Civil Rights 2 Essay, Research Paper

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Anne Moody s Coming of Age in Mississippi, talked extensively about the civil rights movement that she had participated in. The civil rights movement dealt with numerous issues that many people had not agreed with. Coming of Age in Mississippi gave the reader a first hand look at the efforts many people had done to gain equal rights.

Anne Moody, like many other young people, joined the civil rights movement because they wanted to make a difference in their state. They wanted their freedom and the same rights as the white people had. Many other young people joined the civil rights movement because they felt that a change was needed in the way black people were treated. They felt that this change would not come if they did not join the civil rights movement. Anne Moody was a strong believer of black rights and felt that it was important for her to help black people fight for equal rights. These civil rights workers felt that their freedom would only come if most of the black community supported the efforts of the civil rights workers. Anne Moody, and other young people, thought that the only way that they would get equal rights for black people was to prove that they really wanted them. These civil rights workers, for example, showed that they really did care by joining various civil rights organizations and engaging in Freedom Marches. These Freedom marches were very organized, and they occurred all over the United States, which proved that black people wanted the same rights as the white people had. Anne Moody, and many other young people, joined the civil rights movement because they felt a change was needed and that it was their duty to fight for equal rights.

Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary. Her roommate asked, why don t you become a member (248), so Anne did. Once she went to a meeting, she became actively involved. She was always participating in various freedom marches, would go out into the community to get black people to register to vote. She always seemed to be working on getting support from the black community, sometimes to the point of exhaustion. Son after she joined the NAACP, she met a girl that was the secretary to the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Anne started hanging out with other students who were also fighting for black rights, and soon she became an active member of the SNCC. Through these organizations, Anne had become actively involved in the civil rights movement. She soon realized, though, that there were a lot of preconditions that were needed to achieve significant social change in the black community. Many of the projects Anne worked on, lacked support from the black community. She did not realize how much she would be harassed by the white people because she was fighting the rights of black people. The main preconditions for social change in the 1950s and 1960s, was getting the black community to support the various projects SNCC and the NAACP were working on. The black people they were fighting for did not always like the projects that Anne, and the other young people in SNCC, had been doing. Many black people tended to ignore the efforts of the SNCC because they were afraid of change. It took a lot of work to convince the black community to support the various projects the young people of SNCC were doing. An example of a project that the black community supported extensively, was Freedom Summer. This project would not have been successful if the black community did not support this. The Freedom Summer project proved to be a success because the black community went out and voted. This proved to the federal government, that black people were interested in gaining voting rights. Anne Moody had thought about joining the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), but she never did until she found out one of her roommates at Tougaloo college was the secretary.

Throughout her book, Anne Moody talked a lot about the difference between older and younger black people. She mentioned this difference extensively because it was mainly the younger generation that joined the civil rights movement. The older generation of black people did not participate in the civil rights movement not because they were not “uninterested”, but because they were afraid of what might have happened to them if they achieved equal rights. The older black people wanted the same rights as the white people had, but many of these people were brought up thinking they could not change their status. To them segregation was the way they were supposed to live their lives. Another reason why younger people joined the civil rights movement was because they did not have as much to lose as the older blacks did. Many of the older black people had a family to raise, and they needed to support their family financially, so therefore they could not afford to risk their lives, and the lives of their families. They were afraid to come out and participate in various civil rights activities because there were numerous black people that had been fired for participating in the voter registration drive. The older blacks did not want to risk everything to get the same rights as the white people had, so they decided not to participate. Most of people that joined the civil rights movement were students because they felt that a change was needed, and they had plenty to time to devote to the civil rights movement. They felt that it was their duty to fight for equal rights for all Black Americans. Throughout her book, Anne Moody talked a lot about the difference between older and younger black people because the younger generation was the ones that were actively involved in the civil rights movement.

The role the federal government had during the civil rights movement did not always help black people achieve their rights. The first major break for civil rights came in the Supreme Court case Brown versus the Board of Education. The ruling that segregation was unconstitutional seemed like a major break through for the black community. The only problem with this decision, was that Chief Justice Marshall said that desegregation should happen with all deliberate speed instead of immediately. Many southern states did not voluntarily desegregate their schools, but this seemed to only be a minor set back for the civil rights leaders. In 1955, many congressional representatives and senators passed the Southern Manifesto, which said that the Supreme Court decision of Brown versus the Board of Education was unconstitutional. Numerous freedom marches were held all around the country, and in Washington, D.C. These marches were held to try to get the government to hear them, but the government ignored them. In 1964, the Civil Rights Act was passed ending segregation. It also created the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission that prevented discrimination in the workplace. Anne Moody was very optimistic about the desegregation cases. She always tested the Supreme Court decision of Brown versus the Board of Education numerous times by doing sit-ins and freedom marches. She was determined to fight for her rights, despite numerous threats against her life. When Kennedy was assassinated, she was devastated. Anne really thought that Kennedy was the answer that she and other members of SNCC were waiting for. She walked around in a daze wondering what would happen next. Governmental leaders were essential during the civil rights movement. Without the help of government officials, black people would not have had the same rights they have today.

Anne Moody s Coming of Age in Mississippi, talked extensively about the civil rights movement that she had participated in. The civil rights movement proved successful in achieving equal rights for Black Americans, despite strong opposition. Black Americans got equal rights because of the untiring efforts young people, like Anne Moody, had. Without the efforts of these young people, the role of Black Americans in society may have been different today.