From left are: Dr. Roscoe Barnes III, cultural heritage
tourism manager for Visit Natchez; Maggie Lowery, cultural programs manager for
Visit Mississippi; Dr. Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi
Humanities Council; and Centreville Alderwoman Felicia Williams. Funding for
the project was made possible by a grant from the National Endowment of the
Humanities.
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CENTREVILLE, Miss. -- Civil Rights pioneer Anne Moody is
now featured on the Mississippi Writers Trail (MWT) in Centreville. Her story
is shared on an official marker on West Park Street North in The Louis Gaulden
and Riquita Jackson Family Memorial Park, across from the Kevin Poole Van
Cleave Library.
Moody, who wrote Coming of Age in Mississippi, and Mr.
Death: Four Stories, was born and raised in Centreville. Both sides of the
marker feature a biographical sketch of her life as a civil rights activist and
her work as a writer.
The unveiling ceremony was organized by Maggie Lowery, cultural
programs manager for Visit Mississippi, and Felicia Williams, who serves as
alderwoman of Ward 1 in Centreville.
“It is my honor to be part of the program this morning,”
said Dr. Stuart Rockoff, executive director of the Mississippi Humanities
Council. “The Mississippi Writers Trail celebrates our state’s extraordinary
literary heritage. We take tremendous pride in how great writers like Anne
Moody took their experiences living in this sometimes difficult and complicated
place to create profound art that has moved readers all across the world.”
Rockoff said Moody’s book affected him, a white man from
Texas, on a personal level, after he read it in graduate school.
“The book has been widely assigned in universities because
of its eloquent and bracing truth about the experience of growing up in a
society profoundly shaped, or misshaped, by white supremacy,” he said, noting
Moody grew up in a society that was “predicated on the idea that white lives
matter more.”
According to Rockoff, the genius of Moody as a writer is
how she was able to draw readers into her own experience. “We see the world of
Jim Crow Mississippi through her eyes,” he said. “And once we experience this,
we are forever changed.”
Rockoff was one of several people who spoke during the
ceremony. John Moore, who serves as Centreville Mayor Pro Tempore and Alderman
of Ward 3, provided the Invocation; Dr. Roscoe Barnes III, chairman of the Anne
Moody History Project, and Cultural Heritage Tourism manager for Visit Natchez,
provided the Welcome. Barnes previously served as chaplain at Wilkinson County
Correctional Facility, the birthplace of the Anne Moody History Project.
Alderwoman Williams shared remarks and facilitated the
unveiling. Williams described Moody as a heroine of the civil rights movement. In
Coming of Age, she said, Moody “lucidly and eloquently articulates what it was
like to grow up in poverty, to suffer racial discrimination, and to fight for
social change as a civil rights activist.”
Moody died in 2015 at the age of 74. At the time of her
death, she was living in Gloster, Miss. She will now join other famous writers
like Eudora Welty, Margaret Walker, Elizabeth Spencer, William Faulkner,
Tennessee Williams, Shelby Foote, Walker Percy, and Ida B. Wells.
News of the marker was first shared by Williams in
December 2019. She had been working with Lowery to secure a place for its
location. According to Lowery, funding for the project was made possible by a
grant from the National Endowment of the Humanities.
The unveiling ceremony was initially set for March 31. However,
it was postponed due to COVID-19.
Lowery attended the recent ceremony along with Kristen
Brandt, arts industry director for Mississippi Arts Commission, and Marion
Barnwell, a Mississippi historian. A few local citizens that included children
also turned out for the event.
The Mississippi Writers Trail is an initiative of the
Mississippi Arts Commission, in partnership with the Community Foundation for Mississippi,
Mississippi Book Festival, Mississippi Humanities Council, Visit Mississippi,
Mississippi Department of Archives and History and the Mississippi Library
Commission.
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#AnneMoody
#ComingOfAgeinMississippi
#MississippiWritersTrail
#ComingOfAgeinMississippi #CivilRights #BlackHistory
#WomensHistory #Mississippi #Twitterstorians #BlkTwitterstorians
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Want to know more about Anne Moody?
Visit here to see the timeline of important events in her life history!
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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 Ph.D.
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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