Common Read
Page address: https://web.mnsu.edu/commonread/previous/2014/Comingofage2014.htmlCommon Read 2014-2015
Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody
Anne Moody’s Coming of Age in Mississippi is a 1968 memoir about growing up black in Mississippi in the 1940s and 1950s. Moody, a friend of Joan (Trumpauer) Mulholland, participated in the famous Woolworth’s sit-in that occurred on May 28, 1963 in Jackson, Mississippi.
Campus Events
On Tuesday, September 9, 2014, historian M.J. O’Brien and civil rights
activist Joan (Trumpauer) Mulholland discussed the history of the Jackson,
Miss., Civil Rights Movement in a presentation in Minnesota State University,
Mankato’s Centennial Student Union Ballroom.
Joan Trumpauer Mulholland
participated in the famous Woolworth’s sit-in that occurred on May 28, 1963 in
Jackson, Miss. Other sit-in participants included a group of students and
faculty from Tougaloo College, a private and historically black institution in
north Jackson. The sit-in took place during a time when racial segregation was
prevalent in Jackson. A mob arrived, and some students were beaten. The events
of the day are summarized in a USA Today article
here.
On Wednesday, September 10, 2014, “An Ordinary Hero,” a
90-minute film documentary about Mulholland’s life and experiences in the Civil
Rights Movement, was shown in Ostrander Auditorium, located in Minnesota State
Mankato’s Centennial Student Union. A question and answer session with
Mulholland followed.
M.J. O’Brien is an independent writer who lives and
works in Vienna, Va. His first book, “We Shall Not Be Moved: The Jackson
Woolworth’s Sit-In and the Movement It Inspired,” was awarded the prestigious
Lillian Smith Book Award, which, according to Wikipedia, honors books and their
authors who “through their writing, carry on Smith’s legacy of elucidating the
conditions of racial and social inequality and proposing a vision of justice and
human understanding.”