So she plays a game called ‘The Doctor’ with her white friends, but does not find any difference, she says so herself, “I still hadn’t found that secret.” (27) Moody’s reasoning in this particular situation is quite logical, and there is no apparent reason for whites to be better off than blacks. This situation exemplifies that race is merely constructed from the views of society. A misconceived notion about racism in the 40s and 50s is that it was a one way street. However, that was not often the case. Moody recalls when she was working for a white woman, Mrs. Claiborne, that her mother did not like her. “…I often got the feeling that Mama didn’t like Mrs. Claiborne acting like I was her daughter…I knew for a fact that she didn’t like them treating me like their equal.” (37) This example is one of many that shows how unwilling blacks were to assimilate. It can also
Moody, Anne. Coming of Age In Mississippi. Third Printing, 1969. Anne Moody’s autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi the 1940s and 1950s are portrayed through the eyes of Moody. This era was riddled with prejudice and hatred, aimed at African Americans and also found within the African American community. Moody writes about her first-hand experience with these topics and many others. This essay will acknowledge and analyze her observations and experiences with race, gender, and class inequality; it will also analyze the autobiography as a whole. Early on in the autobiography Moody has her first encounter with race and realizes that there are indeed racial barriers. She and her family had gone to the movies, and Moody had accidentally wandered into the white lobby and proceeded to get scolded by her mother for doing so. “Up until that time I had never really thought about it…I knew we were going to different schools but I never knew why.” (26) Moody, being only a child at this point, decides that what separates the races is their privates. So she plays a game called ‘The Doctor’ with her white friends, but does not find any difference, she says so herself, “I still hadn’t found that secret.” (27) Moody’s reasoning in this particular situation is quite logical, and there is no apparent reason for whites to be better off than blacks. This situation exemplifies that race is merely constructed from the views of society. A misconceived notion about racism in the 40s and 50s is that it was a one way street. However, that was not often the case. Moody recalls when she was working for a white woman, Mrs. Claiborne, that her mother did not like her. “…I often got the feeling that Mama didn’t like Mrs. Claiborne acting like I was her daughter…I knew for a fact that she didn’t like them treating me like their equal.” (37) This example is one of many that shows how unwilling blacks were to assimilate. It can also