Nurture and Nature Dichotomy, People Are Born

¶ … nurture and nature dichotomy, people are born with certain traits and tendencies. However, the incidents and people in their lives will also significantly impact the directions they choose in life. Such was the case with Anne Moody. She may not have realized it then, but even early in her life Moody's path was chosen: she would do whatever it took to help end the degradation of blacks, especially in Mississippi.

Anne Moody (Essie May) became greatly aware of the differences between whites and blacks as a young child:

had never thought of them as white before. Now all of a sudden they were white, and their whiteness made them better than me. I know realized that not only were they better than me because they were white, but everything they owned and everything connected with them was better than available to me. (26)

It did not take Moody long to start questioning this difference between whites and blacks. By the time she was 15, her outspokenness on the inequities and hatred against the blacks separated her from most of her disheartened black community. The death of Emmet Til moved her even more. She began to see those around her as cowards and participants in their oppression.

A hated the white men who murdered Emmet Til and I hated all the other whites who were responsible for he countless murders Mrs. Rice had told me about and those I vaguely remembered from childhood. But I also hated Negroes. I hated them for not standing up and doing something about the murders. In fact, I think I had a stronger resentment toward Negroes for letting the whites kill them than toward the whites. (110)

Moody knew that she had to leave her hometown. She felt stifled and knew that this was not place to initiate change. "If I ever got involved in farming, I'd be just like Mama and the rest of them, and that I would never have the chance" (89). She struck out on her own, recognizing that it was time help in the fight against injustice. She worked diligently as a civil rights activist with the Congress of Racial Equality and National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. She also spoke and participated in civil rights activities such as the Woolworth's luncheon sit-in. At times, including when working to support voter registration, she was fearful for her life. Activists were being killed, and Moody's name was on a Ku Klux Klan black list.

Moody's activism greatly concerned her mother -- not only because she was fearful for her daughter's safety, but because she was concerned about the impact on her own family's life in Centreville. It did not take long for the news of Moody's protests to travel back home, and the anti-black contingency were extremely angry. "In the letter she (her mother) told me that the sheriff had stopped by and asked all kinds of questions about me the morning after the sit-in... 'The whites are pretty upset about her dong these things,' he told her. Mama told me not to write her again until she sent me world that it was O.K." (246). Moody became even more upset and agitated from these letters.

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 the letters I received from Mama, begging me to leave Mississippi and always telling me my life was in danger. They all had their share of problems. They could do nothing for mine. (282)

As the killing of innocent people continued, Moody's commitment to activism strengthened, as did her anger against those who wanted to bring about change with nonviolence. After a church was bombed murdering several Sunday School children, she called to God:

As long as I live, I'll never be beaten by a white man again. Not like in Woolworth's. Not any more. That's out. You know something else, God? Nonviolence is out. I have a good idea Marin Luther King is talking to you, too. If he is, tell him that nonviolence has served its purpose. Tell him that for me, God, and for a lot of other Negroes who must be thinking it today. (285)