Martin Luther King Jr., Ella Baker, Rosa Parks...Upon hearing these names, many people immediately think of the arduous and prolonged struggle that these leaders endured to achieve racial equality. In fact, famous figures such as these are often given most of the credit for the Civil Rights Movement. Although the efforts and leadership of these people were extremely powerful and influential in the movement, the movement would not have been possible without the efforts and support from many ordinary people who were willing to sacrifice for equal rights. For instance, a young woman named Anne Moody was one of many Black Americans that contributed towards the fight for equality. Through her autobiography Coming of Age in Mississippi, Moody describes her life as a young, black woman in the rural south and illustrates the motivations, goals, and frustrations that she and many other activists encountered.
             Although slavery was abolished in 1865 with the Thirteenth Amendment, African-Americans remained captive to the restrictions of American society until the Civil Rights Movement began in the 1940's. It was then that the combination of prominent leaders and the appalling realizations of unfair racial restrictions helped inform and motivate many ordinary citizens to fight for the rights and privileges guaranteed to them by the Constitution. Because they had not been exposed to any other type of lifestyle, many black people were naive as to how underprivileged they were compared to white people. Moody did not discover until she was six years old that there was any real difference between white and black people. After her experience at the movie theater, Moody realized that "not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than what was available to me" (38). After this disclosure, Moody's attitude towards school, work, and family life seemed to change. ...