Bill Text: MS SC574 | 2015 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Mourn the loss and remember the legacy of Mississippi Civil Rights Activist and Author Anne Moody of Gloster.
Sponsorship: Partisan Bill (Democrat 6)
Status: (Passed) 2015-03-09 - Enrolled Bill Signed [SC574 Detail]
Download: Mississippi-2015-SC574-Introduced.html
MISSISSIPPI LEGISLATURE
2015 Regular Session
To: Rules
By: Senator(s) Horhn, Butler (38th)
Senate Concurrent Resolution 574
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTION MOURNING THE LOSS AND REMEMBERING THE LEGACY OF MISSISSIPPI CIVIL RIGHTS ACTIVIST AND AUTHOR ANNE MOODY OF GLOSTER, MISSISSIPPI, AND EXPRESSING THE SYMPATHY OF THE LEGISLATURE.
WHEREAS, Anne Moody, whose memoir Coming of Age in Mississippi, gave a wrenching account of growing up poor in the segregated South and facing violence as a Civil Rights Activist, died February 5, 2015, at her home in the small Town of Gloster, Mississippi. She was 74; and
WHEREAS, on May 28, 1963, Anne Moody was among the students from historically black Tougaloo College who staged a sit-in at a segregated Woolworth's lunch counter in downtown Jackson, Mississippi. A photograph from the sit-in shows Moody sitting stoically at the five-and-dime counter with food on her head. Moody's eyes are downcast as a man pours more food on one of her fellow students, Joan Trumpauer. Moody wrote in her 1968 memoir that "all hell broke loose" after she and two other black students, Memphis Norman and Pearlena Lewis, prayed at the lunch counter; and
WHEREAS, the Jackson sit-in occurred more than three years after a more famous one in Greensboro, North Carolina. The one in Jackson happened after the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision that legalized sit-ins. Two weeks after the sit-in, Medgar Evers was assassinated outside his family's Jackson home; and
WHEREAS, future writer Anne Moody was born Essie Mae Moody on September 15, 1940, near the Town of Centerville in Mississippi's Wilkinson County. She was the eldest of several children. With her father leaving the family and her mother unable to make ends meet by herself, Moody started to earn income from work as early as the Fourth Grade, but was a devoted and popular student and played on the basketball team. She was eventually able to earn an athletic scholarship to the two-year Natchez Junior College and then earned an academic scholarship to Tougaloo College, graduating in 1964. As a college student, Anne Moody engaged in Civil Rights work for groups like the Congress of Racial Equality and the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee; and
WHEREAS, Coming of Age in Mississippi detailed her rural childhood, including very difficult times with her family, and subsequent activism. The book earned raves upon its publication, including accolades from The Nation, The Chicago Tribune and Senator Ted Kennedy in The New York Times Book Review. Coming of Age in Mississippi also won awards from the National Library Association and the National Council of Christians and Jews. Moody followed up her debut several years later with the fiction collection Mr. Death: Four Stories, released in 1975. She earned another award from Mademoiselle for the story "New Hopes for the Seventies." She later maintained a quiet life, working with antipoverty initiatives in New York. She was also said to have been penning another book, The Clay Gully, at the time of her death; and
WHEREAS, it is with sadness that we note the passing of a Mississippi citizen who was an example to others of how to live your convictions with courage, and she will be missed by all who were fortunate enough to have known her special wisdom:
NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE SENATE OF THE STATE OF MISSISSIPPI, THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES CONCURRING THEREIN, That we do hereby mourn the loss and celebrate the legacy of Mississippi Civil Rights Activist and Author Anne Moody of Gloster, Mississippi, and express to her surviving family the sympathy of the Legislature on her passing.
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, That this resolution be presented to the surviving family of Anne Moody, and made available to the Capitol Press Corps.
