Coming Of Age In Mississippi

“Again he beat me up. Then he carried us on the porch. I was still crying so he slapped me, knocking me clean off the porch. As I fell I hit my head on the side of the steps and blood came gushing out.” 

Moody has a strong early childhood experience of her uncle George Lee bullying and beating her. This is the beginning of her knowledge of power dynamics; she knows how it feels to be helpless. Since Moody is impatient with other people who will not stand up for themselves, she resents her own weakness and inability to defend herself in this situation.

“Daddy must have beaten me a good ten minutes before Mama realized he has lost his senses and came to rescue me. I tried to sit down once. It was impossible. It was hurting so bad even standing was painful.” 

George Lee starts a fire and lies, saying that Moody was the one who started it. Even though Moody denies starting the fire, Daddy does not listen or believe her. Instead, he teaches her a lesson so that she will not play with fire again. This experience forms Moody’s strong sense of justice and injustice. She does not forget what George Lee did, even in her 20s. Moody later resists being unfairly blamed and punished as a college student at Natchez College.

“It was the first time I had seen the inside of a white family’s kitchen. That kitchen was pretty, all white and shiny. Mama had cooked that food we were eating too. ‘If Mama only had a kitchen like this of her own,’ I thought, ‘she could cook better food for us.’” 

Mama works for white people and cooks food for them. Moody and her siblings eat the leftovers on Saturday evenings in the white family’s kitchen. Moody begins to understand that there is a difference between her family’s house and the houses of white people. There is a difference between black and white people, but she has not yet figured out what that difference is.