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298:; she had received a basketball scholarship. Attending Natchez felt very restrictive to Moody, and at the end of the year she was unsure if she would return, but because of the cost of the schools in New Orleans, she returned to Natchez in the fall. During her second year at Natchez College, she helps organize a successful boycott of the campus cafeteria when a student finds a maggot in her plate of grits. This is Moody's first experience in organizing a group of individuals to launch a structured revolt against the practices of an established institution. While waiting for their demands to be met, Moody offers up what little money she has to help buy food for her fellow students. Just before the end of her sophomore year at Natchez, Moody successfully applies for an academic scholarship to
277:), after hearing it from Mrs. Burke, the white woman she works for, her mother tells her never to mention that word in front of any white person, and, if possible, not at all. Shortly thereafter, Moody discovers that there is one adult in her life who could offer her the answers she seeks: Mrs. Rice, her homeroom teacher. Mrs. Rice plays a pivotal role in Moody's maturation. She not only answers Moody's questions about Emmett Till and the NAACP, but she volunteers a great deal more information about the state of race relations in Mississippi. Moody's early curiosity about the NAACP resurfaces later when she attends Tougaloo College. It is during this time, at fifteen years old, that Moody makes the claim that she began to hate white people. She also moves to
269:, an innocent 14-year-old black boy visiting Mississippi from Chicago, is tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling in a flirtatious and offensive manner at a white woman. His murder is a defining moment in Moody's life. When Moody asks her mother questions about why the boy was killed and by whom, she is told, "an Evil Spirit killed him;" and that "it would take eight years to learn what that spirit was." For the first time, she realizes the extent to which many whites in Mississippi will go to protect their way of life —
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realize that a sit-in is in progress, they crowd around Moody and her companions and begin to taunt them. The verbal abuse quickly turns physical. Moody, along with the other three, is beaten, kicked, and "dragged about thirty feet toward the door by hair." Then all four of them are "smeared with ketchup, mustard, sugar, pies and everything on the counter." The abuse continues for almost three hours until
322:. On a shopping trip there with Rose, a fellow student from Tougaloo College, Moody – without any planning or support mechanism in place – decides to go into the "Whites Only" section of the Trailways bus depot. Initially the whites in the waiting area react with shock, but soon a menacing white mob gathers around the two young women and threatens violence.
302:. When Moody's roommate Trotter encourages her to join the NAACP, of which she is the secretary, Moody promises she will attend the next meeting, despite the animosity and violence that had surrounded everything she knew about the group. Some Tougaloo students were jailed after a demonstration, and when they were brought back to campus,
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Once the family farm falls through, Moody takes on more responsibility to help support the family. When asked to obtain a copy of her birth certificate for graduation, her birth certificate shows up as Annie Mae. When
Toosweet requests to have it changed, she is told there would be a fee; Moody asks
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At nine years old, Moody begins her first job sweeping a porch, earning seventy-five cents a week and two gallons of milk. She experiences her first real competition with
Raymond's sister Darlene; they're the same age and in the same class, constantly competing against one another whenever possible.
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that same summer. While in Baton Rouge, Moody learns some tough lessons when she is ripped off by a white family for two weeks' pay, and when she is betrayed by a co-worker, which resulted in her losing her job. Working for Mrs. Burke was something Moody viewed as a challenge; one that she overcame
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lunch counter in
Jackson. She and three other civil rights workers – two of them white – take their seats at the lunch counter. They are denied service, but the four continue to sit and wait. Soon a large number of white students from a local high school pour into Woolworth’s. When the students
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Moody moves with her mother and younger siblings to town to live with her great aunt and begins grade school. Moody's curiosity about race is sparked when her questions about her two uncles, who appear white, go unanswered. Moody's mother begins a relationship with a man named
Raymond, whom she
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on the Civil Rights
Movement, and the escalating turmoil across the South. Just before the final chapter, along with her fellow "Woolworth orphans," Moody graduates from Tougaloo College. The short final chapter ends with her joining a busload of civil rights workers on their way to
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among her fellow civil rights activists. It received many positive reviews and won awards from the
National Library Association and the National Council of Christians and Jews. On October 13, 2023 Anne Moody was posthumously inducted into the
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Later, Moody's mother gives birth to her third child, Jr. While
Toosweet is pregnant with Jr., her father begins an affair with another woman from the plantation. Shortly after Jr.'s birth, her parents separate.
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accompanied them to "get some of
Tougaloo's spirit and try and spread it around all over Jackson." Though Moody's grades suffered, she could not pull herself away from the movement. A white student,
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Though Moody enjoys attending
Centreville church, which Raymond's family belongs to, she is tricked into joining her mother's church: Mt. Pleasant. She resents her mother for some time after that.
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The third section of the autobiography reveals Moody's increasing commitment to political activism. Towards the end of the summer after graduation, Moody received a letter from the head coach at
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the following summer she worked as a waitress and was able to save money for college. Moody graduated high school in the summer of 1959 and made the decision to return to New
Orleans for good.
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The fourth and final section documents Moody's full-scale involvement in the struggle for civil rights. In the opening chapter of the final section, Moody narrates her participation in a
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and the eldest of many, Moody took on a great responsibility at a young age and matured quickly. After graduating high school in 1959, Moody received a basketball scholarship to
215:, which was published in 1968. She married Austin Straus in 1967, with whom she had one son, Sascha Straus. After struggling with dementia for years, she died at her home in
273:— and the appalling powerlessness of the blacks — what most whites considered savages. When she asks her mother for the meaning of "NAACP" (referring to the
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Moody's political awakenings begin during her teenage years, chronicled in the book's second section, "High School." During her first year in high school,
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As the bus moves through the Mississippi landscape, her fellow travelers sing the anthem of the Movement.
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when she quit after Mrs. Burke wrongfully accused her younger brother, Jr. When Moody returned to
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eventually marries and has five more children with by the time Moody is in college.
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on May 28, 1963. After graduation from Tougaloo College, Moody moved to
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Anne Moody, born Essie Mae Moody, was born September 15, 1940, in
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Opatrny, Katie; Noterman, Jenny; McNally, Amy (January 1, 1998).
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if she can keep Annie, and so she becomes Annie Mae Moody.
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National Association for the Advancement of Colored People
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485:(Reprint, Paperback ed.). New York City: Delta.
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at a banquet ceremony held in Jackson, Mississippi.
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