Coming of Age in Mississippi

Book Description

Written without a trace of sentimentality or apology, this is an unforgettable personal story -- the truth as a remarkable young woman named Anne Moody lived it. To read her book is to know what it is to have grown up black in Mississippi in the forties an fifties -- and to have survived with pride and courage intact.

In this now classic autobiography, she details the sights, smells, and suffering of growing up in a racist society and candidily reveals the soul of a black girl who had the courage to challenge it. The result is a touchstone work: an accurate, authoritative portrait of black family life in the rural South and a moving account of a woman's indomitable heart.

Customer Reviews:

Not angry... Just historically honest.......2007-07-10

Though I read this book many years ago, I had to strongly disagree with part of the editor's initial characterization of this book as being "angry". Powerful, painful and anxiety producing, yes. Angry, no.

I personally came away with the lasting impression of a very honest and heart-felt description of the events and struggles that shaped Ann Moody's life, and her active participation in the Civil Rights Movement. She describes beautifully the fears and pains felt by communities during tragic events such as the murder of the young Emmett Till, and injects the intensity felt by the leaders of the Movement, including MLK Jr., as they constantly tried to dodge authorities.

I strongly believe, and echo other reviewer's opinions, that every High School and young college student should be required to read this book.

Descriptive, emotional, engaging.......2007-03-20

Thus a civil rights advocate was born.

I read this book seven years ago, on a whim, because I was wanting to understand why Southerners were especially proud of their heritage when there was so much suffering among its own people, especially its blacks.

Ann Moddy lived a life that most whites would be ashamed of, but that many blacks endured. This is a part of American history that mainstreem history books seldom cover in any detail and leave to the "Black Studies" department.

Moody lived her life struggling for identity, struggling for change, struggling for advancement. She made something of herself and has never looked back. (I read somewhere that she doesn't like to talk about her growing-up years and has lived a life of seclusion.). She can only be admired for what she has made of herself.

Moody never once expresses hurt. All she wanted was justice for all. She left Mississippi with more than a tinge of anger.

This book should be required reading for all social studies classes. It is engrossing without being sentimental or overly emotional (and it certainly is not "girly" at all.) For anyone, regardless of color, gender or legal status, this should be a must-read.

Wasn't reasonable or logical or comprehensible.......2007-03-05

I quit early on and here's why.
Anne's mother leaves her 6 month old infant and Anne (who is "almost 4") in the hands of her (anne's mother) 8 y/o brother, then later her 12y/o brother, for 12+ hours every day. According to Anne they never took care of them and in fact took off as soon as her parents were out of sight.
Who's feeding the 6 month old for those 12+ hours? They were living on a farm with lots of other black families. Surely the women had some kind of communal child care system going. Where's the wet nurse? I don't believe it.

Same happens with the next infant. Mom's never home. All male babysitters. One male adult would take all three kids (ages 5, 2.5 and a little over a year old) HUNTING with him in the swamps! I don't believe it. I don't believe Anne Moody.

How is it that Anne goes to school at age 5 but her mom's 8 y/o and 12y/o brothers don't?
In Anne Moody's story the boys and some men stayed home and babysat while the girls go to school/work. Now I always thought it was just the opposite. Girls usually stayed home and tended to their younger siblings, cleaned, cooked etc., while the boys if they didn't go to school, worked along side the men.

How is it that little 5 y/o Anne walks 2 miles up and 2 miles back to school everyday all by herself. Just try and picture that in your mind. A tiny little threadbare 5 y/o girl all alone walking 4 miles a day in the rain, humid heat or cold. Then hiding in the schools outhouse for as long as she can because she doesn't like school or the teacher! I don't see it. I don't believe it. Four miles is nothing for a healthy adult/teen/kid but a 5 y/o "baby"? I don't think they'd have the mind to do it nor the legs.

How is it that when Anne is 6 and back at school, her mom just leaves the 3.5 y/o and 1.5 y/o all by themselves, all day at the house, no babysitter? I don't believe it. Was Anne's mother mentally retarded? They're living in town at this time. What about the neighbors, friends or church? Women have always gotten together to help care for the children?

The story just wasn't adding up so I quit. Sorry.

I also don't believe the memoirs of Augusten Burroughs "Running with Scissors" etc. and Mary Karr "The Liars' Club".

Prompt Service.......2007-02-28

I do not have any complaints about Amazon.com service. I got my book on time and in the conditions stated on the site. I am very satisfied. The book is a great addition for my library and it is very helpful for my classes in college.

Remarkable, Unforgettable, Invaluable, Candid, Daring, Astounding..........2007-01-29

This book is one of the the best books to help you to REALLY understand the Civil Rights Movement and what it meant to be black in the south during that era. Anne Moody lets the reader into her life in a remarkable way and helps her audience comprehend what the south was like (not only for the black population, but for black women as well) and why Civil Rights workers, like herself, put up with so much for their cause. It is very hard for me to put into words what a great book this is-it will open your eyes to history even if you don't like history or reading I guarantee you will LOVE this book! Definitely a MUST READ.

Other books that compliment this book well, if you're interested in the subject are: Passing, Quicksand, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl

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Daisy Fay and the Miracle Man

Manufacturer: Ballantine Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0739459252

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COMING OF AGE IN MISSISSIPPI

Manufacturer: Laurel
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Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000GQHQ6E

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The Coming of Age in Mississippi
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Coming of Age in Mississippi
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Coming of Age in Mississippi
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Manufacturer: Dell / Laurel
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Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000K1WX5O

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A SEARING PORTRAINT OF THE DEEP SOUTH...

Coming of Age in Mississippi

Manufacturer: Dell Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
ASIN: B000H0K472

Customer Reviews:

A SEARING PORTRAINT OF THE DEEP SOUTH..........2006-12-03

The author deftly draws for the reader a searing and compelling autobiographical perspective of what life was like for her in the rural deep south during the nineteen forties and fifties, when she was growing up. It also gives a birds-eye view of the civil rights movement of the early nineteen sixties.

Written by Ms. Moody when she was twenty eight, it is a damning portrait of what life was like for African-Americans in the deep south. It tells of parallel lifestyles that were preordained and dependent upon whether one were black or one were white.

If one were black, one was destined to a lifetime of poverty, because job opportunities were limited to bottom of the rung jobs with no opportunity for growth and which were designed by their very nature to keep one subservient. It tells of schools so substandard as to make one non-competitive in the larger world. It tells of dilapidated and ramshackle housing without indoor plumbing that was the lot of many blacks in the rural south.

It describes the fear that was palpable in ones every day life, if one were black; a fear of making a white person angry, because the consequences that would follow could end up costing one dearly. It sums up the daily indignities which were a part pf growing up black in the rural south in the mid twentieth century. It is a story of frustration and anger at the inequities found in every day living. It is the story of how one young woman dealt with that system and survived to become a civil rights activist at a time when to be such was tantamount to asking for trouble of a deadly nature.

Well told and deftly drawn, the author conveys a real sense of the times in which she grew up. She ably captures an era in America that should not be forgotten, if only to remind the reader that it was not that long ago that some Americans were treated like second class citizens. Unfortunately, despite best intentions, some still are, though it is now done in more covert, rather than overt, fashion. We, as Americans, may have come a long way, but we still have a ways to go in eliminating the inequities which still exist in our society. Ms. Moody's autobiography serves to remind us that the past was not all that long ago and, in some measure, is still with us today.

Coming of age in Mississippi: An autobiography (A Delta book)

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A SEARING PORTRAIT OF THE DEEP SOUTH...

Coming of age in Mississippi: An autobiography (A Delta book)
Anne Moody
Manufacturer: Dell Pub. Co
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Unknown Binding
ASIN: B0007ELIAA

Customer Reviews:

A SEARING PORTRAIT OF THE DEEP SOUTH..........2005-10-31

The author deftly draws for the reader a searing and compelling autobiographical perspective of what life was like for her in the rural deep south during the nineteen forties and fifties, when she was growing up. It also gives a birds-eye view of the civil rights movement of the early nineteen sixties.

Written by Ms. Moody when she was twenty-eight, it is a damning portrait of what life was like for African-Americans in the deep south. It tells of parallel lifestyles that were preordained and dependent upon whether one were black or one were white. If one were black, one was destined to a lifetime of poverty, because job opportunities were limited to bottom of the rung jobs with no opportunity for growth and which were designed by their very nature to keep one subservient. It tells of schools so substandard as to make one non-competitive in the larger world. It tells of dilapidated and ramshackle housing without indoor plumbing that was the lot of many blacks in the rural south.

It describes the fear that was palpable in ones every day life, if one were black; a fear of making a white person angry, because the consequences that would follow could end up costing one dearly. It sums up the daily indignities that were a part pf growing up black in the rural south in the mid twentieth century. It is a story of frustration and anger at the inequities found in every day living. It is a story of how one young woman dealt with that system and survived to become a civil rights activist at a time when to be such was tantamount to asking for trouble of a deadly nature.

Well told and deftly drawn, the author conveys a real sense of the times in which she grew up. She ably captures an era in America that should not be forgotten, if only to remind the reader that it was not that long ago that some Americans were treated like second class citizens. Unfortunately, despite best intentions, some still are, though it is now done in more covert, rather than overt, fashion. We, as Americans, may have come a long way, but we still have a ways to go in eliminating the inequities that still exist in our society. Ms. Moody's autobiography serves to remind us that the past was not all that long ago and, in some measure, is still with us today.

Book Description

A newly updated edition of this concise but comprehensive history reflects a synthesis of the major writings on the war, as refined and focused through Professor Roland's own research and interpretation. This is the story of the war with the emphasis on the military action, that element which distinguishes war from all other human activities. Accounts of the major political, economic, diplomatic, social, and cultural developments of the epoch are covered; approximately half of the book is devoted to them. But these discussions are woven into the central narrative in a manner designed to show their role in the war effort itself.

Customer Reviews:

Good introduction to ACW.......2005-03-30

American Iliad provides a well balanced introduction to the American Civil War despite its succinct length. It does glaze over the most important events, but still to limited to much more than a general introduction. For more in-depth research McPherson, Foote, Buell and Catton are the premiere scholars of the era.

A Good and Short Overview of the War........2000-04-12

This book gives a solid overview of the entire Civil War but doesn't read like a just the facts book.The book focus on the key events in both theaters of the war and has chapters on the homefronts as well as the poltical aspects of the war.

The American Iliad. The Epic Story of the Civil War.

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The American Iliad. The Epic Story of the Civil War.

Manufacturer: Bobbs-Merrill.
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000HAI726

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The American Iliad: The Epic Story of The Civil War
Otto Eisenschiml , and Ralph Newman
Manufacturer: Kessinger Publishing, LLC
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

The American Iliad: The Epic Story of the Civil War as Narrated By Eyewitnesses and Contemporaries

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The American Iliad: The Epic Story of the Civil War as Narrated By Eyewitnesses and Contemporaries
Otto; Newman, Ralph Eisenschiml
Manufacturer: The Bobbs-merril Company Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
ASIN: B000FMJI4M

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The American Iliad; The Epic Story of the Civil War as narrated by Eye

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The American Iliad; The Epic Story of the Civil War as narrated by Eye
Otto and Newman,Ralph EISENSCHIML
Manufacturer: see notes for publisher info
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover
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American Iliad: Story of Civil War
Roland
Manufacturer: McGraw-Hill Companies
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
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Book Description

Published in cloth in 2004, Strategic Ignorance revealed to countless readers the true scope of the Bush administration's assault on the environment. Midway through the second Bush term, with a Supreme Court far less likely to rein in the "wrecking crew"--as the authors describe those working to dismantle environmental protections--this book will be even more important and useful.
Strategic Ignorance sets forth not only the shocking Bush record but the stories and strategies behind it. Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and coauthor Paul Rauber brief us on the key administration figures, as well as legislators and lobbyists on the reactionary right, who strive to gut landmark laws; facilitate payback to polluters; distort, suppress, or ignore science; and invent soothing flimflam like "Clear Skies." The authors were prescient in predicting Bush's repeal of the Roadless Rule, the censoring of evidence on global warming, and the stonewalling on mercury emissions. They also foresaw the backlash now building: Congress rebelling against the EPA's "sewage blending" ploy, local opposition to coal-bed methane mining in the West, and resurgent environmental support at the polls.
Strategic Ignorance remains the indispensable guide to the Bush team's motives and tactics--and to how we can best oppose them to safeguard America's citizens, landscapes, and resources.

Download Description

George W. Bush was correct when he said that his critics "misunderestimate" him. A Texas oilman with a spotty environmental record as Texas governor, few expected him to be an "environmental president," as his father once claimed to be. Nobody, however, expected George W. to fundamentally alter the basic equation governing environmental protection in America. What we are witnessing now, assert Sierra Club executive director Carl Pope and coauthor Paul Rauber, is something larger even than the gutting of the Clean Air Act, abandonment of endangered species, selling out public lands to loggers and oilmen, and allowing polluting industries to write the regulations. The Bush administration seeks nothing less than to overturn the consensus on natural-resource policy that developed from the time of Theodore Roosevelt through the end of the Clinton administration. In place of government as the steward and protector of our nation's natural heritage, Bush and his political allies want to restore the nineteenth-century tradition of government as coconspirator in the economic exploitation of that heritage. Their sights are firmly set on dismantling a century of environmental progress. Brilliantly argued and full of damning evidence from the Bush administration's environmental record, Strategic Ignorance sets forth what the American public can and must do to bring a halt to Bush's radical experiment.

Customer Reviews:

America's Environment (and future) is For Sale!.......2006-08-24

Pope believes Bush has done his best to turn back the clock a full century on environmental progress. A prime mechanism for accomplishing this is through misleading verbiage - eg. "Healthy Forests" for logging, suppressing evidence on global warming, a "Clean Air" act that allows increased pollution, etc.

On the other hand, "Strategic Ignorance" is weak on specifics and documenting some of its points. For example, it criticizes renaming radioactive nuclear waste as "incidental waste," but doesn't tell us how radioactive the reclassified substances are. (There are several classes of nuclear waste, ranging from extremely dangerous to very mild.) It also claims, probably correctly, that there need be no tradeoff between auto-safety and fuel economy - especially when both vehicles are considered. However, specific data are not presented. A third example is that condemning the administration's recalculating the value of human life for use in cost/benefit analyses - yet, if done logically this offers a major tool in prioritizing regulatory focus. ("Strategic Ignorance" did not offer any evidence that the new calculations were in error.)

Recommendations include increasing auto fuel economy requirements, greater use of solar and wind energy, installing modern air pollution controls on older electric plants, restoring the Superfund tax, more controlled burns in the forests, and supporting the Kyoto objectives.

Bottom Line: Evidence from other areas (eg. Iraq, Katrina, tax breaks) suggest that "Strategic Ignorance" probably is close to being "on the money." However, it does not do a very good job of quantifying what is going on.

Expose of Faith Based Energy Policy.......2006-03-15

This book reveals a lot of facts most American's have missed. Why are policies that will determine Earth's future habitability Faith Based rather than Science Based? Why is the potential for clean safe nuclear power tied up with the future of leaky old plants that nearly destroyed Toledo? What companies and administration investments benefit from denying the realities of global warming?

More political than focused on invironmental policy.......2005-11-30

I used this book as a resource on a Global Warming paper I was doing in college. While some of the information in the book is useful, most of the book is a transparent attempt by a couple of democrats to bash the oppositions leader. The authors often abondon intellect and quality prose for childish and mean spirited cheap shots at the Bush administration. I don't agree with Bush's environmental policies either but authors of a book should be more careful about how they let their emotions play out.

Strategic ignorance of strategic ignorance?.......2005-08-17

This otherwise excellent account of George W. Bush's appalling environmental record (strategically?) ignores, and thereby condones, the President's three most deadly anti-environment policies: never-ending mass immigration, nearly open borders, and countless stealth attempts to reengineer more amnesties. These policies are fueling a US population explosion that is outstripping that of many Third World nations. Bush and Pope (and his Sierra Club) are something like the dazed South Asian islanders seen wading out into the sudden eerie low tide, oblivious to that high distant foaming crest, a tsunami, making its way, making its way.

Chronicling a return to the ethos of the robber barons.......2005-01-04

Carl Pope is the Executive Director of the Sierra Club and his co-author Paul Rauber is a senior editor at Sierra Magazine. Their prose is direct, clear and hard-hitting, and their book is a devastating indictment of the Bush administration's environmental polices.

Exhibit #1 is the big lie. As Pope and Rauber put it, the Bush administration's strategy is to "Say one thing, do another" and "Never admit what you're up to. Rather, assert the opposite repeatedly and despite all available evidence." (p. 24) The interesting thing about this is, what could be more authoritarian and anti-democratic?

Bush's so-called "Clear Skies" proposal, which is aimed at circumventing the Clean Air Act, is an excellent example of the big lie and of the Orwellian doublethink employed by Bush's people. The authors quote Vermont Senator Jim Jeffords as saying, "The President says one thing, but does another...With a straight face he talks about protecting resources for our children--even as he abandons the federal protection of land and air and water as fast as he can. Does he think we don't notice?" (p. 78)

Actually we don't, most of us anyway. It very hard for most people to believe that the President can call for "Clear Skies" and "Healthy Forests" while deliberately fostering the opposite. Yet, that is exactly what Bush does as this book so clearly and overwhelming demonstrates. The question might be why? Don't the people in the Bush administration love their children too?

Strange as it may seem the faith-based logic of the administration has Higher goals. It believes first that it is essential to reduce the size and effectiveness of government. Bush wants to make government less popular by making it less effective (see Chapter 13). But more than this is an underlining rationale that simultaneously desires a return to a social Darwinian ethos while believing that the Second Coming will make all of this irrelevant anyway. Reagan's Secretary of the Interior James Watt, who would fit nicely into the Bush administration except for his candid expression, put it like this when asked if it might not be wise to save something for future generations: "I don't know how many future generations we can count on until the Lord returns." (p. 25)

Meanwhile, no more "nanny state." Let's bring back the "social Darwinian notion of the struggle for existence as 'red in tooth and claw.'" Only "this time...the predators" will be "ruthless corporations, not carnivores." Let's "Stop coddling the public. Only wimps and trial lawyers worry about parts per million." (p. 23) Indeed, there is the idea that winning is its own justification, even if you cheat to win, and the devil take the hindmost.

Consequently it is not greed alone that is powering the Bush pollution machine. It is instead a kind of spiritual arrogance that allows the employment of a deliberate strategy of ignorance, as the authors see it, a strategy that allows Bush to reward polluters and others who desecrate America, without qualm, all in the name of a new sort of laissez faire mentality combined with a belief that this earth, this country and our lives are just stopping places on the way to the coming rapture. With this kind of mentality it doesn't matter what science says. The studies are really irrelevant. Junk science is as good as real science; indeed, the only science that matters is the science that agrees with the polluters.

Pope and Rauber detail in sharp focus how the Bush administration has perverted the scientific method and in effect substituted false rhetoric and lies for scientific experiment. But it is not enough to allow the contamination of our country by big corporations. It is also necessary that laws be passed that protect those corporations from being sued by people who may be harmed by their pollution. Therefore it is a top priority this year for the White House to see that laws are passed limiting the ability of citizens to sue those who pollute or otherwise harm them.

In addition to the indictment, the authors present a way to reclaim America's future as outlined in Chapter 15. Clearly at the top of the list of how to save America is to ENFORCE the Clean Air Act! The authors also want the Superfund tax restored so that polluters will have to pay for their own clean-ups instead of putting the burden on taxpayers. This is included in the "Ten Commonsense Solutions for the Next Twenty Years" that they present beginning on page 228.

To the commonsense solutions I would offer this: we need more journalists trained in environmental concerns and publishers who are not afraid to actually report what the administration is doing. If a wider public actually knew the extent of the despoiling of America being undertaken by George W. and friends, they would cry out long and loud and maybe something could be done about it. The authors offer, in an appalling Appendix beginning on page 241, a list of what Bush has done to the environment since taking office in 2001.

Messrs. Pope and Rauber are to be commended for their work in trying to counteract the horrors committed by the Bush administration, and Sierra Club Books and the University of California Press are to complimented on helping to produce such an outstanding and extremely important book.

And yes, rivers should NOT catch fire, nor should those who drop their waste on the rest of us get away with it.

Book Description

The Western Ghats of India, identified as a World Biodiversity hotspot by Birdlife International, is an ecological zone of global importance, and supports a variety of habitats--marine waters, mangroves, mixed hill forests, montane grasslands, and scrub forests. The birdlife of this vulnerable
hotspot of biodiversity has been comprehensively detailed in this book.

Birds Of Western Ghats, Kokan, And Malabar

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Birds Of Western Ghats, Kokan, And Malabar
Satish Pande
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: B000OLDPF2

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