Coming of Age in Mississippi by Anne Moody Page A

doing somebody wrong,” I thought. “Maybe they don’t speak to their neighbors, just like Miss Pearl, and
she
is crying. They must have done something bad and they think God is going to slap the breath out of them while they are in church.”
    Within an hour or so we were out of church and this was another thing I liked about Centreville Baptist. Mount Pleasant and the other country churches I had attended held services that lasted all day. They also kept taking up collections in the country, and here at Centreville Baptist, they took up collection only twice. As usual when church was out a lot of people stood on the church grounds talking for a while. I felt so funny standing there. It seemed as though everyone had someone to talk to but us. Mama, Adline, Junior, and I stood near the car all by ourselves. I noticed that Miss Pearl and Betty them seemed to be popular with the other church members. As Mama stood looking at them she had tears in her eyes. She had hoped that they would at least speak to her. But they pretended they didn’t even see us. Their car was parked right nextto ours. They got in and drove off without even looking in our direction. Raymond had been talking with Betty’s husband and one of the deacons. Now he came to our car and we left.
    “How did y’all like Reverend Polk?” he said to no one in particular since he realized Mama was in no mood for conversation.
    “Why is his hair that white?” I asked.
    “It’s been like that ever since he got out of prison,” Raymond said.
    “Prison! A preacher! What did he do?”
    “He killed a man. Then when he was in prison he worried so his hair turned white. He was called to preach while in prison.”
    “The Bible say thou shall not kill! How can he kill a man and preach what the Bible say to people?” I asked Raymond.
    “Why you gotta know everything! Always asking questions all the time?” Mama said to me. I could tell she was real mad so I hushed.
    I didn’t say anything else all the way home, but that didn’t stop me from thinking about Reverend Polk. He had killed a man and all he had to do was raise his hand in church and women fainted all over the place. It seemed to me, at the time, that we were going to church to listen to a killer preach the gospel of Christ. Then you sit next to your neighbors and playmates and they don’t even speak to you. This didn’t seem like church at all. Not the way of Christ anyway. Not the Christ Mama was always telling us all those good things about.
    Mama never did go back to Centreville Baptist again. But Adline, Junior, and I went back the very next Sunday and every Sunday after that. It seemed as though Mama had completely resigned herself to not being accepted, yet she was determined to make Raymond’s people accept us, even in their church. Every Sunday now she made us study our Sunday school lesson just as hard as our regular homework for school each day. Within a month or so we were not only going toSunday school but to the eleven o’clock church services and B.T.U. (Baptist Training Union).
    Later on Mama was not satisfied with us just going to Centreville Baptist, but now at every church-celebrated holiday we had to say speeches or participate in every program offered for children and teen-agers. It wasn’t always “we” that took part in the programs but it
was
always “me.” Mama gave up on Adline and Junior in the church too. They were worse in church than in school. They were always given speeches but they never did learn them in time to say them. Within a few days after I received mine, I would know it by heart. And when I said it on the program, unlike most of the other participants, I didn’t forget a word or stumble.
    While we were doing all this at Centreville Baptist and winning the approval of all the church members there, Mama decided to go back to Mount Pleasant. Raymond really wanted her to join Centreville Baptist but Mama just couldn’t bring herself to sit up in the