The unforgettable memoir of a woman at the front lines of the civil rights movement—a harrowing account of black life in the rural South and a powerful affirmation of one person’s ability to affect change. “Anne Moody’s autobiography is an eloquent, moving testimonial to her courage.”—Chicago Tribune Born to a poor couple who were tenant farmers on a plantation in Mississippi, Anne Moody lived through some of the most dangerous days of the pre-civil rights era in the South. The week before she began high school came the news of Emmet Till’s lynching. Before then, she had “known the fear of hunger, hell, and the Devil. But now there was . . . the fear of being killed just because I was black.” In that moment was born the passion for freedom and justice that would change her life. A straight-A student who realized her dream of going to college when she won a basketball scholarship, she finally dared to join the NAACP in her junior year. Through the NAACP and later through CORE and SNCC, she experienced firsthand the demonstrations and sit-ins that were the mainstay of the civil rights movement—and the arrests and jailings, the shotguns, fire hoses, police dogs, billy clubs, and deadly force that were used to destroy it. A deeply personal story but also a portrait of a turning point in our nation’s destiny, this autobiography lets us see history in the making, through the eyes of one of the footsoldiers in the civil rights movement. Praise for Coming of Age in Mississippi “A history of our time, seen from the bottom up, through the eyes of someone who decided for herself that things had to be changed . . . a timely reminder that we cannot now relax.”—Senator Edward Kennedy, The New York Times Book Review “Something is new here . . . rural southern black life begins to speak. It hits the page like a natural force, crude and undeniable and, against all principles of beauty, beautiful.”—The Nation “Engrossing, sensitive, beautiful . . . so candid, so honest, and so touching, as to make it virtually impossible to put down.”—San Francisco Sun-Reporter

With contributions from Elizabeth Aydelott, Fred Banks, Jimmy Buffett, Edward Cohen, Maggie Wade Dixon, Ellen Douglas, W. Ralph Eubanks, Richard Ford, Gwendolyn Gong, Carolyn Haines, Lorian Hemingway, Samuel Jones, Robert Khayat, B. B. King, John Maxwell, Alberto Mora, Donald Peterson, Noel Polk, Jerry Rice, George Riggs, Robert St. John, Sid Salter, Constance Slaughter-Harvey, Elizabeth Spencer, Clifton Taulbert, Keith Tonkel, Sela Ward, Wyatt Waters, Jim Weatherly, and William Winter Growing Up in Mississippi shares experiences and impressions from a multifaceted group representing all areas of the state and many professions, talents, and temperaments. Parents, teachers, churches, communities, landscape, and historical context profoundly influenced these men and women when they were young. In his revealing foreword, Richard Ford explores the very essence of influence and illustrates his conclusions by recalling an indelible incident between his mother and himself in the front yard of their home on Congress Street in Jackson, Mississippi. The volume then showcases poignant memories of other distinguished individuals: a governor and statesman, journalists, a news anchor, a playwright, novelists, memoirists, a publisher, a minister, educators and scholars, judges and lawyers, a test pilot and astronaut, a renowned watercolorist, a celebrated actress, and many more. Spanning more than five decades, these essays give us a glimpse of the people and places that nurtured these outstanding individuals and their remarkable gifts.

Fiction recounting the experience of growing up in the Deep South

Set in 1933 Mississippi, this thought-provoking story about a young boy who lives in an environment of racial hatred will challenge young readers to question their own assumptions and confront personal decisions. Full color.

In 1963, the whirlpools of a changing culture inundate the Mississippi River region, where a young girl tries to comprehend and stay above the conflicting traditions that challenge her family's very survival.

1964 was the height of the Civil Rights and Wrongs Movement, and America was in turmoil. I was eight years old and visiting the town of Philadelphia, Mississippi for a family reunion. This story is about something I have remembered from that time, when I met two men on a creek bank in Neshoba County, Mississippi on August 6, 1964. I have always remembered what they said out loud in front of me. The one with the hat said, "Judge, go up there and find out who's muddying up the water," and the tall slender man said, "You're the Lawman-you go up there and find out who’s muddying up the water." I’ve always wondered why I met two men that were a judge and a lawman. Meanwhile, 50 years later while doing research on the Internet, I discovered information pertaining to the identity of the middle man between the FBI and the person who helped solve the mystery of the whereabouts of the three civil rights workers that went missing on June 21, 1964. He was Commander of the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol in Meridian, Mississippi. But the identity of the local Neshoba County Citizen that helped the FBI is still unknown. I know who is America’s unsung hero!

"It's in the nature of things that whole worlds disappear," writes the poet Robert Hass in the foreword to Jimmye Hillman's insightful memoir. "Their vanishings, more often than not, go unrecorded or pass into myth, just as they slip from the memory of the living." To ensure that the world of Jimmye Hillman's childhood in Greene County, Mississippi during the Great Depression doesn't slip away, he has gathered together accounts of his family and the other people of Old Washington village. There are humorous stories of hog hunting and heart-wrenching tales of poverty set against a rural backdrop shaded by the local social, religious, and political climate of the time. Jimmye and his family were subsistence farmers out of bare-bones necessity, decades before discussions about sustainability made such practices laudable. More than just childhood memories and a family saga, though, this book serves as a snapshot of the natural, historical, and linguistic details of the time and place. It is a remarkable record of Southern life. Observations loaded with detail uncover broader themes of work, family loyalty, and the politics of changing times. Hillman, now eighty-eight, went on to a distinguished career as an economist specializing in agriculture. He realizes the importance of his story as an example of the cultural history of the Deep South but allows readers to discover the significance on their own by witnessing the lives of a colorful cast of characters. Hogs, Mules, and Yellow Dogs is unique, a blend of humor and reflection, wisdom and sympathy—but it's also a hard-nosed look at the realities of living on a dirt farm in a vanished world.