Summary Of Essie Mae's Coming Of Age In Mississippi

Coming of age in Mississippi This book is split up into four different sections. It starts off with a little girl named Essie Mae, talking about her childhood and the experiences she went through, the book goes on to talk about her high school experience, her college experience and the experiences she had throughout the movement she had joined supported. This book should how Essie Mae went through life and how she grew up, overcame obstacles and pushed through the problems to get where she wanted to go in life. Essie Mae throughout her childhood was pretty shelter to the world of discrimination and the difference between white people and black people. She knew there was a difference but she didn’t know why and to what extent. In the …show more content…
Essie Mae was always asking questions but her mother would never answer them. Mrs. Rice was the only one who would educate Essie Mae about the white people and how they treated black people. Essie Mae came to find out a lot about the horrible way blacks were treated and she was in shock because she hadn’t known about any of this before. She had heard about Emmet tills death, her classmate jerry getting beaten, and the Taplin family getting burnt up in their house. Essie Mae had moved back and forth to and from New Orleans and Centreville looking for work, she was always wanted and needing for money. Essae Mae saved money every time she was paid. She was saving for college, she was determined to get out of Centreville and go to college. When living in Centreville she worked for a woman by the name of Mrs. Burke who she was scared of and wasn’t very fond of. She tutored her boy Wayne and Essie Mae didn’t understand why Mrs. Burke didn’t want them hanging out until she hearing about integrating and people having sexual relationships with other races, that’s when she realized why Mrs. Burke was always nagging. By this time Essie Mae’s stay in Centreville was coming to and end, she quit Mrs. Burke’s because of how she was being treated and because she felt herself liking Wayne more than a fired and she knew that would get her into trouble. Right before she was getting ready to graduate high school and …show more content…
She became more and more aware of how she wanted and demanded to be treated. While she went to school there she was voiced her opinion quiet often. She did a lot of growing while she attended this school. By the end of her time at Natchez she was worried about money and how she would finish college, the dean helped her to find a scholarship and her family helped with the rest of the little money she needed to finish out her time. She later attended Tougaloo College. This was the best Negro college in the state. While she attended this school she was introduced to a group called the NAACP. She had heard about them before but never thought shed join. She did join not shortly after and found herself attending conventions and other things of this sort. Her mother warned her that it was a bad idea to join and attend these things, Essie Mae didn’t care. Essie Mae started standing up for her beliefs and standing up for the rest of the black PEOPLE SHE KNEW. She had been angry at all the black people back in Centreville for not standing up for themselves and now Essie Mae wasn’t going to sit around and be scared away by the white people. Black people were being killed for protesting and picketing. Essie Mae continued to fight for what she believed in. Essie Mae came up with reasons why segregation, poverty, and discrimination were happening, she said it was the federal government who was to blame. Essie