Mayor recommends Anne Moody memoir highlighting Canton’s Civil Rights history

Courtesy of the Canton-Madison County Historical Society

During a recent Monday evening work session at City Hall, Mayor Tim Taylor recommended Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody, a memoir that offers a firsthand account of growing up in Mississippi during the era of segregation and the Civil Rights Movement.

First published in 1968, the autobiography follows Moody’s life from childhood through her activism, including her involvement in key moments of the Civil Rights Movement across Mississippi.

Moody, born Essie Mae Moody in 1940 in Centreville, Mississippi, later became known as “Anne” due to a clerical error on her birth certificate. When she requested a copy as a teenager, the incorrect name remained, and she chose to keep it.

The memoir provides a detailed and unflinching look at life for Black Mississippians in the 1940s and 1950s. Moody later became a civil rights activist and participated in the sit-in at the Woolworth’s lunch counter in Jackson.

She also worked extensively in Canton in 1963 on voting rights efforts at the Freedom House, which served as the Mississippi headquarters of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). The final sections of her book focus heavily on her experiences in Canton and the local Civil Rights Movement.

Moody passed away on February 5, 2015, in Gloster, Mississippi. Today, visitors to Centreville can find both a civil rights marker honoring her legacy and a literary marker recognizing the historical significance of her work.

Earlier this year, Canton’s Freedom House was also honored with a Freedom Trail marker, recognizing its role in the Civil Rights Movement and its place as the last surviving CORE Freedom House in Mississippi.