Coming of Age in Mississippi

by Anne Moody

  I noticed that Washington seemed like a deserted town compared to two days ago. How had 250,000 people disappeared so quickly? I seriously began to wonder whether those 250,000 people had made any impact on Congress.

  As we began to drive through Virginia, I started to worry about the trip back. I was now the only Negro in the car. The white people of the South must really have some strong feelings about the march by now, I thought. I knew when we returned to Mississippi, we would be faced with twice as many threats and acts of violence. And maybe we’d never even get back to Mississippi. After all, we had to go back through the rest of those backward-assed states. We were going to go through Alabama and I knew damned well how bad that state was.

  Reverend King must have thought of the dangers of the trip back, too. When we stopped at a Howard Johnson Restaurant right inside the Tennessee border, he suggested that we spend the night in Tennessee, then get up and drive through Alabama during the day.

  When I discovered where we were going to sleep, I realized how much consideration he had given the matter. We were going to sleep in a Federal Park in the Tennessee mountains. I guess he thought that because the park was federal land most likely we would not run into any trouble there. The more I thought about it, the madder I got. Here I was forcing my white friends to sleep in a park because I was black and could not sleep in the same hotel with them. If it was not for me they could have slept in one of those luxurious hotels.

  Reverend King and his wife were still asleep the next morning when Joan and I got up and wandered off through the park to find the rest room. We discovered showers there and decided to use them, since we seemed to have been the first to have gotten up that early. There were lots of parked cars around but we didn’t see anyone stirring. We thought we could manage to get a good shower before all the other people in the park got up.

  As we were finishing, two white women came in. They were from Georgia. We heard them talking as they used the toilets. Joan and I hadn’t bothered to go back to the car and get towels. We were using the paper towels instead. When the women came from behind the little partition that gave privacy to the toilets, they saw us standing in the middle of the floor naked, drying each other’s backs with paper. They didn’t know how to react. It was a shock to them. Here we were, a black girl and a white girl, standing in a Southern public shower naked. I guess they thought we were having a “nude-in” or a “wash-in” or something. Anyway they didn’t stay around to watch the demonstration. As they were leaving one sniffed, “Niggers everywhere.”

  Getting back to the car we found Reverend King and his wife awake. We told them that we had found some terrific showers without telling them the rest of the story, and they went off to shower too. Just before the Kings came back, several white women came snooping around the car. Joan and I were sitting in the back seat. We recognized two of them as the women from the showers. I guess they had found more women and gone back to the showers to beat us up. When they hadn’t found us there, they had gone looking for us. For a while they were all staring at the Mississippi license plate. They didn’t know what to do. I guess they thought I was a maid or some kind of governess working for the owner of the car. When the Kings returned, the women really looked bewildered. Reverend King was wearing his clerical collar. He didn’t look exactly old or rich, but just like one of those “civil rights preachers.” Before they could make up their minds what they were going to do about us, Reverend King and his wife got into the car and drove off, with Joan and me looking out the back window laughing. At this point I think it dawned upon those ladies that we were, in their language, professional agitators. “Too bad,” I cracked to Joan, “now it’s too late—that’s a bunch of women for you.”

  Fortunately, the drive through Alabama went without incident. We arrived in Canton about 6 P.M. Reverend King dropped me at the Freedom House and drove straight on to Tougaloo. It was too dangerous for white civil rights workers to be caught in Canton after dark.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Now that school was in session in Canton, I became more and more aware of the terrible poverty in the area. Many of the teen-agers who had worked with us had been unable to return to classes because their parents had been fired from their jobs and could not afford to buy their children school clothes. Some of these teen-agers had worked every summer to keep themselves in school, but this summer, because of the voter registration drive, had not been able to find jobs. To see those kids out of school standing around hungry all day sickened me. I felt so guilty, as if we were responsible.

  Just across the street from the office, a lady lived in a two-room house with her five children. She supported them and her sick father on the five dollars that she earned doing domestic work. School had been open for two weeks and I noticed that the two girls were home every day. When I asked them the first week why they weren’t in school, I was told that the younger girl had mumps. The older one said that she had to stay home with the younger. The second week of school I asked them again. This time they told me the truth. Their grandfather had been terribly sick during the summer. The mother, after buying medicine for her father all summer long, was unable to buy clothes for them to wear to school. The oldest boy, who was seventeen years old, had been able to buy clothes for himself and the other two boys, but not for his two sisters. With tears pouring down her cheeks, the oldest girl told me that they would be unable to go to school if they stayed out another week. My whole childhood came to life again. I thought of how my mother had suffered with us when we had been deserted by my father. How we went hungry all the time, never having anything to eat but bread and on rare occasions beans and bread. I was reminded of my sick grandfather who looked after my sister and brother while I was in school. I remembered how he used to fish a dollar out of his money sack and give it to my mother to buy food with. All that I had vowed to forget and overcome came back to me. The life these kids were leading was a replica of my own past.

  When George returned from canvassing in the country with Mr. Chinn, we had a four-hour meeting trying to figure out how to get some clothes and food to needy families. After the meeting, Mr. Chinn and George went to Greenwood to talk with the SNCC workers. We knew they were getting clothes in the Delta. Maybe they would agree to have the next shipment sent to Canton. Anyway, if anyone could convince them how badly we needed those things, C.O. could.

  The next day I received my first twenty-five dollars from CORE. Dave Dennis had been trying to get us on the payroll for about two months. George and I were finally being paid. There was also a twenty-five-dollar check for Mr. Chinn. Looking at my check, I thought, “You didn’t get here when I needed you before, but now you’re right on time.” I kissed it and headed across the street. Standing before the two girls on the porch, waving my check, I said, “We’re in business. Let’s go shopping. Tomorrow, you two go to school.”

  “What?” the older one said. “Do you mean that?”

  “You see this check here? It says”—and I pointed—“it says, ‘Pay to the order of Anne Moody, twenty-five dollars’!”

  “Twenty-five dollars!” the younger one said. It was as if this was more money than she ever hoped to have.

  “That’s right, and it’s all ours,” I said. “You two ready to go shopping?”

  “Yes,” they shouted simultaneously.

  “First, you two watch the office until I get back. I’m going up to the Washingtons’ to cash it.”

  The Washingtons were well-to-do Negroes who owned a grocery store. They also rented us the Freedom House we were now staying in. They were the only ones in Canton who would cash our checks. None of the white stores, or the Canton bank, would.

  In minutes, I was back to the office, and our shopping tour began. Our first stop was the five-and-ten. We found some tennis shoes on sale for a dollar, and bought a pair for each girl. On another counter, we found some blouses for fifty cents. Then we picked up a dollar book sack for the younger girl, a ten-cent comb and
fifty-cent brush for each and headed for the bargain store. There we found dresses on sale, two for five dollars. I bought each of them two. Then two pencils for five cents and two ten-cent tablets. It took only thirty-five minutes for us to do all this shopping. Realizing I still had money left, the younger girl said she was hungry. So our next stop was our favorite little restaurant where we could get baloney sandwiches for ten cents. We had two sandwiches apiece and went back to the office. They seemed like the two happiest girls in the world, but I think I was even happier.

  When their mother got home, she came over and thanked me. She offered to pay me back when she got caught up. I told her to forget it, that people had done the same for me when I was small. She looked at me as if to say, “I believe you, otherwise you wouldn’t have understood.”

  The next day the girls stopped in on their way to school.

  “Mama told us to let you see us and ask you if you want us to do anything for you when we get out of school,” the older one said.

  “Yes, there is something you can do for me,” I said. “You can go home and study real hard. Then you might be able to make up for the two weeks you’ve missed. Now hurry on to school before you are late.” I watched them out of the window until they were out of sight. They were beaming, and so was I.

  Just as I was about to leave for the office, George and Mr. Chinn drove in from the Delta. They had enough canned food and peanut butter with them to last a month. As they put the food in the house, I said, “I have a surprise for you two.”

  George looked at me, puzzled. “If someone was shot, I don’t wanta hear about it.”

  “It’s good news.”

  “Did we have a fortune willed to us?” Mr. Chinn asked.

  “Not exactly,” I said, “but the three of us got our twenty-five dollar checks from CORE yesterday.”

  “That ain’t exactly a fortune,” Mr. Chinn said, “but right now it sounds like one.”

  “I have news for you, too,” George said.

  “Wait, let me brace myself.” I backed against the wall. “Now, shoot.”

  “We might get some clothes in next week. SNCC has been getting quite a bit from the Delta. They have a big shipment coming in from a Jewish synagogue somewhere. We convinced them to send it straight to Canton.”

  “Are you kidding?” I said.

  “I hope they ain’t lying to us,” Mr. Chinn said. “Anyway, they have enough food in Greenwood to keep us alive for a while. That I seen with my own eyes.”

  “In that case, we’re in business,” I said.

  A few days later as George and I drove up to the office after a trip to Jackson, we found a big express truck outside. We jumped out of the car to see what it was. I had a feeling I knew, but I was afraid to find out it wasn’t what I thought. As George got out of the car, the driver of the truck asked, “Are you George Raymond?”

  “Yes,” George answered.

  “We have a shipment of clothes here for you.”

  As we unloaded the boxes of clothes, I realized there was much more than we had expected. The office got so crowded we could barely move around in it. Boxes were stacked from the floor to the ceiling with little space left for us. I was so happy that they had come. They would help a lot of people, I thought. Maybe they would also help encourage Negroes to get out and vote. That was what had happened in the Delta.

  The rest of the week I worked on sorting out the clothes. It was hard work, but I was happy doing it. I was feeling great until the weekend, then all of a sudden I became so depressed that I didn’t even feel like seeing or talking to anyone. When Dave and his wife Mattie came to Canton on Saturday afternoon for a weekend staff meeting, I excused myself and went for a walk alone. I was afraid someone would ask me what was wrong and I would burst into tears. I had cried lots of times when things weren’t going well with the project, but no one had ever seen me crying. I wasn’t about to let anyone see me now.

  The others knew that I couldn’t go home again, but no one knew of the agony I was going through because of it. I never told anyone about all the letters I was receiving from Mama, begging me to leave Mississippi and always telling me that my life was in danger. They all had their share of problems. They couldn’t do anything about mine.

  Now that I was walking, tears were running down my cheeks. Tomorrow I would be twenty-three years old, I thought. I had never failed before to get a birthday card from Adline or Mama. Mama was probably mad because I didn’t answer her last letter. “Why should I keep encouraging her to write, anyway?” I thought. “She never writes me a cheerful letter. She couldn’t possibly conceive of the things we’re going through here.” I knew she would never understand me if I tried to tell her why I felt I had to do the work I was doing. All she would say is what she always said: “Negroes are going to have troubles until they’re dead, and after you are dead we’ll still have the same problems.”

  Finally I headed back to the Freedom House. When I returned, I tried to be more cheerful, even though anyone could look at my eyes and tell I had been crying.

  “Moody, come go shopping with me,” Mattie said. “I’m not going to be long.”

  “O.K.,” I said, knowing she wanted to talk with me and try to find out what was bothering me.

  As we were walking to town she said, “What’s wrong, Moody? Are you mad with us? It’s not Dave’s fault. He’s tried to get someone to work in here with you all. People just don’t want to come in here. Most of them are scared to work in Canton. You know that. Besides, Dave can’t even get money to pay them. Dave thinks you’re mad with him. You know how sensitive he is. He is trying, though, and he’ll find somebody soon, I’m sure.”

  “That’s not what’s wrong, Mattie,” I said. “I know Dave is trying.”

  “Then what is it?” she asked. “Did you get bad news from home? Are your people all right?”

  “I guess they’re O.K. It’s just that tomorrow’s my birthday and I was kinda looking for a card from them. When the mailman came and I didn’t get one, I felt bad about it,” I said.

  “Why didn’t you tell us? We could have planned something for you,” she said.

  “You all have enough problems without worrying about whether I’m happy on my birthday or not,” I said.

  She seemed very glad to hear I wasn’t mad at Dave and ready to jump up and leave the project. While we were shopping, she insisted on buying me two pairs of pajamas that were on sale for my birthday. When we got back to the Freedom House, she called Dave into the bedroom. “She’s probably telling him I’m not angry at him,” I thought. They were in there a long time. When Dave came out, he was smiling. He began twisting to a record that was playing on the radio.

  “Come on, Anne, you ain’t gonna let me finish this one by myself, are you?” he asked.

  I was beginning to feel better.

  “It’s not that,” I said. “I just don’t want to show you up. My little brother twists better than that.”

  “Is that your excuse? I dare you to challenge me,” he said.

  I got up and began twisting with him. We were doing a a pretty nasty twist when Mattie came into the room.

  “Anne Moody, how dare you dance with my husband like that!” she said.

  “I think you’re bitching at the wrong person. I’m not married to you, Dave is,” I said.

  “Dave, how dare you?” she scolded.

  “Come on, George,” Dave said, “let’s go for a walk. Mattie is getting jealous.”

  When they were gone, Mattie and I sat down and talked for a while, and then I started cooking dinner. By the time I had finished, Dave and George were back carrying two large bags. “What have you two been buying?” I asked.

  “Food, food, food,” George said.

  “Food! Where did you get the money? I thought you were broke.”

  “Mattie is calling you, Anne,” Dave said, meanwhile looking at the plate of fried chicken on the stove.

  “Did you call me, Mattie?” I yelled to her.
r />   “Yes, come here, Moody. Come here a minute,” she said.

  “If you touch that chicken, Dave, I’ll cut your hands off when I get back,” I warned.

  “I’m going with you,” he said, “so if any’s missing you know who did it.” He looked at George, still standing there holding the two big bags.

  “Do you want to go over to Henry Chinn’s place tonight?” Mattie asked me. (Henry Chinn, C.O.’s brother, ran the biggest Negro nightclub in town.) “Dave, tomorrow is Annie’s birthday.”

  “No kidding, how old are you, Anne? Nineteen?” he asked.

  “Nineteen!” I said. “I’ll be twenty-three and I look twice that old.”

  “Twenty-three,” Dave said. “I thought you were going to say fifty, so I could be kissing you from now until tomorrow.” Then he started kissing me.

  “Dave Dennis, if you kiss Anne Moody again, I’ll quit you,” Mattie said. “Tomorrow is her birthday and then you better not kiss her no twenty-three times.”

  “You two are too damn jealous,” I said. “Come on, let’s eat.”

  As I was taking something out of the refrigerator, I noticed two gallons of ice cream and a large coconut cake in the box. “So this is what George had in the bag,” I thought. “They’re probably planning to give me a surprise birthday party.”

  We didn’t go out that night, but we had so much fun just being together. We sat around the house and played cards half the night and cracked jokes. We used to sit around and play bid whist almost every Saturday night. Half of the time, though, we were just sitting up because we were afraid someone would try to kill us after we went to bed.

  Sunday, September 15, 1963, was my twenty-third birthday. I got up about nine that morning feeling like one hundred and three. Everyone else was sleeping so I just decided to let them sleep. After a shower, I started to fix breakfast even though Mattie had promised to cook that morning. As soon as I finished, I got them up because we were supposed to have a staff meeting later.