Coming Of Age In Mississippi

Moody finds a CORE chapter in New Orleans and volunteers for weekend canvassing work. She discovers that black people in New Orleans are just as hard to persuade to vote as are the black people in Mississippi. Junior visits Moody and Adline late at night and informs them that Clift, Emma’s brother, died from a gunshot wound to the face. Although Clift is not a biological relation to Moody, she considers him a blood uncle. When Moody wakes up the following morning, she realizes she has not wept for Clift and initially finds herself unable to do so. She calls in sick at work and faints at the end of the call. Moody writes to Emma to express her condolences, but she wonders if it is safe to write since the post office in Centreville opens all her mother’s mail. Emma writes back several weeks later with details about the killing and expresses hope that Moody and her organization will be able to find out what happened.

Moody quits working at the restaurant and works for CORE full time. She receives word that she can now graduate from Tougaloo because her Natchez credits finally transferred. Moody returns to Tougaloo College in Mississippi and catches up on Movement happenings. Reverend Ed King, Moody, and others want to do a sit-in at a cafeteria in honor of the one-year anniversary of the Woolworth’s sit-in, but the police had already arrived. Moody learns about the Summer Project, an effort to get Mississippi Negroes to register and vote. She shares the news about her uncle’s death with Bob Moses, another activist. His theory is that Clift’s death was part of “terror killings” (367), murders designed to scare Negroes from voting and to keep civil rights workers from coming to that are of Mississippi. Moody wonders why the United States Peace Corps protects people in other countries while “native-born American citizens were being murdered and brutalized daily and nothing was done” (367).

Moody goes to Canton to participate in a march and is moved to see 300 black adults participating, in addition to 300 teenagers. Armed white people line the streets, and tension is high. The cop that has been targeting Moody takes many photographs of her. The police beat McKinley Hamilton, a Negro teenager, and Reverend Cox calls the marchers into the church before a riot erupts. He asks for people who are willing to go to jail: 80 volunteer, including an elderly man who leads the marchers.

Moody graduates from Tougaloo College, but no one from her family attends. She returns to New Orleans, upset with Adline because she had said she would come to the graduation. Then Adline presents Moody with a beautiful dress. Adline says, “I decided I wouldn’t come to the graduation but use the money to get you something real nice” (381), and asks to see Moody’s diploma.

Moody returns to Canton to work on the Summer Project. She visits Mrs. Chinn, who is very discouraged. Her husband is in jail, and the police harass her nightly. Moody walks by the jail and sees Mr. Chinn digging ditches on a chain gang. He waves to her, and Moody finds it difficult to wave back, seeing him like this. Moody feels as though everything is going wrong, and she needs to do something. She goes to the COFO headquarters and sees a bus waiting there. She asks Bob Moses where the bus is going, and he invites her to board. Gene Young, a 12-year-old, pokes his head out the window and invites her in: “Hey Moody! C’mon get on, we’re going to Washington!” (383). She gets on the bus, and people sing. As Moody thinks about the burnings, murders, and beatings, she wonders about the possibility of change.