Anne Moody is the daughter of Diddly Moody and Toosweet. The eldest of many brothers and sisters, including Adline and Junior, Moody gets her first job at the age of 9 and supports her family while also getting good grades in school. Her sense of responsibility to support her immediate family grows into a sense of larger responsibility to demand better treatment for black people. The question of why society considers black people different from white people, something she ponders as a child, stays with Moody as she grows up. Working for change becomes a driving mission in her adult life. Moody does not accept as an unchangeable reality that black people need to be content as second-class citizens.

Moody is determined to be independent and to do something meaningful with her life. This may be why Moody often finds herself bored in school. She also has a great deal of underlying anger that manifests in her teen years, some of it brought on by the Emmett Till murder. She finds outlets for her anger by playing basketball, taking piano lessons, and leaving home during the summers to work in Baton Rouge and New Orleans.

Moody’s anger gives her boldness in her early 20s for sit-ins, demonstrations, jail, and even slamming a window shut in the faces of white policemen.