Thanks
to the Associated Press, the story appears in The Washington Post and other
major newspapers
#AnneMoody
Note: This news was first shared on Saturday, Sept. 16, 2017, at which time I shared a link to the story on The Washington Post website. Unfortunately, after sharing the link, I checked back a few days later and found the link to be dead -- with no sign of the story. For this reason, I'm posting the story here with the announcement of it appearing in the Post. Yes, it's the same Associated Press story that appeared in papers throughout the country, but I want readers to know that it did indeed appear in The Washington Post. -- Roscoe Barnes III, Chairman, Anne Moody History Project
Dead link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/mississippi-hometown-honors-author-of-civil-rights-memoir/2017/09/16/5ee8739a-9ae0-11e7-af6a-6555caaeb8dc_story.html?utm_term=.47af7f4b836b
The Washington Post
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| FILE – In this May 28, 1963 file photograph, a group of white people pour sugar, ketchup and mustard over the heads of Tougaloo College student demonstrators at a sit-in demonstration at a Woolworth’s lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Miss. Seated at the counter, from left, are Tougaloo College professor John Salter,and students Joan Trumpauer and Anne Moody. Anne Moody, a civil rights activist who wrote about challenging segregation in the South is being honored in her hometown, two years after her death. (Fred Blackwell/The Clarion-Ledger via AP) (Associated Press)
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Mississippi hometown honors author of
civil rights
memoir
By Emily Wagster
Pettus | AP September 16
JACKSON, Miss. — A civil
rights activist who wrote about challenging segregation in the South was
honored in her hometown, two years after her death.
About 70 people gathered
Friday in the southwestern Mississippi town of Centreville — population 1,680 —
to unveil a sign for the newly renamed Anne Moody Street. Moody was born in
Centreville on Sept. 15, 1940.
Her memoir, “Coming of Age
in Mississippi,” was published in 1968 and is required reading in some schools.
It recounts her early life in a poor family and her participation in civil
rights activities that put her in danger, including efforts to register black
voters.
Roscoe Barnes III, who is
chaplain at a prison near Centreville, helped organize the Anne Moody Day
commemoration, held on what would have been her 77th birthday. He said her son,
Sasha Straus, attended, as did some of her siblings and cousins.
“Here’s a woman who
literally put her life on the line in the fight for freedom and justice,”
Barnes told The Associated Press. “We’re here because she was there. She
survived threats, beatings, incarcerations.”
On May 28, 1963, Moody was
part of an integrated group of students from historically black Tougaloo
College who staged a peaceful sit-in at a segregated Woolworth’s lunch counter
in Jackson, Mississippi. They had worked with Mississippi NAACP leader Medgar
Evers to prepare for the protest.
White high school
students, egged on by some adults, dumped ketchup and mustard on the heads of
Moody and the other protesters. She wrote that after she and two other black
students started praying at the counter, one white man slapped her and another
threw her against an adjoining counter. One of the praying students was pulled
violently from his seat.
Evers was assassinated
outside his Jackson home two weeks after the sit-in.
After Moody graduated from
college in 1964, she moved to New York, where she wrote her book. She returned
to Mississippi in the mid-1990s but never felt at ease in the state, said one
of her sisters, Adline Moody.
Anne Moody had dementia
before she died at home in Gloster, Mississippi, in 2015. She was 74.
Barnes does volunteer work
for the Anne Moody History Project, which is based at the privately run prison
where he works, Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. He said some inmates
and have been reading and discussing “Coming of Age in Mississippi” as part of
a book group. He said he also gives away copies of the book to people who live
in southwestern Mississippi.
“I spoke to a woman in her
40s who grew up in this area,” Barnes said. “She said, ‘Who is Anne Moody?’
That broke my heart.”
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For more
information:
See the Anne Moody
page here.
Questions about the Anne
Moody History Project may be directed to Roscoe Barnes III via email at doctorbarnes3@gmail.com or roscoebarnes3@yahoo.com For updates
on Anne Moody history and the on-going work of this community service project,
simply follow this blog or follow AMHP on Twitter
(@AnneMoodyHP). #ComingOfAgeinMississippi
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