How would you like it if you were walking down the street and people, white people, started throwing rocks at your head? And to find out that the only reason is because you are a different color. Our history is a contradiction; a nation based on freedom once did not give all people the right to live freely. On a day-to-day basis blacks once struggled with social, economical, and political problems. But as they struggled they managed to improve their status with many organizations, such as the Nation Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), Congress on Racial Equality (CORE), and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). In the book, Coming of Age in Mississippi, Anne Moody discusses the hardships that blacks endured and the salvation that blacks achieved in order to become not "separate, but equal." .
In Anne Moody's novel she reveals the social trauma of black life in Mississippi. She explains the fear that overwhelmed her when one of her peers was murdered, "But now there was a new fear known to me -the fear of being killed just because I was black" (Anne Moody. Coming of Age in Mississippi. United States of America: The Dial Press, Inc., 1968. 107.). Every black person in the South had to fear where they were or what they would say to a white person. The fear was extreme because even if you looked at someone the wrong way they would hurt or kill you. The reason Moody's friend was murdered was because he whistled at a white woman. There were many other social problems African Americans faced, such as whites and blacks becoming friends. Many older whites and blacks were against there children becoming friends. As Anne tried to befriend a young man named Wayne Burke, but his mother, Mrs. Burke, tried everything in her power not to bring them together, such as trying to attack her own character as Anne states, "[Ms. Burke] made me feel like rotten garbage" (Moody 107).