Coming of Age in Mississippi Paper - Essay Example

Since this kind of racism is a big part of the American experience for African-Americans in the past, it is important to know about it. The book is set during the 1960s as well, when the civil rights movement was in full swing and it was often very dangerous for African-Americans. That makes this book an important read to anyone who wants to know about this time period in America. During her childhood, Anne was named Essie and she grew up in the rural part of Mississippi in Centreville. Her family was poor and the white people they worked for usually did not treat them nicely.

In addition she had family problems, as her father was abusive and then abandoned them. Her mother settles down with a new man, but has more children and times are still difficult. From a young age, Anne had to work after school to make sure her family had enough money to eat. At the beginning of the second section, she becomes aware of the horrible things about race in a new way when she hears of a fourteen-year-old black boy being killed. Throughout high school she becomes more and more worried about things like this, being almost obsessed with killings and KKK attacks on other African-Americans.

She goes to college after getting a scholarship to play basketball and while she is there she decides to take part in the NAACP. Her family is upset about this because white people threaten Anne and her family because of it. After college Anne becomes a member of something called CORE and goes to try and encourage African-Americans to take a more active part in their civil rights movement. This part of the book really shows the tension between Anne and many of the other characters, as even among the civil rights activists she is seen as sometimes too serious.

The book ends with Anne growing unhappy with how the movement is going because nobody's life is really being improved. Coming of Age in Mississippi is a powerful book that really had a big effect on my way of thinking. Although I have grown up in the American South in Tennessee, Georgia, and Texas and am not white, I have never experienced anything close to the kind of racism that Anne Moody talked about in her autobiography. It was really an eye-opener to me to read from someone who experienced about how bad things were in those days.

After reading about her experiences as a high school girl and especially when she was involved in CORE and trying to get African-Americans to vote in Canton, Mississippi, I now look at the slight racism that still exists in America in a new light. It makes me want to take this book and show it to people who just take their lives for granted in the USA. Even though the book is sometimes very upsetting, I did find myself enjoying it a lot. The author is a very good writer and knowing that she really went through everything in the book made it very easy to get into and forget what time it was.

This is hard to do. The things I liked the most about the book was the way that Moody did not shy away from using strong language if that was what the people it represented would have used. For instance, when Anne finds out about the murder of fourteen-year-old Emmet Till at the beginning of chapter ten, the boys she is with swear quite a lot because they're angry with her for not paying more attention to her own community. This also makes us see Anne's character as a more real person, because she is not trying to pretend that she