Plot Summary
Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi,
Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil
rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of
Emmet Till’s lynching. Before then, she had "known the fear of hunger,
hell, and the Devil. But now there was…the fear of being killed just because I
was black." In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice
that would change her life.
An all-A student whose dream of going to college is realized when she wins a
basketball scholarship, she finally dares to join the NAACP in her junior year.
Through the NAACP and later through CORE and SNCC she has first-hand experience
of the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights
movement, and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs,
billy clubs and deadly force that were used to destroy it.
A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation’s
destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes
of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement.
My Review
I recently read Kathryn Stockett’s
The Help and while I enjoyed this story tremendously, I wanted to read
something that was less uplifting, more realistic, and told from the
perspective of an African-American.
Anne
Moody’s powerful memoir was the perfect choice.
This is a well-told and fascinating story about the author's
life growing up in rural Mississippi, and her fight against racism. Her story is chronologically told, from the
author's youth in rural Mississippi, her education, family relationships,
poverty, racism, violence and finally, her involvement with the Civil Rights
Movement.
The last section of the book devoted to Moody’s activism was
riveting and deeply disturbing.
She
participated in the heavily publicized Woolworth
sit-in,
which was known for its violence, and was deeply shaken by the deaths of four
black girls in the 1963 bombing of the 16th Street Baptist Church in
Birmingham, Alabama.
1963 Woolworth Sit-in, Jackson,
Mississippi
Once a religious child, she questioned her faith in
God.
“Now talk to me, God. Come on down and talk to me. You know, I used to go to Sunday school,
church, and B.T.U. every Sunday. We were
taught how merciful and forgiving you are.
Mama used to tell us that you would forgive us twenty-seven times a day
and I believed in you. I bet you those
girls in Sunday school were being taught the same as I was when I was their
age. Is that teaching wrong? Are you going to forgive their killers? You not gonna answer me, God, hmm? Well if you don’t want to talk, then listen
to me. As long as I live, I’ll never be
beaten by a white man again. Not like in
Woolworth’s. Not anymore. That’s out.
You know something else, God?
Nonviolence is out. I have a good
idea Martin Luther King is talking to you too.
If he is, tell him that nonviolence has served its purpose. Tell him that for me, God, and for a lot of
other Negroes who must be thinking it today.
If you don’t believe that, then I know you must be white, too. And if I ever find out you are white, then
I’m through with you. And if I find out
you are black, I’ll try my best to kill you when I get to heaven.”
Moody provided details about intimidation, beatings,
shootings, and other acts of violence enacted by the Ku Klux Klan against
African Americans and their white supporters and about the institutionalized
racism that kept many black families mired in poverty. I just wish that Moody had spent more time
with the story of her activism and the efforts and sacrifices of Martin Luther
King, Medgar Evers, and others, rather
than mundane details about childhood.
I am thankful to Anne Moody and all the other young people
who sacrificed their jobs, safety, and lives to make a stand against injustice
and change the course of our history and for their stories that keep them alive
in our minds and hearts.
