By Matt Williamson
The Enterprise Journal of McComb
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Prison chaplain Roscoe Barnes stands near a recently
dedicated street sign honoring author and Centreville native Anne Moody in
Centreville. Moody's involvement in the civil rights movement put her at the
epicenter of key historical events, Barnes said. (Matt Williamson/The
Enterprise-Journal via AP) (Photo: Matt Williamson, AP)
|
NOTE: Imagine my surprise when I learned that the prestigious Clarion Ledger (Jackson, Miss.) had featured a story about Anne Moody and the work of the Anne Moody History Project (AMHP). I first saw the online version of the story with the headline, "Who was Anne Moody?" That was impressive enough. Then someone called and said I should see the print version that appeared on Tuesday, March 6, 2018. Well, I saw it and I was floored by the nice placement of the story. The editors did a wonderful job with the layout on the page. As I've told others, I was humbled by their handling of the piece. The print version appears on Page 3A. It uses the headline, "REMEMBERING ANNE MOODY."
The online version of the story appears here.
Matt Williamson, editor for The Enterprise Journal (McComb, Miss.), is the person who wrote the story, which first appeared in the Journal on Thursday, Feb. 15, 2018. After being picked up by The Associated Press, the story appeared in newspapers throughout Mississippi and other parts of the United States. The committee for the AMHP is thrilled about the growing interest in Moody and the role newspapers are playing in sharing her history. Together we are keeping her legacy alive. -- Roscoe Barnes III, Chairman, Anne Moody History Project
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| Clarion Ledger, Page 3A, "Remembering Anne Moody" (Tuesday, March 6, 2018) |
Who was Anne Moody?
Prison chaplain
works to keep legacy
alive
Matt Williamson, The Enterprise Journal of McComb
Published
9:00 a.m. CT March 4, 2018
CENTREVILLE — Roscoe Barnes III didn't know much about
Wilkinson County when he moved there in 2013 to take a job as a prison
chaplain. But he knew about Anne Moody, who grew up there, became a civil
rights activist and published her memoir, "Coming of Age in
Mississippi," which received worldwide acclaim.
It turns out, he was just about the only one.
"I knew she was a famous author," he said.
"I would ask people about her. Nobody knew who she was. Nobody — right
here in Centreville."
Barnes thought that was a shame.
He wanted to preserve her legacy and started by making an
effort to keep her memory alive in her hometown. In the past year, Barnes began
the Anne Moody History Project, which has been successful so far, with local
governments and the Mississippi Legislature making proclamations honoring her
legacy.
The street near where she grew up in Centreville's Ash
Quarters neighborhood was recently renamed after her, and a bill to rename a
portion of Highway 24 between Woodville and Centreville in her memory is
advancing in the Mississippi House of Representatives.
Barnes also keeps the project updated through blog posts
and on Twitter.
Woolworth's sit-in
Moody grew up in Centreville and worked as a maid while
she was still in school. She moved to Woodville at 17 and graduated from the
all-black Johnson High School then enrolled at Natchez College before
transferring to Tougaloo College, where she became an activist.
She participated in a sit-in at a Woolworth's lunch
counter in Jackson in 1963, where a newspaper photographer captured a chaotic
scene of a mob of young white people pouring ketchup, sugar and mustard on
Moody and two other demonstrators.
"Because of her activism her name, her picture was
on the newspaper and people back here began to get scared for themselves and law
enforcement told her, 'Don't come back here. If you do you'll be killed and
your family,' " Barnes said. "Her brother Fred, who lives in Gloster,
he was very close to getting lynched when he was much younger.
"When Medgar Evers was killed, she was really
frightened because the people who had killed him made threats to kill her. Her
mom told her, 'Don't come back down here.' They didn't want her to stir up
anything down here, so she stayed away for a long time."
 |
Roscoe Barnes holds a copy of Anne Moody's book,
"Coming of Age in Mississippi," near the author's childhood home,
seen in background, in Centreville. Moody's involvement in the civil rights
movement put her at the epicenter of key historical events, Barnes said. (Matt
Williamson/The Enterprise-Journal via AP) (Photo: Matt
Williamson, AP)
|
---------------------------------
Moody's involvement in the civil rights movement put her
at the epicenter of key historical events, Barnes said. She was with Andrew
Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney a week before the three civil
rights workers were killed and buried in an earthen dam near Philadelphia,
Miss., and she took part in the March on Washington, where Dr. Martin Luther
King Jr. gave his "I Have a Dream" speech. She worked with Medgar Evers
up until his assassination.
"She gives history lessons even when telling her own
story, and it is absolutely fascinating to me how she could be in so many
important places so many times," Barnes said.
Moody moved to New York in 1964, married and began working
in academia.
"What surprised everybody is that she married a
white man who was Jewish," Barnes said. "She was criticized for that
— 'You do all this for the movement and then you go off and marry a white man.'
"
Moody was teaching at Cornell University when baseball
great Jackie Robinson heard her speak at a United Auto Workers convention in
Atlantic City, N.J., and encouraged her to write a book.
"He said anybody who can speak this well should be
able to write a book," Barnes said. "At the time she said there was
too much on her mind, the memories were too fresh."
But eventually, she began to tell her story about growing
up in Mississippi and all she had been through.
"When the book first came out, she was an instant
celebrity. She was on talk shows, she was on the 'Merv Griffin Show.' She was
being interviewed all over the place," Barnes said. "She moved to
Europe in '69. Her book was translated in several languages. Her book was a
best-seller in Europe."
When the book was published, Sen. Edward Kennedy reviewed
it for the New York Times, writing, "Anne Moody's powerful and moving book
is a timely reminder that we cannot now relax in the struggle for sound justice
in America or in any part of America. We would do so at our peril."
Prison part of project
Barnes, 57, grew up in Indianola, left the state after
high school, joined the Army and lived in Pennsylvania for nearly 20 years,
where he went to seminary and worked as a newspaper reporter.
He took a break from journalism to focus on going into
the ministry full-time and accepted a job as chaplain of the Wilkinson County
Correctional Facility, a private prison housing state inmates in Woodville.
He started asking around about Moody, who he thought
would be one of the area's more well-known residents and learned that she had
more or less settled into obscurity.
The Anne Moody History Project was born as a community
service project sponsored by the prison. Barnes oversees a committee of
volunteers, including prison employees, who keep it going.
Barnes read her book and began to take more of an
interest in his new surroundings.
"One of the things I like about the book is how
detailed she was. That was one of the things that really captured my
attention," he said, noting how Moody's description of the town and its
landmarks mostly hold true a half-century later.
He read one sentence from the book, "I turned the
little curve in front of Ms. Pearl's and walked up toward the highway,"
and explained that he knows that curve and where Ms. Pearl's house still
stands.
The book also paints Moody's home state as a dangerous
place for African-Americans in the turbulent 1950s and '60s. For instance,
there's a description of a family who lost eight members to a fire believed to
have been deliberately set. Barnes said two people survived and he's trying to
get in touch with one of them.
"If you don't appreciate history or have a nose for
news, you won't appreciate it when you're walking around Centreville," he
said.
Over lunch at a barbecue joint on a recent Friday in
Moody's hometown of Centreville, Barnes, who is black, noted that eating at the
same table with a white newspaper reporter wouldn't be possible if not for the
sacrifices of Moody and other civil rights workers.
Book published 50 years ago
"Coming of Age in Mississippi" turns 50 this
year. The book was first published on Dec. 3, 1968, and is in still print.
"It is still being read in schools all over,"
Barnes said.
Part of Barnes' work on the project includes buying up
copies of the book and giving them away, either to inmates at the prison or
people he encounters in passing who ask him about it.
Part of the reason nobody from Wilkinson County remembers
Moody is due to the fact that she left and never returned, Barnes said.
"The book ends in '64. That's when she leaves
Mississippi and goes up north," he said. "She stayed away from
Mississippi for a long time, 10 or 11 years, and was always afraid to come
back."
He said Moody was still uneasy about returning to
Centreville when her mother died more than a decade after she left.
"Her sister Adeline, who lives in Gloster, said that
even in her older years when she came back, she was not comfortable. And it did
not help she started having dementia," Barnes said.
He said he thought she had symptoms of post-traumatic
stress disorder.
"One of her family members told me if she heard a
loud noise she would take cover and go into a fetal position," Barnes
said.
Moody had become so obscure that when she died at the age
of 74 in Gloster, suffering from dementia, Barnes — perhaps her biggest fan —
had no idea she was even still around.
"She died in 2015, and I said, 'What? She's been
living in Gloster all this time?' " he said.
Renewed interest
If there was ever any concern that Moody's legacy would
fade away, Barnes has all but alleviated that.
He said the streets and highway signs will stay up long
after he's gone and he hears more people asking about her.
"People are calling and inquiring. This is what we
wanted to happen," he said. "Here's the thing that blows my mind:
It's taken off and it's taken a life of its own."
And it's amazing how far the inquiries are coming from,
he said.
"We got an email from Nancy Pelosi's office. Her
history researcher is making a calendar and they wanted to include Anne Moody's
'Coming of Age in Mississippi.' ... They saw what we had online and thought
that we would be the people to contact," he said.
For Barnes, Anne Moody's history, civil rights history
and black history are one in the same, and this is like a year-round black
history project.
"Too often, when we talk civil rights, there are
certain names we hear all the time. ... Well, my committee and I, we said we
need to change that," Barnes said, recalling civil rights workers whose
names aren't as famous as Evers, King or Malcolm X but whose sacrifices were just
as important. "There are other people who played a vital role. We want
people moving forward to start mentioning Anne Moody's name when they're
talking about civil rights."
Would you like to
know MORE about Anne Moody? Visit here to
see the timeline
of important events in her life history!
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| Clarion Ledger, Page 4A, "Moody - continued from Page 3A" (Tuesday, March 6, 2018) |
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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
