African Americans. Their leaders gained more power, and their protestors grew in strength and numbers.Anne Moody’s life was the embodiment of many of these situations, events, and emotions. She experienced poverty as a child while she watched her mother struggle to put food on the table. She began earning her own pay at the age of ten, working as domestic help for local white women, being grossly underpaid for the work that she did. She attended black schools her whole life, knowing that white people her age were learning in better facilities from more qualified teachers. She knew fear as a young attractive girl growing up in a place where white offenders saw no consequences for their actions against blacks. She knew what it felt like to have nothing to lose. As she became deeply involved in the Movement, she not only feared almost daily for her own life, but was constantly worried about the well being of her family. Perhaps most of all, she knew rage. She had felt the choking anger brought by watching young blacks beaten to near death in the streets. She knew the frustration of working within a system that Scontinued to oppress her people. She experience the despair of losing leaders like Medgar Evers and J.F.K., whose presence alone had held the promise of change. She felt the guilt and heartache of losing loved ones who had done no wrong and the anger of seeing justice unserved time and time again.Coming of Age in Mississippi defines an era and a people through the eyes of a girl who lived through it and overcame it. It tells of her struggles, her triumphs, and her failures. Through her experiences and the experiences of those around her, it illustrates the impact of prejudice and discrimination on the African Americans of that period....
