Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi summary
Towards the end of Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody recalls her trip to Washington D.C. in 1963, during which she watched Martin Luther King give his “I Have a Dream” speech. At that moment, Moody says she discovered the Civil Rights Movement “had ‘dreamers’ instead of leaders leading us.” Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, page 335. Similarly, at the end of the second part of the documentary “Eyes on the Prize,” Dave Dennis expresses similar doubt about the effectiveness of non-violent action in an increasingly violent and repressive society. Write a 2000-2500 word paper (roughly 6-8 pages) that (1) summarizes Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi, and then (2) explains how and why such sincere activists like Moody and Dennis could have moved away from King’s message of non-violence, and instead embraced a more militant approach to Civil Rights reform. In addition, your paper should also take a position on whether or not King’s message of nonviolence was the better option. In other words, in your mind, did Malcolm X’s and the Black Panthers’ approach to reform – with their emphases on self-defense and black nationalism – harm the broader Civil Rights Movement, or were their tactics justified, and perhaps even beneficial, given the continued oppression they and other black Americans faced? To answer this question you must: Read all of Moody 1. Read all of Moody 2. Watch both parts of the documentary (available under the Paper folder in the Content tab on D2L) 3. And incorporate 6 of the 10 supplemental readings, also available in the Paper folder in the Content tab on D2L. You’ll see none of the readings are very long, but each offers additional insight into the struggle within the Civil Rights Movement over how best to achieve real equality. To cite these sources, please use footnotes and follow these examples: other sources 1. Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi, pages 234-235. 2. “Eyes on the Prize” Part 1. 3. “MLK from Jail,” page 2. 4. “Malcolm X – Message to the Grassroots,” page 2-3.
