Coming of Age in Mississippi

by Anne Moody

  We met around three. She was good, she was really good. We practiced the Fly and the Bear until we had them perfect. While we were doing the Fly for the last time, we were interrupted by a short, muscular dark-skinned boy.

  “My, my, my. What acrobats,” he said. “I’m Paul. Do you girls mind letting me in on what’s going on?”

  Freddie, who was standing on my knees, seemed a little embarrassed again. I was too. I had to set this cat straight.

  “Look,” I said, “we’re practicing for the talent show tomorrow night.”

  “No! No! I didn’t mean no harm,” he said. “You see, my major is P.E. I was just interested. I was trying to think of something to do in the talent show, too. I think maybe the three of us could win first prize.”

  He looked sincere, so I said, “O.K. What can you do?”

  “Just about anything.”

  “Can you tumble?” I asked.

  “Yes,” he nodded.

  “What about the Logroll?”

  “Sure.”

  “O.K. That’s great,” I said. “We have a team. Here is what we’re going to do. The Bear, the Fly, the Logroll, and some tumbling.”

  “I can walk on my hands,” he said. “Let’s do that.”

  “I can’t do that,” I said, “but it’s O.K. if you do it.”

  The three of us agreed to meet the next day and practice for an hour or so. We needed other people, so I went around looking for other girls to squat for us. I found three just before dinner. They thought I was crazy, but I didn’t mind. Freddie also had three or four friends she could depend on, so in about three hours we were to go on stage as unorganized as could be.

  The show started around eight-thirty or a little after. I was kind of nervous about all those scared freshman girls that were supposed to squat for us. They were so damn scared we would fall on them or something that they might suddenly disappear before we went on. I kept an eye on them to make sure they didn’t. There was not too much on the show except singing for quite some time. It was getting boring. Then just as I began to think of how we were going to show up all those singers, I was shocked. My eyes were glued to the stage as a tall, skinny guy was doing the limbo. He was well over six feet four. Each time he passed under the pole, it was lowered. It kept going down lower and lower, but no part of his body ever touched it and I mean it was low. Finally it was lowered about a foot from the floor. Boys in the audience began betting each other that he couldn’t do it. Everyone was all worked up. I knew he was going to win. He went under that pole twelve inches from the floor, feet still flat, and didn’t touch that damn pole anywhere.

  Next a guy came on playing a set of bongo drums. The audience seemed impressed. They were rocking heads and clapping hands rhythmically with the drums. I didn’t think he was so good. I just thought they were still excited from the performance of that limbo cat, because I was.

  Now it was our turn. I beckoned to my crowd, and we walked backstage looking like a bunch of beatniks or something. Boys began bellowing to Ramona, the M.C., “What’s going on, Ramona? What are they going to do?” Ramona shrugged her shoulders, indicating she didn’t know. When she introduced us, she said, “Next on the program we have Anne Moody and the Tumblers.”

  I put my best smile on and walked to the center of the stage. The reaction from the crowd was wild, especially the boys. They started shouting, whistling, and carrying on something terrible. I wore some skin-tight red short shorts over black leotards and looked even taller than five feet nine. I guess it was the contrast of the colors that started the boys. Maybe they thought they were going to see some sort of a burlesque. I stopped blushing and smiling long enough to say, “We’ll do the Bear followed by the Fly, the Logroll, and a little bit of tumbling.” Someone in the audience said, “Sho-o-o-o-nuff!”

  I beckoned for Freddie. She walked to the center of the stage and we stood facing each other. I again turned to the audience and said, “If this act reminds you of a bear, let us know by your generous applause.” As I stood facing Freddie again, I opened my legs by placing my feet about two feet apart; then I braced myself. Freddie placed a hand on each of my shoulders. She then jumped around my waist, locking her legs behind my back with her hands clasped to my ankles. I leaned forward until the palms of my hands were flat on the floor. I began to walk on my hands and feet. The audience applauded long after we had stopped. The Fly and the Logroll also received lots of applause. Then Paul and I tumbled. We started by diving over one person squatted on hands and knees on the floor. Each dive was completed with a forward roll. Another person squatted next to the first one, we then dove over two, then three lined up side by side. After that, one person was placed on top of the one squatting on the center. We completed that dive successfully. This left the audience tense and worried that something would happen. By the time Paul and I had dived over nine bodies stacked like a pyramid, the entire audience was standing. The applause went on and on. We all came to the center of the stage and bowed. As we were about to walk off the stage, Paul started walking all around on his hands. The audience laughed, whistled, and applauded even louder, and some shouted, “More! More! More!” I knew we were too much for them. After a couple of songs the show ended. We received first prize, the limbo cat second, and one of the girls that sang got the third prize.

  After the show was over and our prize had been awarded, the Dean of the College stopped me to say that we were good, and that if we would like to do something with our talent, the school was ready to help us. He asked me if I was a physical education major. I said no, that my intention was to major in biology. A few days later he sent the physical education instructor to talk to me and I told her the same thing.

  Soon after classes began, I discovered I had only one Negro teacher for the semester. I began to get scared all over again. I had never had a white teacher before. Now I wished I had gone to L.S.U. I knew the whites in New Orleans weren’t half as bad as the ones in Mississippi. I kept remembering the ones in my hometown, those that had Samuel O’Quinn murdered, those that burned the entire Taplin family, and those I worked for who treated me like a secondhand dirty dish towel. I got so damn mad just sitting there thinking about those white teachers, chills started running down my back. I knew that if they were at all like the whites I had previously known, I would leave the school immediately.

  By this time I had become friendly with my second roommate, Trotter, who was even darker than me. I asked her whether or not she thought I could take it at Tougaloo. If I couldn’t, I didn’t want to waste my little bit of money.

  Trotter laughed and said, “Girl, I had the same feeling when I was a freshman. I came here scared stiff. I didn’t know what to expect. I had heard about the white teachers, the high yellow students and all.”

  “I’m an A student, Trotter, but I’ve never had any of those tough white teachers. I know I’m going to have some problems.”

  “No, no, Moody. I came from a little country high school too. Here I am an honor student. You can do the same. All teachers start off pretending they are hot shit. It’s the same with Negro teachers. You know that.”

  “If their disposition is anything similar to the whites in my hometown, I couldn’t take that shit either,” I said.

  “But these teachers here on campus are all from up North or Europe or someplace. We don’t have one white teacher here from the South. Northern whites have a different attitude toward Negroes.”

  “I certainly hope so,” I said, relieved of some of my fright.

  By the time mid-semester exams rolled in, I had gotten off to a very good start. It looked as though I could make the honor roll if I continued at this pace. I began to relax. I started taking time with my clothes, watching my weight, and wanting to look good. Keemp had not written in about a month. I started to worry because I knew that most of my girlfriends at Natchez College wanted him. I thought I’d better find me someone at Tougaloo to pass the time with. I knew I’d have to do some looking since there were three
girls on campus to every boy. Three or four guys showed lots of interest in me, but they were already dating girls I knew. Finally, in December, I started dating one of them—a guy named Dave Jones.

  As it turned out, when the semester ended, I didn’t make that damn honor roll. I came out with three points less than I needed. I rationalized by blaming my downfall on my adjustment to the white teachers. However, the real cause was that damn Dave. All he could think of after we had gone together for a month was going to bed. I didn’t even like him that much—not enough to go to bed with him anyway. When we had a so-called “adult discussion” about sex, as he called it, I told him that I was a virgin and I was afraid to be screwing around on campus. He kept telling me that he would take care of me, that he wouldn’t hurt me, and all that shit. To get him off my back, I told him that I would only when I felt that I was ready. After another month or so when I still wasn’t ready, he got mad, and one night in the park, he tried to take me. We were walking back from the “Greasy Spoon,” a little student hangout right outside the campus gate. He had drunk quite a bit of beer and now he suggested that we sit on a bench and talk for a while. I agreed only to discover that he wanted to start petting and going on.

  “Dave, let’s go. O.K.?” I said.

  “Why are you in such a hurry? It’s Saturday night. You could sleep late tomorrow.”

  “I just want to go,” I said, trembling.

  “O.K.,” he said, “give me one sweet kiss and we can leave.”

  When I kissed him, I could taste the beer and cigarettes he’d had at the Greasy Spoon. I didn’t like this at all, so I drew away. He got mad and jerked me to him, kissing me hard. He started caressing my breasts and breathing on my neck and everything.

  “Let go of me, Dave!” I started crying. Then we saw another couple coming through the gate. Dave didn’t want to act as if something was going on, so he let me go, but held on to my sweater. I jumped up to leave and tore every button off it. I ran back to the dormitory, vowing I would never see Dave again.

  On Monday I got a letter from him begging me to forgive him. He promised to buy me a new sweater and everything. I didn’t want to go through that shit again, so I just acted as if I hadn’t got the letter. He had asked me to call him, but I wouldn’t. I was through and that was that.

  One night, shortly after Dave and I had broken up, I asked Trotter what kind of meetings she was always going to. She said, “I thought you knew. I’m secretary of the NAACP chapter here on campus.”

  “I didn’t even know they had a chapter here,” I said.

  “Why don’t you become a member? We’re starting a voter registration drive in Hinds County and we need canvassers. Besides, it would give you something to do in your spare time, now that you don’t see Dave anymore.”

  I promised her that I would go to the next meeting. All that night I didn’t sleep. Everything started coming back to me. I thought of Samuel O’Quinn. I thought of how he had been shot in the back with a shotgun because they suspected him of being a member. I thought of Reverend Dupree and his family who had been run out of Woodville when I was a senior in high school, and all he had done was to get up and mention NAACP in a sermon. The more I remembered the killings, beatings, and intimidations, the more I worried what might possibly happen to me or my family if I joined the NAACP. But I knew I was going to join, anyway. I had wanted to for a long time.

  Chapter

  TWENTY-ONE

  A few weeks after I got involved with the Tougaloo chapter of the NAACP, they organized a demonstration at the state fair in Jackson. Just before it was to come off, Medgar Evers came to campus and gave a big hearty speech about how “Jackson was gonna move.” Tougaloo sent four picketers to the fair, and one of them was Dave Jones. Because he was chosen to be the spokesman for the group, he was the first to be interviewed on TV. That evening when the demonstration was televised on all the news programs, it seemed as though every girl in the dorm was down in the lounge in front of the set. They were all shooting off about how they would take part in the next demonstration. The girl Dave was now seeing was running all around talking about how good he looked.

  Dave and the other demonstrators had been arrested and were to be bailed out around eight that night. By eight-thirty a lot of us were sitting outside on the dormitory steps awaiting their arrival, and they still hadn’t shown up. One of the girls had just gone inside to call the NAACP headquarters in Jackson, when suddenly two police cars came speeding through the campus. Students came running from every building. Within minutes the police cars were completely surrounded, blocked in from every direction. There were two cops in the front seat of each car. They looked frightened to death of us. When the students got out of the cars, they were hugged, kissed, and congratulated for well over an hour. All during this time the cops remained in their seats behind locked doors. Finally someone started singing “We Shall Overcome,” and everyone joined in. When we finished singing, someone suggested we go to the football field and have a big rally. In minutes every student was on the football field singing all kinds of freedom songs, giving testimonies as to what we were going to do, and praying and carrying on something terrible. The rally ended at twelve-thirty, and by this time all the students were ready to tear Jackson to pieces.

  The following evening Medgar Evers again came to campus to, as he put it, “get some of Tougaloo’s spirit and try and spread it around all over Jackson.” He gave us a good pep talk and said we would be called upon from time to time to demonstrate.

  That spring term I had really wanted to do well in all my subjects, but I had become so wrapped up in the Movement that by the time mid-semester grades came out, I had barely a one-point average. Other students who had gotten involved with the NAACP were actually flunking. I started concentrating more on my work—with little success. It seemed as though everything was going wrong.

  In addition to my academic problems, I was running out of money. In May I was so broke, I could not pay my last month’s bill and was forced to write Mama and ask her to send me thirty dollars. A couple of weeks went by without a letter from her. If Mama had the money, I knew she would have sent it. Apparently she didn’t have it, but why didn’t she write anyway? Finally I got a letter from Adline, who was working in New Orleans. Mama had written Adline and asked her to send me some money, because Raymond wouldn’t let her send me any herself. Adline could only spare ten dollars, and she wrote me that she was sorry I had gone to Tougaloo when I knew I could not afford it.

  The letter made me so mad that I was sick all the next week. I decided to write Emma and ask her for the thirty dollars. She sent me forty right away and said that she and my daddy would have helped me more and that they wanted to, but my daddy had been bothered with his back and had not been working.

  Emma’s money took care of the spring term, but now I was faced with the problem of the summer. I had to make up some credits in summer school, and I was counting on getting a student loan.

  One day as I passed the main bulletin board on campus, I noticed a memorandum from the Dean, saying that applications for federal loans had to be turned in before the week was up. The next day I stopped in at the Dean’s office to pick up a form. His secretary told me that I was too late. There were too many applicants already. I went to see the Dean, and had to give him my whole damn life history. I didn’t like that at all, but I needed the money. I told him I wouldn’t be able to graduate next year if I couldn’t go to summer school. He wasn’t very encouraging, but he gave me a form to fill out just in case one of the other students had a change in plans. My luck was so bad, I didn’t believe this could possibly happen.

  By now I was so low I needed someone’s comfort. I started seeing Dave again, and the same old trouble started. But this time I didn’t care so much. School would be out soon and I wouldn’t see him again. Dave would graduate if anyone did. He had even received a Woodrow Wilson fellowship.

  I took my final exams and was preparing to leave the campus, whe
n I received a notice from the Dean’s office. It said that I had been given the sum of one hundred fifty dollars to assist me in summer school. Even though I had asked for three hundred, I started feeling better—better than I had felt in a long time. I didn’t know how I would manage on a hundred and fifty dollars, but I knew I would find some way to do it.

  ———

  During the summer a white student moved into the room across the hall from me. Her name was Joan Trumpauer, and she told me she worked for SNCC as a secretary. In a short time we got to know each other very well, and soon I was going into Jackson with Joan and hanging out at her office. SNCC was starting a voter registration drive in the Delta (Greenwood and Greenville) and was recruiting students at Tougaloo. When they asked me if I wanted to canvass every other weekend, I agreed to go.

  The first time I went to the Delta, I was with three other girls. A local family put us up and we slept two to a room. The second time I was there I stayed at the Freedom House—a huge white frame house that SNCC was renting from a widow for sixty dollars a month. This time I was with Bettye Poole, who had been canvassing for SNCC for a couple of months, and Carolyn Quinn, a new recruit like me. We arrived at the Freedom House on a Friday night about twelve-thirty and found fifteen boys all sleeping in one large room on triple-decker beds. They were all sleeping in their clothes. Some of the boys got up and we played cards for a while. A couple of them were from McComb, Mississippi, which was only twenty miles from Centreville. We cracked jokes about how bad the whites were in Wilkinson County. Around 2 A.M. I started to get sleepy and asked where the girls were going to stay. I was told we were going to stay right in the same room with all those boys. I was some shocked. Now I understood why Bettye Poole was wearing jeans; just then she was climbing into one of the empty bunks and settling down for the night. Here I was with only a transparent nylon pajama set to sleep in. Carolyn Quinn wasn’t prepared either. The two of us just sat up in chairs until some extra pairs of pants were found for us. The boys explained that they slept in their clothes because they had had bomb threats, and had to be ready to run anytime. They all slept here in this one big room because it was sheltered by another house.