Nathan Kendrick

His 330
May 10, 2013
Civil Rights and Anne
I had never in my life seen people who were so much in need. After we gave out most
of the best coats and things, people started coming up to me telling me that they were
desperate for a coat, a pair of shoes anything.
1
Anne Moody seen the struggles that African
Americans in the South were facing. She seen the extreme poverty rates and the segregation
that the African Americans encountered. Anne Moody was born in Wilkinson County,
Mississippi, but after some of her activism was banned from the county so she worked in
Canton, Mississippi for a while.
2
Wilkinson County and Canton are both very tough places for
Civil Rights activists. Canton was a stronghold for Klansmen at the time and both of the counties
were very segregated before the movement. Moody was a major activist in the Civil Rights
movement. She worked with COFO to gain interest in the Civil Rights movement across the
state. In Anne Moodys book Coming of Age in Mississippi she discusses some of the strategies
of the movement in Mississippi. These strategies turned out to be very effective throughout the
Civil Rights movement as many laws and feelings were changed after years of hard work.
Anne Moody was a major activist in the voter registration movement. The voter
registration movements main goal was to get African Americans registered to vote. Giving

1
AnneMoody Coming of Age in Mississippi (Random House Digital, Inc. September 7, 2011) pg. 353
2
AnneMoody Coming of Age in Mississippi (Random House Digital, Inc. September 7, 2011) pg. 361
African Americans a right to vote would, in turn, give them a voice in politics and in
governmental actions that were passed. There were many attempts made to try and stop
African Americans to vote. The legislature would pass things like poll taxes or literacy tests to
disenfranchise African Americans. The use of poll taxes meant that before a person could vote
he or she had to pay a government tax. Many African Americans at that time were not paid very
well if they had jobs, but many still did not have jobs. This meant that many African Americans
could not afford to pay this poll tax. They especially did not want to pay if the only people
running were republicans. This meant that whoever won would not help African Americans
anyways. This kept many African Americans away from the polls. Many African Americans
lacked much formal education also, so this idea of a literacy test was just another way to
disenfranchise the African American people. The literacy test deterred many African Americans
from voting in the first place because they had heard that they were too ignorant to vote so
many times that they did not want to try and fail and prove those people right.
Anne Moody began trying to boost voter registration participation by going out and
finding participants for COFOs freedom election. The freedom election was a counter-election
held for the Mississippi Governor and Lieutenant Governor positions so that African-Americans
could try and prove that, contrary to what many whites believe, Negroes did in fact want to
vote.
3
COFO wanted to show that without discriminatory voting procedures and fear of violence
from the white population these men and women would come out in large numbers to support

3
Shaw, Terri. "Freedom Summer Recollections." Civil Rights in Mississippi Digital (Archive The University of
Southern Mississippi, August 2006)
the cause and vote for their candidates. More than 80,000 ballots were cast for COFO president
and NAACP state president Aaron Henry, and minister Edwin King.
4

Another form of protest that Anne Moody took part in was the sit-in. Anne Moody was
involved in one of the most famous sit-ins at a Woolworths lunch counter in Jackson in 1963.
Anne Moody and two others occupied three seats at the stores lunch counter. It did not take
long for people to figure out what was going on at the counter. Most of the waitresses and
some of the customers had left when they found out what was going on and realized what was
about to happen. When news got around of what was happening many whites poured into the
store and began trying to force these activists out. The opposition of this movement became
very violent. Some of the civil rights workers were pulled off of the chairs and drug across the
floor. Some of these activists were beaten or slapped and all were smeared with ketchup and
mustard. The opposition of this protest began spray painting on the backs of the activists.
Objects were thrown at the protestors. The manager of the store repeatedly asked everyone to
leave and tried to close the store, but the white people refused to leave until the African-
Americans left. News spread quickly about the protest and some other activists of the
movement joined in to help the cause. Anne Moody said that there were around ninety police
officers surrounding Woolworths but would not come in to escort the students out. The sit-in
lasted more than three hours before the president of Tougaloo College escorted the activists
(all women at this point) out of the store and the police made a single line for the workers to
walk behind, but this did not keep the white people from throwing objects that they had

4
Doug McAdam Freedom Summer (Oxford University Press, 1990) pg. 37
accumulated in the store at the protestors.
5
John Salter, one of the three original protestors
recalled what happened, So I was cut with broken sugar glasses and cut with brass knuckles,
different things like that. The young women had condiments poured all over them, and I had
some poured on me, but mostly I was hit.
6

A stepping stone that led to Anne Moody being such an influential part of the civil rights
movement was her boycott of the school cafeteria. She had supposedly found a maggot in her
grits and felt that this and led a boycott against the cafeteria because of unsanitary conditions.
There were many of these boycotts across the state. Over time, African Americans came to
realize that local establishments depended on them for their livelihoods. As a result, they began
to boycott those establishments that either refused to hire or to serve blacks. In a number of
cities and counties throughout the state, blacks placed economic pressure on merchants to
bring about social change. While they experienced violence, incarceration, and eviction from
their homes, these activists demonstrated to the business elite that their money, or the lack of
it, could make or break their establishments.
7
These boycotts spread rapidly across Mississippi.
Many African Americans faced being fired from their jobs or violence for being a part of these
protests.
Freedom marches were also used as a tactic in the Civil Rights movement. These
Freedom marches were very organized, and they occurred all over the United States, which
proved that black people wanted the same rights as the white people had. These marches
would occur from time to time. Large numbers of African Americans would participate in these

5
Anne Moody Coming of Age in Mississippi (Random House Digital, Inc. September 7, 2011) pgs. 289-292
6
Interview with Hunter Bear(John Salter)(July, 2005)
7
Boycotts (The University of Southern Mississippi, 2000)
Freedom marches. After many workers lost jobs for being involved in these marches they began
using women and children to march for them. This show of strength by African Americans was
opposed by many whites. There were news crews on scene at many of these protests that were
able to show the nation what was happening in Mississippi and all across the South. African
Americans would attend these nonviolent protests and be violently opposed by white men and
women, as well as, police officers at times. Many times police officers would use fire hoses to
spray these protestors. They also would sometimes unleash dogs. These scenes were extremely
horrific at times. This gave the nation a view of what African Americans were facing in the
South. National attention from these types of protests helped African Americans get help from
the National government in ways of protection and laws passed.
Many African Americans were afraid to involve themselves in activism for the Civil
Rights movement. In Mississippi this fear was way too real in their minds because these
gruesome acts of violence were seen often. Anne Moody describes her feelings of one of these
acts in her book when she points out the news of the death of Emmett Till. Emmett Till was a
young teenager at the age of fourteen when he was taken from his home one night in August of
1955. Emmett Till was then beaten severely before being thrown into the Tallahatchie River.
This all happened because Emmett Till had wolf whistled at a woman earlier in the afternoon
before the abduction. Emmett Tills cousin was with Till when Till reportedly whistled at the
woman. He was also there when Emmett Till was abducted. This boys name was Simeon
Walker and later he recounted his feelings during the trial where his father gave his eye-witness
testimony. I was only 12-years-old then, almost 13 and I believed that justice would prevail.
After all, there were eyewitnesses. I simply did not realize that Jim Crow would allow whites to
kill a Black boy without legal consequence.
8
Anne Moody usually brushed off her mothers
pleas to leave Mississippi or lay low for a while, but one day that changed. Anne Moody was
staying with a girl (Bobbie) that she knew when a member of the Ku Klux Klan accidentally
dropped a leaflet off on Bobbies porch. The leaflet was a Klan blacklist and Anne Moodys
picture was on it. This leaflet had several of the major African American activists of the Civil
Rights movement pictured on it. The leaflet even had pictures of some activists who had been
killed previously with Xs across their faces. Many of the people on the list already had left the
state. They feared that the Klan may follow through with their threats on the rest of the men
and women on the blacklist. These people faced threats daily, but being on the Klans blacklist
was much more frightening.
9
Freedom Summer activists faced threats and harassment
throughout the campaign, not only from white supremacist groups, but from local residents
and police. More than 1000 black and white volunteers were arrested, and at least 80 were
beaten by white mobs or racist police officers. But the summer's most infamous act of violence
was the murder of three young civil rights workers, a black volunteer, James Chaney, and his
white coworkers, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner. On June 21, Chaney, Goodman
and Schwerner set out to investigate a church bombing near Philadelphia, Mississippi, but were
arrested that afternoon and held for several hours on alleged traffic violations. Their release
from jail was the last time they were seen alive before their badly decomposed bodies were
discovered under a nearby dam six weeks later. Goodman and Schwerner had died from single

8
Simeon Walker, Kevin McNeir Cousin of Emmett Till: History is not history unless its true. (The Miami Times,
2012)
9
Anne Moody Coming of Age in Mississippi (Random House Digital, Inc. September 7, 2011) pg. 372
gunshot wounds to the chest, and Chaney from a savage beating.
10
Ivanhoe Donaldson, a field
secretary, wrote about the time he arrived in Jackson, Mississippi in late 1963. He and some
other Civil Rights workers were pulled over by a few policemen after being followed by the
policemen for miles after they left the airport. Ivanhoe Donaldson said, There were four
policemen. They told us to put our hands up. During this time, the policemen started a series of
verbal harassments and intimidations. They threw in a couple of threatening gestures for good
measure. Their language was abusive and vile: ... "Nigger, where you from? ... Boy! what's your
name? ... Goddamned nigger twenty years old, ain't old enough to register himself, come down
here to get other niggers to register. ... If you stay down here long enough, you gonna make a
mistake. ... Just like your mother paddled your behind, I'm going to have to paddle yours. ...
Goddamned NAACP Communist trouble maker, ain't you, Boy? ..."
11
This type of treatment was
prevalent in the Jim Crowe South and many African Americans faced these racial slurs and
inappropriate remarks daily. They were forced to call white men by Mr., Master, or Sir, while a
white person could call any black man Boy or Uncle. These kinds of things were common in
the Jim Crowe South, that is, until the Civil Rights movement.
Anne Moodys activism improved the Civil Rights movement in many ways. She was a
strong leader for her college classmates and was never afraid to stand up for what she felt was
right. Facing much opposition, Anne Moody and others fought long and hard to gain the
freedoms that many African Americans enjoy today. Because of sit-ins like the one at the lunch
counter in the Jackson Woolworths, Restaurants, bathrooms, and schools became

10
Three CORE Members Murdered in Mississippi (Congress of Racial Equality, 2011)
11
Ivanhoe Donaldson JACKSON, MISSISSIPPI, Late 1963 (Freedomways, First Quarter, 1964)
desegregated. Freedom Elections set the stage for African Americans to be more involved in
politics and suffrage for African Americans. Boycotts forced employers and store owners to
serve and hire and treat African Americans fairly in their place of business. These movements
helped to bring freedoms to African Americans that they never knew before. The Civil Rights
movement ended the reign of the Jim Crowe South and made equality a possibility for all
people. Fannie Lou Hamer once said, Im sick and tired of being sick and tired. And without
thousands of African Americans standing up and saying the same thing this movement would
have never taken place.