I admire Anne Moody for her strength and character. I think the part of her book that touched me the most was near the end where she became so exhausted that she could hardly go on. She lived and breathed the Movement for what must have seemed like an eternity. It amazes me that she lived every day in fear for her very life, yet she kept on going to sit-ins, protests, and rallies. Even after she began to fall apart, when most people would have gotten as far away from the South and the Movement as they could, she went back and kept fighting because there wasn't anything else to do.
             In many ways racism is still very much alive in the South. You can't grow up here and not be touched by it whether you are black or white. Coming of Age In Mississippi gave me insight into what the other perspective is like. Anne Moody not only had to work for the acceptance of blacks into white society, she also had to work against her own people. There were those who simply didn't care, who would rather be blissfully ignorant of the situation and even those who believed strongly that things should remain as they were.
             Anne was meant to become involved in the Movement from childhood. So much tragedy touched her young life and each one affected her as though her own family were involved. Even then she questioned every incident trying to make sense of it in her young mind. So its natural that once she gained knowledge of all the violence against her race and found out what civil rights organizations like the NAACP were all about, she could no longer ignore what she considered to be her duty. Anne was well suited for this kind of work because she was a loner. She had a lot less to lose than many others who had families with small children and other responsibilities.
             Poverty is the main theme of Anne's childhood. Most of us will never see the kind of poverty she lived in. This greatly influenced her opinions of t...