Anne Moody

"I couldn't believe it, but it was the Klan blacklist, with my picture on it. I guess I must have sat there for about an hour holding it," says Moody in her autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi. In Moody's response to the blacklist, one pervasive theme from her memoir becomes evident: though she participated in many of the same activist movements as her peers, Moody is separated from them by several things, chief among them being her ability to see the events of the 1960s through a wide, uncolored perspective (pun intended). Whereas many involved on either side of the civil rights movement became caught up in its objectives, Moody kept a level head and saw things as honestly as she could, even if it meant thinking negatively of her own family or even the movement itself. Moody describes an ample amount of examples throughout the book that illustrate this point, from the time when she was a child growing up on a plantation with the rest of her family, all the way up until she leaves New Orleans and boards a bus to Washington, D.C.

In Part 1 - Childhood

Early in the autobiography, the author describes her experience as a victim of racism in a particular moment in a local movie theater. Arriving at the theater at same time as her white friends, Moody and her siblings naturally follow them into the lobby – which was meant only for whites. Moody and her siblings are thrown out of the theater. Recalling the incident, Moody says "I never really thought of them [her friends] as white before. Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better than me." Moody's level-headedness and need to question the world around her is somewhat established at this moment, even at such a relatively young age. Indeed, Moody continues to show this questioning attitude throughout her childhood, as is evident as she later describes playing "doctor" with her white friends. While playing, she looks over her white friend's "privates," and, as is explained in the book, thinks "I examined each of them three times, but I didn't see any differences. I still hadn't found that secret." Even as a child, Moody is bright enough to question the role of race in her society.

In Part 2 – Teenage years

Moody continues to push at the boundaries of society post-childhood, which lead to her getting involved in activist causes as a teen. After the wife of a Klan member mentions the NAACP, Moody asks her mother to tell her more about the organization. Her mother responds with scorn to the situation, refusing to tell her daughter about the NAACP and also telling her never to ask any white person about it either. Nonetheless, Moody asks another adult about the organization and eventually gets a full five hours of history on the movement. Moody's newfound knowledge of the NAACP made her more aware of the time in which she was living; in a sense, gaining a broader world view. She more or less says as much in her memoir when she writes "I couldn't go on pretending I was dumb and innocent, pretending I didn't know what was going on." At the time, these views set her apart from not only her classmates, but her family as well.

In Part 3 - College

Prior to her attendance at her first NAACP convention Moody received a condemning letter from her mother, telling her that she is foolish for getting involved with the organization. Moody comments on the probable reaction of her hometown of Centreville to her participation: "I knew I could never go to Centreville safely ... I kept telling myself that I didn't really care too much about going home ... it was more important to me to go the convention." This willingness to forsake her former life to follow her beliefs about activism shows yet another situation where Moody is willing to make personal sacrifices in the pursuit of truth and equality. In doing this, Moody takes a stand without family support, while also sacrificing any hopes of a normal college life and, considering the place in which she had grown up, her physical well-being as well.

In Part 4 – The Movement

Despite the humiliation and danger she confronts, Moody continues to show courage and drive through her involvement with the