Draft of Paper 4

A central theme of Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi is the role of religion in the black community’s culture. Her childhood memories of church, getting baptized, and the moral beliefs instilled within her and her surrounding communities helped Moody initiate her own ideas of faith, which, consequentially, were pivotal factors in her successes in college and in her work with the Movement. Moody depicts religion as consumption; it is what nourished the black community and fueled their energy for obtaining equality. By participating in religion, blacks could escape the realities of racism and experience inclusion and belonging in a community safe-haven. This paper will argue that the continual violence Moody experienced and witnessed led her to lose the faith in God that once nourished her; this, in turn, drove her escape from religion.

The church was a place blacks could run to in order to escape from the harsh realities that shaped their daily lives. It was a social outlet, a place for extracurricular activities, and most importantly, a safe haven. Yet the church and religious involvement provided different escapes for different individuals and its purposes could change over time. For some, such as Moody’s mother, the church was a place where she thought if she dressed nice enough and acted a certain way, she would be accepted by Raymond’s family who never took a liking to her. For Moody, she first saw Centreville Baptist as a place where she could join the choir (Moody 62). Her involvement in church activities gave her an extracurricular escape from school and work. When she joined the Movement in college, religion became the backbone of the nonviolent passive resistance Moody engaged in. And ultimately, the Birmingham church bombing drove Moody away from the church and religion, disowning the institution which nourished her spirit for so many years.

Many of Moody’s earliest childhood memories revolve around religious occasions, emphasizing the prominent cultural role religion played. Furthermore, Moody’s descriptions of religious celebrations center around consumption, highlighting the nourishment that participating in the event brought, whether that be food, community involvement, or entertainment. She reminisces celebrating Easter Sunday with her family and eating the eggs they found in the grass (Moody 18). She classifies the Christmas where they had all the traditional foods as her first real Christmas:

“The following morning I got up and smelled apples and oranges all over the house. The kitchen was scented with freshly baked cakes and I heard carols playing on the new radio. I thought of the past and what all the other Christmases had been like. For the first time this seemed to me like a real Christmas” (Moody 59).

Moody’s description of the process of joining the church best illustrates the cultural meaning of religion for the black community. The pressure to join the church by becoming baptized was a matter of cultural and community acceptance. Moody’s depiction of the church services were cult-like as the Reverend and other church members preached and sang about how those who were not baptized would be punished by evil sprits and demons. However, the true meaning of becoming baptized was to be included in an institution which through spirit, faith, and energy bonded and nourished the black community.

Despite the church’s spiritual and social nourishment, the violence that happened all too often led Moody to question God and forgiveness. Yet her skepticism with the church began before the violence; rather, it began with her baptism. The first piece of Moody’s foreshadowing evidence of her rejecting the church was when her Mother laid out her two church dresses:

“When she said that the white dress symbolized that I was entering the church pure and the blue one meant that I would always be true and faithful to the church, I felt more than ever like running away,” (Moody 75).

The instances, however, which were the driving forces behind Moody’s ultimate dismissal of religion, were the violent atrocities she experienced and witnessed. As a high school student, the first violent act Moody describes was the murder of 14-year-old Emmett Till. Up until Emmett Till’s death, Moody’s understanding of the murdering of blacks came from her mother’s assertion that it was a punishment from an Evil Spirit; she was told, “You gotta be a good girl or it will kill you too,” (Moody 127). Emmett Till’s death not only marked Moody’s first understanding of racist murder, but also marked her beginning to lose faith in her own community:

“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. Anyway, it was at this stage in my life that I began to look upon Negro men as cowards,” (Moody 136).

Not too long after Emmett Till’s murder, Moody and the black community were haunted by the Taplin burning. Moody’s recollection of staring at the debris and ashes covering the murdered bodies and observing the expressions of hopelessness streaked over the community is another example which foreshadows her abandonment of faith:

“The still, sad faces watched the smoke rising from the remains until the smoke died down to practically nothing. There was something strange about that smoke. It was the thickest and blackest smoke I had ever seen…Those screams, those faces, that smoke, would never leave me,” (Moody 143).

Moody’s language and imagery in this passage are particularly noteworthy; one can interpret that the smoke serves as a metaphor for the dwindling faith and hope Moody has begun to feel for both her religion and her community. The image of thick, black smoke rising and dying to nothing symbolizes the faith and hope that Moody could once, but no longer, connect with. The sound of the screams and the images of the faces and the smoke can be interpreted as constant reminders of her loss of faith and hope. Following this interpretation, those images, which undoubtedly replayed continuously in her head, could have contributed to her eventual dismissal with religion as a whole.

Moody’s loss of faith climaxed with the Birmingham church bombing on September 15, 1963. This was the first account of a violent crime occurring in a church, representing the ultimate heartache for the black community. The church, which symbolized safety, peace, hope, faith, and inclusion, had become a battleground. Moody’s immediate escape into the woods to talk to God reflects that she can no longer find safety or peace in the church. Rather than escaping to God and the church, Moody’s monologue to God is her quintessential escape from the religious institution which once nourished her perseverance:

“You know, I used to go to Sunday school when I was a little girl…we were taught how merciful and forgiving you are…. I believed in you… I bet you those girls in Sunday school were being taught the same as I was when I was their age… As long as I live, I’ll never be beaten by a white man again… Nonviolence is out…. Tell him [Martin Luther King] that nonviolence has served its purpose….If you don’t believe that, then I know you must be white, too. And if I ever find out you are white, then I’m through with you. And if I find out you are black, I’ll try my best to kill you when I get to heaven…. I will be my own God, living my life as I see fit….” (Moody 349).

Moody’s words are powerful and exhibit the personal authority she has given herself. Her anger and frustration have amounted to her decision to, essentially, become agnostic. We expect that her disbelief in God and religion stem from segregation and racism. Interestingly enough, when Moody first experienced participating in a racially integrated church, she comments how uncomfortable she felt. Her questioning of God’s race, as if God has a race, reflect the segregation that is implanted within her. Her commentary argues that God was not a universal being for everyone and could not provide justice or equality; her understanding of God failing her expectations, arguably, drove her away from religion entirely:
“I stood there for a good five minutes before I was able to compose myself. I had never prayed with white people in a white church before….It was as normal as any church service. However, it was by no means normal to me. I was sitting there thinking any moment God would strike the life out of me. I recognized some of the whites, sitting around me in that church. If they were praying to the same God I was, then even God, I thought, was against me” (Moody 312).

In thinking about the Civil Rights Movement, the belief in faith amongst the black community is what fostered their hard will and ultimate accomplishments. It was the backbone of what held their community together in the arduous times. The merciful and hopeful spirits blacks embraced cultivated their nonviolent passive resistance. While it is ironic that Moody rejected the principles which she fought so intensely for with the Movement, it is also understandable for her to have felt rejected from God. Her conversations with God always include her preaching that the God she learned existed was not the God that existed for her at the time. After the Birmingham bombing, George said he prayed for no more violence and Moody spat out, “Why in the hell should we be praying all the time?...We’ve been praying way too long. Yes, as a race all we’ve got is a lot of religion. And the white man’s got everything else, including all the dynamite” (Moody 350). The tone and energy behind her words illustrate her sentiment that praying was not an effective solution for the outcomes they hoped for. She made the assertion that while prayer, faith, religion, and God were at one time enough nourishment for the black community, it was no longer sufficient. They would have to find nourishment and satisfaction from other means.