COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI

by Anne Moody

About the Author

Today, Anne Moody is famous for two things: being one of the students who demanded service at the famous Woolworth’s lunch-counter sit-in in Jackson, Mississippi, and her autobiography, Coming of Age in Mississippi, which stands out as one of the classic autobiographies of American literature. Most leaders of the civil rights movement, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., and W. E. B. Dubois, were middle-class or even wealthy. Moody is unique in being the direct voice of the most oppressed rural blacks.

African Americans had won their freedom in the Civil War and were guaranteed equal rights under new amendments to the Constitution. But when the federal government stopped enforcing the rule of law in the South, whites terrorized blacks into second-class citizenship. Using the Jim Crow laws, whites effectively barred blacks from voting, and almost all public facilities were segregated. Jim Crow was in effect throughout the time period of Coming of Age in Mississippi. As Moody tries to register voters, their applications are denied for a variety of pretenses, among them useless voting tests and archaic requirements.

Like most African Americans in the rural South before the civil rights movement, Moody’s family worked as sharecroppers. Sharecropping, also called “tenant farming,” entails a farmer renting the land on which he farms. Often, the rent is paid as either a percentage or fixed amount of the crop. Before the Civil War, sharecropping was the way many rural southern whites eked out a living. With the end of slavery, most ex-slaves simply became sharecroppers, often on the same plantation on which they had worked as slaves. Academics have argued that in economic terms, sharecropping can be as exploitative as slavery, since the landowner risks nothing if there is a bad crop.

In 1968, when Coming of Age in Mississippi was released, critics tended to focus less on the book’s value as a work of literature, looking at it instead as social commentary and an exposé of racism in the South. The civil rights movement was beginning to run out of steam. The Voting Rights Act and the repeal of numerous Jim Crow laws had already granted blacks the legal rights the movement demanded. But it became increasingly obvious that these political rights would not mean an end to the poverty and suffering of most blacks. The Vietnam War drafted many of the young black men who had helped form its base and also took away headlines and resources from the fight for civil rights. Moody and others believed that the civil rights movement’s leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr., relied too heavily upon nonviolent demonstrations and rallies that were proving largely ineffective. The closing chapters of Coming of Age stress the need to reinvigorate the movement.

Moody has said publicly that when she wrote her autobiography, she considered herself an activist, not a writer. A review in The Nation called Coming of Age “crude and undeniable and, against all principles of beauty, beautiful.” Today, the book is assigned in literature courses, as well as history and social science courses. Of all the tens of thousands of memoirs, social exposés, and historical narratives, Coming of Age is one of the few still widely taught today.

PLOT OVERVIEW

Coming of Age in Mississippi

by Anne Moody

PLOT OVERVIEW

When Anne is four years old, she and her mother, Toosweet, her father, Diddly, and her younger sister, Adline, live in a two-room shack on a plantation. None of the shacks of the black plantation workers has electricity or indoor plumbing, while the Carter family’s house has both. At night, when the white family’s house is the only one lit up, Anne’s mother says the plantation owner is counting money he made off of them. While Anne’s parents are out working in the fields during the day, George Lee, Toosweet’s eight-year-old brother, watches Anne and her sister inside. Resentful of having to babysit, George Lee hits the girls and one day accidentally sets the wallpaper on fire while trying to scare them with matches.

Amid anxieties over money, the fire, and the death of his best friend, Diddly eventually leaves the family for an affair with Florence, a lighter-skinned black woman. Toosweet and the children, who now include a son, Junior, eventually move to at least six different houses over the next six years. Toosweet works as a waitress at a café for blacks, and then as a maid for white families. Toosweet’s family is constantly hungry, often eating only bread and beans supplemented by table scraps from Toosweet’s white employers. Still, Anne does exceptionally well in school. In the fourth grade, Anne begins working part-time cleaning the houses of white families. She will continue working until her senior year of high school, spending most of her after-school hours doing menial jobs in order to put food on the family’s table. Most of her employers are fairly easy to get along with. The Claibornes even encourage Anne in her studies and ask her to eat with them at their table. But Mrs. Burke, a nasty woman and a racist, makes life difficult, especially when her son Wayne grows close to Anne. Mrs. Burke finally accuses Anne’s brother Junior of stealing in order to get back at her, relenting only after leaving both children shaken. Anne quits.

Meanwhile, Anne has begun to attract the attention of the boys in her high school and the men in her community. When she outgrows her school dresses, she wears jeans, which she cannot afford to replace even when they grow tight. She becomes so popular with the boys that she is elected homecoming queen. Diddly even provides Anne with a beautiful gown, making the homecoming parade one of the few joyful moments of her young life. When Anne is still very young, her mother develops a romantic relationship with Raymond Davis, with whom she has four more children. Raymond’s family, especially Miss Pearl, Raymond’s mother, looks down on Toosweet because she has darker skin than they do. Yet Anne enjoys their new home in Centreville, and especially Centreville Baptist Church, the upscale church Raymond’s family attends. When Anne’s mother wants her to attend their old, poorer church, Anne gets into the first of many serious conflicts with her mother.

In the summer of 1955, when Anne hears that Emmett Till, a 14-year-old black boy visiting from Chicago, has been brutally murdered for allegedly whistling at a white woman, she becomes acutely conscious of the racial inequality around her. As a younger child, she struggled to understand the inequity between the races, and she gains no more understanding of this fact as she grows older. She wonders if there are any real differences between blacks and whites, save for the fact that the black women clean the white women’s homes.

When Anne first hears about the NAACP (the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People), a forbidden organization in rural Mississippi, she begins to contemplate how the racial inequalities around her can be overthrown. Meanwhile, however, her own struggles with her family are more pressing. Toosweet feels that Anne is starting to look down on her, especially when Anne changes her name from Essie Mae to Annie Mae because she thinks Essie Mae sounds like a name for barnyard animals. Anne’s family does not understand Anne’s growing interest in the civil rights movement; in fact, they are afraid of it. Anne spends her last three summers of high school in Baton Rouge and New Orleans, doing menial jobs for more money than she could earn at home. Eventually, Anne can no longer stand the family, especially Raymond, and she storms out and moves in with her father, Diddly, and his wife, Emma. Emma and her family are light skinned, but do not hold themselves above anyone, and Anne grows close to them.

Anne accepts a basketball scholarship to Natchez College, a suffocatingly conservative Baptist college in Mississippi. There, Anne has her first boyfriend. She eventually transfers to Tougaloo College for her final two years of college. At Tougaloo, she joins the NAACP, in spite of the strong protests of her mother. The local sheriff even tells Anne’s mother that Anne must not attend NAACP events or it will mean trouble for her family. Nonetheless, Anne becomes active in the NAACP and the civil rights movement, despite her family’s impassioned pleas for her to quit.

Anne participates in the famous sit-in at the lunch counter of the Woolworth’s in Jackson, Mississippi. She later works as a CORE (Coalition for the Organization of Racial Equality) activist in rural Madison County, Mississippi, where she and the other activists are the targets of violent threats. After exhaustive work, Anne concludes that the movement has not improved the lives of people in Mississippi. It has focused too much on voter registration and even political theater, such as the Freedom Vote, a mock vote intended to protest disenfranchisement of blacks. Instead, Anne wants the movement to focus on economic issues, such as helping black farmers buy their own land. At the end of her memoir, twenty-three-year-old Anne is getting on a bus to Washington. The bus is filled with volunteers who all seem far more exuberant and younger than she. As they sing “We Shall Overcome,” Anne wonders if blacks will ever really overcome racism.

CHARACTER LIST

Coming of Age in Mississippi

by Anne Moody

CHARACTER LIST

Anne Moody -  The subject of the autobiography. Moody’s given name is Essie Mae, though she goes by Anne.

Toosweet Davis (Mama) -  Anne’s mother. Toosweet strives to feed and clothe her children and encourages Anne’s schoolwork early on. However, she does not encourage Anne to go to college and begs Anne to get out of the civil rights movement.

Adline Moody -  Anne’s younger sister. Adline and her mother do not support Anne’s civil rights work, though Adline eventually supports Anne’s decision to go to college

Diddly Moody (Dil) -  Anne’s father. Moody deserts Toosweet for Florence. Anne goes to live with him after she leaves Toosweet.

James Moody -  Anne’s younger brother and Raymond’s son.

Junior Moody -  Anne’s younger brother and Diddly’s son.

Virginia Moody (Jennie Mae) -  Toosweet’s daughter by Raymond.

Alberta -  Toosweet’s sister. Alberta moves nearby after Virginia is born.

Darlene -  Raymond’s younger sister. Darlene is Anne’s age. Anne delights in outperforming her in school and church activities.

Wayne Burke -  Mrs. Burke’s son. Wayne grows attached to Anne, enraging his mother.

Mrs. Burke -  Linda Mae and Wayne’s mother. Mrs. Burke employs Anne as a maid. Mrs. Burke is highly unpleasant and looks down on blacks. Anne first hears about the NAACP when she overhears Mrs. Burke discussing it with a ladies’ group.

The Carter Family -  Owners of the plantation where Anne lives at the start of the memoir. The Carter family employs Anne and her family. Anne’s mother says Mr. Carter stays up at night counting money he has made off the black plantation workers.

Reverend Carson -  Anne’s teacher at Mt. Pleasant School. Reverend Carson terrifies the children with his loud voice and his switch; he is fairly inept as a teacher.

The Claiborne Family -  The family that employs Anne. The Claiborne family encourages Anne in her schoolwork and shares their dinner table with her. She helps them around the house.

Aunt Cindy -  Toosweet’s sister. Aunt Cindy hosts Anne during the first few weeks after she leaves Dil.

The Cook Family -  A family that is acquainted with Anne’s. The Cook family rents Anne’s mother her first house after Anne’s father abandons her. They are kind to Anne and her family.

Raymond Davis -  Toosweet’s second husband. Raymond Davis and Anne have a tense relationship, which prompts Anne to move out of her immediate family’s house.

Doris -  A fellow CORE activist with Anne in Canton. Doris grows extremely nervous in the face of constant white terrorism.

Florence -  Exceptionally beautiful mulatto widow of Dil’s best friend, Hank. Dil has an affair with her that destroys his marriage with Toosweet.

George Lee -  Toosweet’s younger brother. Lee is forced to look after Anne and Adline—when he is only eight years old—while their parents are working. He hits the girls and accidentally sets the wallpaper on fire when he tries to scare them with matches.

Mr. Hicks -  Gym teacher and athletic coach. Mr. Hicks becomes infatuated with Anne.

Linda Mae Jenkins -  A woman who employs Anne as a maid and babysitter.

The Johnson Family -  Family who employs Toosweet as a maid. The Johnson family is kinder to Toosweet than her other employers. She works for them after quitting the café but before moving in with Raymond.

Ola Johnson -  Grandmother of the Johnson family. Johnson takes Anne under her wing and encourages her in all pursuits.

Keemp -  A basketball player at Natchez and Anne’s first boyfriend.

Reverend Edward King -  A white southern minister and civil rights activist who befriends Anne.

Miss Pearl -  Raymond’s mother. Miss Pearl treats Toosweet coldly because Toosweet is darker skinned.

Grandfather Moody -  Anne’s grandfather. Grandfather Moody is regretful of his son’s abandonment of Anne’s family, and so he gives them money from the pouch around his waist.

Mrs. Rice -  Anne’s teacher. Rice tells Anne about the NAACP and encourages her to learn more about the civil rights movement.

Uncle Ed -  Toosweet’s brother. Ed is Anne’s favorite uncle when she is a child.

Mr. Willis -  Principal of Anne’s high school. Mr. Willis is considered the biggest “Uncle Tom” in Anne’s town. Many believe he helped conspire to murder an NAACP activist.

Mrs. Willis -  Anne’s eighth-grade teacher. Mrs. Willis’s extraordinary skills as a fund-raiser help Anne become homecoming queen.

Winny -  Anne’s grandmother. Winny is Toosweet’s mother. She has thirteen children and has never married.

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS EXPLAINED

IMPORTANT QUOTATIONS EXPLAINED

1. They were Negroes and we were also Negroes. I just didn’t see Negroes hating each other so much.

This remark sums up Anne’s feelings in Chapter 4. “They” are Raymond’s family, especially his mother, Miss Pearl. As lighter-skinned African Americans, they look down on Anne’s family members, who have darker skin. It is implied, though not actually stated, that they would prefer Raymond marry a woman with lighter skin. Before the civil rights movement, many lighter-skinned blacks aspired to a higher social status, though they were not given any special legal treatment. Lighter-skinned blacks were called by names like “yellow,” “mulatto,” and “high yellow,” and their skin tones reflected the predominance of white ancestry. In some cases, blacks’ appearance was indistinguishable from that of whites. In Coming of Age, the degree of intermixing among whites and blacks helps establish the absurdity of racial distinctions. The fact that blacks make such distinctions despite sharing common mistreatment by whites underscores this, and also highlights the need for unity among blacks.

After her mother is so coldly treated by Raymond’s family, Anne becomes suspicious of lighter-skinned blacks. In fact, she almost does not go to Tougaloo College because she fears the students are mostly lighter-skinned and will look down on her. She eventually becomes so suspicious of the potential prejudice of lighter-skinned blacks that she is herself prejudiced, furthering the theme of the evil of prejudice.

2. I had to help secure that plate of dry beans.

In Chapter 9, this is the reason Anne decides to work for Mrs. Burke after Linda Mae moves away. Anne does not want to work for the racist and domineering Mrs. Burke, but she cannot afford to leave work, even for one week, and Mrs. Burke is offering her a job to start immediately. She has been working cleaning houses to supplement her family’s income since she was nine years old. Not working would mean risking starvation. Even when she does work to supplement her family’s income, her diet is painfully meager. Food is an important motif in Coming of Age in Mississippi. In this case, it represents Anne’s constant struggle to survive, along with the difficult circumstances survival entails.

3. It no longer seemed important to prove anything. I had found something outside myself that gave meaning to my life.

In Chapter 22, while Anne is trying to decide what to do after college, she realizes that she is content with being an activist, and does not need to seek others’ approval or achieve financial security. Her whole life, Anne had striven for approval and recognition, and also to make money. Now, having finally achieved her college education, Anne is broke and hungry. But she does not care whether she has a real job or not. She prefers to work in the movement, where she can act on her drive to fight racial inequality, and where she feels accepted. Anne even feels more at home among her fellow activists than among her family members. When she reunites with family in New Orleans, she does not even know how to talk with them. She feels an urge to move back to Canton with the other activists. As a memoir of a life in activism, Coming of Age provides an important insight into why people would take on the risks and trying lifestyle of full-time activist. For Anne, the lack of traditional rewards is made up for by intangible ones, to the point that she is willing to go hungry.

4. We had “dreamers” instead of leaders leading us.

This is the conclusion Anne reaches in Chapter 24, while listening to the speeches given by the leaders of the civil rights movement at the famous March on Washington, particularly Martin Luther King, Jr.’s famous “I Have a Dream” speech. After attending the March on Washington, Anne’s uncertainty about the movement is increased. She had already felt that the leaders of the movement were out of touch with the base, as evidenced by their emphasis on voting rights for the poor rural blacks in Mississippi rather than poverty relief. At the time Moody wrote Coming of Age, King was still alive, and so this statement was probably in part intended to affect the ongoing debate. Ironically, at around the time the book was going to print, King was in fact pushing for a change in direction in the movement to focus more on bread-and-butter issues. He was shot while rallying striking workers in Memphis. It was 1968, the same year Coming of Age was published.

5. I WONDER. I really WONDER.

These are the final words in Coming of Age in Mississippi. The statement refers to Anne’s attitude while singing the civil rights anthem “We Shall Overcome” on a bus to Washington to attend a hearing on the situation in Mississippi. She is wondering whether blacks really will overcome all of their problems. This statement reflects her severe frustration with the movement in Mississippi. After doing exhaustive work on voter registration in the small town of Canton in rural Mississippi, the situation for blacks there is arguably worse. In fact, the local man who had done the most to get the movement started in the community was now impoverished and in jail. Ultimately, Anne wishes the movement would focus on concrete economic improvements in the lives of the rural blacks, rather than on voting rights and on symbolic actions such as the Freedom Vote, a mock vote to protest the real vote in Mississippi. She works to distribute clothing to the poor of Canton, and tries to establish a program to help blacks borrow money to buy their own farms. She believes that economic security will give blacks the power and inclination to demand all their other rights. Yet Anne is not just disappointed with the movement. She is disgusted that so many whites in Mississippi are holding on so hard and so violently to racial inequality. She also is saddened by the willingness of so many blacks to compensate for the injustices rather than stick their necks out to seek change.

THEMES, MOTIFS, AND SYMBOLS

COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI - ANNE MOODY

THEMES, MOTIFS, AND SYMBOLS

THEMES

The Absurdity of Racial Distinctions

While Anne does not question that race and racism are very real facts of life, she does show how absurd and arbitrary racial distinctions are. During Anne’s childhood, many whites publicly argued that blacks were genetically inferior to whites. One of the most memorable episodes of Coming of Age is when Anne, as a child, has her white friends undress so she can examine their genitalia for the secret of their better luck in life. Her reasoning is logical: it is not at all evident why they should be better off than blacks, and that is the only part of a white person’s body or life she has not seen. The fact that so many blacks have at least some white ancestry serves to highlight how arbitrary a distinction race really is.

The Evil of Disunity Among Blacks in the Face of White Oppression

When blacks refuse to band together to improve their situation, improvement becomes difficult if not impossible. Throughout Coming of Age, Anne is repeatedly frustrated by how willing blacks are to accept injustice. This includes her family, as well as numerous other blacks who work to perpetuate racial inequalities despite being black themselves. Anne is also shocked by the fact that lighter-skinned blacks try to give themselves a social distinction relative to darker-skinned blacks. They all share a common oppression at the hands of whites.

The Destructive Power of Prejudice

One of the most important themes of Coming of Age in Mississippi is the destructive power of prejudice. There is the prejudice of whites against blacks, and also the prejudice of lighter-skinned blacks toward darker-skinned blacks, and of people with money against poorer people. Anne experiences each kind of prejudice, which causes her great pain. In fact, being the victim of prejudice tends to prejudice Anne herself against whites and lighter-skinned blacks. Her prejudice is demonstrated by the fact that she nearly refuses to attend Tougaloo College, the place where she joins the civil rights movement, because she fears that it has too many light-skinned black students. She also distrusts her professors because they are white, and the Reverend Edward King, who is, worse yet, a southern white. Finally, after meeting lighter-skinned blacks and whites who do not look down on her, Anne accepts that not all members of these groups are untrustworthy. However, prejudice nearly costs her important opportunities in her life, and makes her a suspicious and pessimistic person.

Motifs

Food

Moody repeatedly uses food to remind readers of the extreme poverty in which she grows up. For most of her childhood, Moody and her family live a hand-to-mouth existence. On many days, they truly eat nothing but bread and beans. In good times, they supplement their diets with table scraps and milk or peanut butter from middle-class white families. Moody rarely makes any mention of the suffering that accompanies this deprivation, but the details alone are enough to make the reader dizzy.

Food is also used to mark the powerful distinctions in status between blacks and whites. Food is representative of the difference in wealth between blacks and whites, as when the Moody family survives on the white Cook family’s table scraps, and Toosweet steals corn meant for the Cooks’ cows. Food is also indicative of how dependent middle-class white families are on blacks: Moody notes that these families seem unable to cook for themselves, and many do not even know how to prepare food hygienically. Moody also uses food to draw attention to the low regard in which some whites hold blacks, as when a white woman lets her cats drink out of the vat of milk that she then sells to black people. Generosity with food is also a sign that a white person is kind to blacks, as when the Claibornes invite Anne to dinner, and Mrs. Claiborne gives her candy and hot dogs.

Skin Color

Skin-color gradations among blacks greatly affect the characters in Coming of Age. Lighter-skinned blacks, whom Anne calls “mulatto” or “yellow,” often try to carve out a higher social status for themselves, despite the fact that they are legally no better off than blacks relative to whites. Thus, the motif of skin color draws attention to an important theme of Coming of Age: the evil of disunity in the black community. The fact that so many blacks look almost like white people also highlights another important theme: that racial distinctions are ultimately absurd, since they are socially constructed and have no real basis in physical reality. Finally, the fact that some lighter-skinned blacks are prejudiced against darker-skinned blacks, and that Anne herself becomes so suspicious of lighter-skinned blacks that she herself becomes prejudiced, serves to highlight the theme of how destructive prejudice can be.

Prejudice

Prejudice, while intangible, is a powerful force in Coming of Age. This motif appears in every chapter. There is the prejudice of whites against blacks, and also the prejudice of lighter-skinned blacks toward darker-skinned blacks, and of people with money against people who are poorer than they are. Anne experiences each kind of prejudice painfully. Anne even herself becomes prejudiced against whites and lighter-skinned blacks. Finally, after meeting lighter-skinned blacks and whites, particularly southern whites, who do not look down on her, Anne accepts that not all members of these groups are untrustworthy.

Symbols

Anne’s Personal Growth

Anne’s own growth and maturation are symbolic of the concurrent growth and maturation of the civil rights movement. The symbolism is made possible by the fact that Anne’s maturity coincides very closely with the 1950s civil rights era. Since she is born in 1940, she becomes a precocious young adult around the early 1950s. Earlier, as a young child, she had already found that there were no real reasons to consider whites superior to blacks, which was an argument that the earliest civil rights thinkers had made. Early in the twentieth century, there had been failed attempts to stop lynching, and also to unionize black workers. It is in the early 1950s that a new civil rights movement is born that combines lawsuits with activism. In Mississippi, the movement is kicked off when the NAACP fights for the prosecution of the murderers of Emmett Till, a black fourteen-year-old visiting Mississippi from Chicago, who was supposedly murdered because he had whistled at a white woman. The murder occurs just as Anne is starting to become exasperated with racial inequalities and the ridiculous prejudices of many white people.

Around the time that Anne is graduating from high school in the late 1950s, the movement to end segregation has prompted the government to build new, better schools for black students. But Anne, like the movement, realizes that they should not settle for anything less than complete equality as represented by integration. Once she is finally an adult, Anne realizes, as the movement must realize, that the future of the movement is in the youth, and the movement must focus on practical affairs. Symbolically, she has become an old woman, just as the civil rights movement has become mature and also faded. It is time for a younger generation, and a new version of the civil rights movement, to take over.

The Twelve-Year-Old Boy

On the bus to Washington at the very end of Coming of Age, Anne sits down next to a twelve-year-old boy who has unbridled energy, contrasted with Anne’s exhaustion and frustration. The boy is symbolic of the younger generations who are the hope of the struggle for equality.

Clothing

Clothing serves as an important symbol for transitions or stages of growth in Anne’s life. Tight blue jeans signal her maturation. The pageantry of homecoming, with her beautiful gown, marks the end of childhood and the beginning of adulthood, though Anne is barely a teenager. As an activist, Anne buys clothing for children who have no school clothes, and she makes sure the movement distributes clothing to needy blacks in the area. She has grown from someone scraping to clothe herself and her own family to someone who can provide clothing for others.

When Anne graduates from college, clothing is once again an important symbol of transition and growth in her life: her sister Adline celebrates her college graduation by giving her a beautiful green dress. The green dress symbolizes both her attainment of a college degree and Adline’s acceptance of Anne’s goals. Earlier her family had not given her much support in her academic ambitions; no one had gone to her college graduation ceremony. Now Adline herself says she would like to get a college degree.

The importance of clothing as a symbol underscores Anne’s earlier poverty. Adline chooses between buying Anne a graduation present or paying to travel to her graduation; she cannot do both. This symbol demonstrates the way in which Anne’s growth as a person has been aligned with her basic struggle to survive.

ANALYSIS OF MAJOR CHARACTERS

Anne Moody (Essie Mae)

Coming of Age in Mississippi covers a span of nineteen years, from when Anne is four to twenty-three years old. Moody’s own personal evolution parallels and symbolizes the development of the civil rights movement. Anne Moody was born Essie May Moody in 1940. She grew up in Wilkerson County, a rural county marked by extreme poverty and racism. Her family spent time working on plantations until her father deserted the family. Her mother worked as a maid for various white families, as did Anne, in order to supplement her family’s meager income. Just as the civil rights movement was maturing in the early 1950s, Anne also was maturing as a young woman. She was also becoming increasingly conscious of racial inequalities. With the 1955 murder of Emmett Till, Anne first heard of the NAACP and began thinking of the possibility of overthrowing the institutions that oppressed African Americans.

Toosweet and the rest of the family do not understand Anne’s ambitions. Around the time that Anne is graduating from high school in the late 1950s, the movement to end segregation has prompted the government to build new, better schools for black students. But Anne believes that they should not settle for anything less than complete equality as represented by integration. Even when Anne graduates from college, her family does not attend the ceremony. Anne’s separation from them is symbolic of the civil rights movement’s necessary break with the older, limited realities of southern blacks. It is also a very painful, personal coming of age. Anne’s conflict with her family is one of the most universal aspects of Coming of Age in Mississippi.

Toosweet Davis (Mama)

In many ways, Toosweet represents the older generation of rural African Americans in the deep South. She is constantly struggling to survive yet terrified of risking what little she has to challenge the system of inequality. But Toosweet is not just a symbol. As Moody’s mother, she is portrayed as a real person with real concerns and real fears. In many ways, as much as she symbolizes the older generation’s resistance to change, she also makes that resistance seem very understandable. Toosweet’s relationship with Anne becomes increasingly strained as Anne grows older and her horizons broaden. Toosweet becomes an obstacle to Anne, as she clings to her daughter and encourages her to become more like everyone else in their rural community. Toosweet does push her daughter to succeed in school, but her reason for wanting Anne to succeed is largely to prove to her new husband’s family that her children are the equals of their daughters. She does not think about her daughter attending college; in fact, when Anne’s gym teacher and coach pursues her romantically, Toosweet urges her to marry him.

Anne’s frustration with her mother is understandable. Still, Toosweet’s sadness at seeing her daughter distance herself from the family is poignant. Toosweet realizes that, in leaving behind her family’s way of life, Anne is starting to look down on her family. Anne even takes the opportunity of a mistake on her birth certificate to change her name from the one her mother gave her. Toosweet resists, but ultimately she gives in to her persuasive daughter. After Anne graduates from high school, she realizes that she has ignored her mother’s feelings in order to preserve her own ambition. She does not regret what she has done, but she also recognizes the pain her mother feels. Toosweet is most troubled by Anne’s involvement in the civil rights movement. She receives threats from the local sheriff that Anne must not return to town or she will be killed. Soon, her son Junior is nearly lynched and her brother Buck is beaten up because of Anne’s actions. Terrified, she writes letters to Anne begging her to quit the movement. Anne refuses.

Mrs. Burke

Mrs. Burke is one of the numerous white women for whom Anne works as a maid. The nastiest and most blatantly racist, she is the closest portrait of prejudice in the book. Though Mrs. Burke ultimately gives Anne grudging respect, she still distrusts the majority of African Americans and remains ardently opposed to integration. Mrs. Burke demonstrates just how senseless and destructive the whites’ prejudice is against blacks.