Term paper on Class backgrounds of the Anne Moody and other leaders of Black Power and Civil Rights movements

It’s interesting to emphasize that the origins of these people were different.

For instance, Gloria Richardson, a participant of Cambridge Movement, was born Maryland in a privileged environment and her family was one of the wealthiest citizens in the town they lived in.

Ann Moody was a poor black girl from a central Mississippi, her family lived on plantation: “Essie Mae’s mama and dad work all the time on the farm, so Essie Mae and her little sister stay at home alone or her uncle George Lee stay with them. George used to beat Essie while her mama and dad were gone to work at the farm. After a while Essie’s dad and mama separated, and Essie and her mother moved several times into different homes. Essie’s mother married a man named Raymond who was a soldier. By this time Essie’s mama had six children and another on the way. Anne was working for a white woman to help her family. She says, “Things seemed to get harder. Mama was always having another baby.” Essie was making six dollars a week, and she tried to help her mother buy food so they wouldn’t have to eat bread and water every day. As Essie and her family struggled, there was so much killing that Essie decided to spend the summer with her uncle in New Orleans, Louisiana. While in Louisiana she got a job at a cafe. She was only fifteen and a worker had to be eighteen. However, she got the job, but she told one of her co-workers her age. The co-worker told the boss, and Essie got fired.” (Moody 1976)

Organizational affiliation and Ideological orientations

Anne Moody had a relation to the SNCC group and also she was a participant of the NAACP, CORE, and SNCC. She worked for the Congress of Racial Equality and took a part in many civil rights activities for instance, Woolworth luncheon sit-in and the March on Washington. Anne has a good relationship with Dr. Martin Luther King and was a follower of a non-violence approach.

There was one substantial difference between Anne Moody and these movements: she hated discrimination and racism against blacks and whites and that’s why she has left the movement.

Gloria Richardson, a participant of Cambridge Movement against racial domination in Maryland, was rather a militant.

Organizing styles

In my opinion, the major difference in organization issues was that the dominance of the male leaders in such movements as CORE (Congress Of Racial Equality), Black Panther Party, or SNCC and they were concentrated on recruiting young people who were often injured in the aggressive protest activities. Even an intellectual lady Gloria Richardson, a member of Cambridge Movement, was supportive of the Malcolm X ideas and established a strong collaboration with him.

Anne Moody was not that radicalized and was more oriented on the non-violence approach.

Leaders of the movements: comparison of Huey P. Newton and Anne Moody

Among the male leaders of the civil right movements I could name a few bright figures such as Charles Evers, Rudy Shields, Father Groppi, Harold Wilson. They are all aspiring persons that show us the examples of self-definition and self-determination.

As an example of the male leader, I would like to suggest one of the Black Panther Party’s founders Huey P. Newton.
The Black Panther Party was a revolutionary leftist organization, it major distinguished characteristics were “provocative rhetoric and militant posture”.

Huey P. Newton had a very troubled childhood, he was born in Louisiana, but later his family has moved to California. When he graduated from school, he was illiterate and he was arrested a few times when he was a teenager.

Seale and Newton the founders of the Black Panther Party was strongly inspired by Malcolm X, and therefore later they even adopted his slogan “Freedom by any means necessary”.

To show the substantial differences in the approaches of Newton and Moody I would add the details of the Black Panther Party’s program – “armed citizens” patrols to evaluate the behavior of police officers and prevent police brutality”. You may feel the differences between these two leaders. Despite these differences, both figures are well known and respected for their contribution in the mutual fight for the civil rights in the United States.