At work, we have a staff bookclub where a genre is chosen each month and everyone can read a book within that genre to later talk about at the end of the month. For May, the genre was narrative nonfiction. I decided to use this chance to finally read Coming of Age in Mississippi, which I have been wanting to read for years, and I’m so glad I did.
This was my mother’s book. She’s had it since 2019, then she gave it to me and it has been on my shelf for I want to say at least a year, maybe longer. I want to read not just Black fiction, but Black nonfiction too, especially regarding our past. We struggled so much and to forget it would do a disservice to our history. We need to know where we came from, where we grew from, in order to know where we are going.
Anne Moody, born Essie Mae Moody, grew up in the racist society of Centreville, Mississippi. She worked for a woman who was heavily involved with the KKKs (though she called it her “guild”). She witnessed brutal death and violence against other Black folk, and it made her so angry that when she entered college, she got involved with the movement, such as NAACP and SNCC to help make lives better for Black folk.
The book was such a fascinating read for me, especially when it talked about major events that I had always heard of, but never fully understood the effect that they had at the time that they happened. Moody was in high school when Emmet Till was murdered. Her classmates talked about it; her mother warned her about talking to white folk about it; her racist employer used it to threaten her to stay in her place (this especially pisses me off now that Emmet Till’s accuser admitted that she had lied). Hearing the story of Emmet Till growing up was already a harsh memory, as it’s one of my first realization that white folk will kill people just for being Black—but to not only see how it effected people at the time that it happened and realize how long he was people’s first realization that yes, you will die because you are Black, really had me sit down and think for a minute.
There’s also not just discussions of white folks treatment on Black folks, but also critique of the Black community itself. The book discusses “yellow” folk often, which is light-skin Black folk. Because of racism, some folks with lighter skin did think they were better than darker-skin Black people, which had a heavy effect on Moody’s upbringing, as she was dark-skinned. There was also discussion of how Black people back then were too complacent—never wanting to do anything to make things better, not because they didn’t want better, but because they were afraid. Every time they started to get inspired, white folk would kill or rape a Black person and everyone would go into hiding again. Even her own mother told her that there was no point, as things would be the same after she was dead.
This, I think, was one of the biggest themes of the book: Moody’s frustration of Black folk simply taking their treatment and not standing up for themselves. For believing that things will always be the same and that there’s no point in even trying—that it’s dangerous to try. Even though I understood their fear, I could also feel Moody’s anger over everyone never willing to risk things for a better tomorrow.
Anne Moody died in 2015. I’d like to know what she thought of the Black community then, though she was struggling with dementia at the time. On one hand, it’s probably for the best that she died before Donald was elected his first term (talk about going backwards). However, if there is life or spirituality after death, I hope she knows that Black folk are no longer nearly as complacent as they used to be. Black people vote by the droves now, and overwhelmingly in blue. The Black Lives Matter Movement erupted after George Floyd’s murder, rather than the opposite. We are more than willing to fight for our freedom now, and I implore you, whether you are Black, white, or any other race, to read this book to remember why we are doing this. Things can improve, even when everything seems bleak now, even when everything seems dangerous now. We can make it better.
The plugin that I use for book reviews doesn’t include an option for bookshop.org links, so I have to put it within the review. But, please check bookshop.org first to see if you can buy it from a local independent bookstore, especially if that store is Black-owned! Now more than ever, we need to be sure we are supporting our local communities first.
May everyone have a great Juneteenth 🙂