“I had counted on graduating in the spring of 1963, but as it turned out, I couldn’t because some of my credits still had to be cleared with Natchez College. A year before, this would have seemed like a terrible disaster, but now I hardly even felt disappointed. I had a good excuse to stay on campus for the summer and work with the Movement, and this was what I really wanted to do. I couldn’t go home again anyway, and I couldn’t go to New Orleans—I didn’t have money enough for bus fare.”
Anne Moody realizes that graduating would hinder her from being active and in the front line in the movement against racial discrimination. For Moody, being in the movement is more significant than graduating. If Moody lacked an intrinsic drive, she would have looked forward to going home after her graduation. Moody realizes that prolonging her stay at college would increase her odds of being involved in the movement.
“Even though the teen-age Negro girls were more desirable for such jobs, very few if any were trusted in the homes of the young couples. The young white housewife didn’t dare leave one alone in the house with her loyal and obedient husband. She was afraid that the Negro girl would seduce him, never the contrary.”
White housewives prefer old nannies to young Black girls because they deem the girls to be immoral and loose. The housewives are in denial because they do not reckon that their husbands would seduce the Black girls. Blaming the girls for the husbands’ infidelity underscores the white housewife's inherent prejudice and hypocrisy.
“In the midst of all the talk about what white man was screwing which Negro woman, new gossip emerged—about what Negro man was screwing which white woman. This gossip created so much tension, every Negro man in Centreville became afraid to walk the streets. They knew too well that they would not get off as easily as the white man who was caught screwing a Negro woman. They had only to look at a white woman and be hanged for it. Emmett Till’s murder had proved it was a crime, punishable by death, for a Negro man to even whistle at a white woman in Mississippi.”
Interracial romances are prohibited due to deep-rooted racism. Black men are at risk because they are punished severely when they are involved with white women. The killing of the Black men such as Emmett Till underscores the systemic racism which deems them inferior; hence, not qualified to have white women as lovers. Double standards are rife because white men who are involved with Black women are not killed.
