Coming of Age in Mississippi: Chapter 26 Summary & Analysis

Lenora, a girl who was kicked off her father’s plantation, moves into Freedom House. Anne uses the ice cream and cake from her birthday party to throw a party for the high school students in Canton. She bids the students to spread the word about their upcoming clothing drive, which hundreds of people attend.  Anne is angry that the people won’t register to vote or work with CORE but will accept clothing from the drive. They refuse to write their names and addresses, fearing that CORE will trick them. After the drive, people continue to come by the office hoping to receive more goods. Still, many refuse to register to vote.

A few days after the clothing drive, a Black high school girl is raped by the white farmer she works for. Still, the Black population is too desperate for money to stop sending their kids to pick cotton. After the rape, white men start to openly assault Black women more often. The Ku Klux Klan continues to threaten the CORE office and Anne fears that the threats will become a reality.

Anne and the other female CORE residents, Lenora and Doris, are continually harassed by the police and other white people of Canton. Both Doris and Lenora buy guns for protection and sleep next to them. Anne, seeing how Doris has changed since they first met, realizes how deeply fear can motivate a person. Anne sometimes distrusts her fellow CORE members, but shoves those thoughts aside, knowing that the white oppressors thrive off disunity within the Black community.

A coalition of Mississippi civil rights groups called Council of Federated Organizations COFO comes together and discusses their plans to run a “freedom ballot.” Anne is skeptical about the freedom ballot, thinking that a “false campaign” is a waste of energy. However, most of the activists support the plan, and Anne works to make it happen. Still, older Black people resist voting in the freedom election, and Anne believes that the Movement’s only hope is young people whose “minds are susceptible to change.” When Anne shuts the windows of the CORE offices so the cops cannot see her run a meeting, she begins to be continually harassed by one cop, who has “hating eyes.” At the state fair, the cop traps her on a carnival ride.

After the carnival and after receiving another letter from Mama begging her to leave Mississippi, Anne wakes up in a panic. She decides to spend some time on Mrs. Chinn’s parents’ (Mr. and Mrs. Dearon) farm. She and Doris head out to the farm carrying guns, which Anne protests. At Mr. and Mrs. Dearons’ farm, Anne and Doris explore the peaceful woods. Mrs. Dearon serves them dinner, and Anne finds herself “flattering her just like one of those Baptist ministers would do.” But with Anne, “it wasn’t routine.” After dinner, Doris suggests that she and Anne do some target practice.

On their way back to Canton, Anne begins to feel panicked again. She once again begins to wonder about God’s existence, or whether “God changed as the individual changed.” She remarks on the injustice of the fact that most of the Black people in the South that she knows are humble, peaceful, religious people, and yet they are the ones who suffer.

Anne visits Jackson, where a friend shows her a Ku Klux Klan leaflet, which features Anne’s photo on a blacklist. Her photo sits alongside those of other civil rights activists, some of whose photos were already marked out to indicate that they’ve been killed. This realization is the biggest scare of Anne’s life. She decides to take a break from the Movement.

When the freedom vote takes place, the low turnout disappoints Anne. On the final evening of the vote, she tells her CORE colleagues that she is planning to take a break. They don’t take her seriously, not realizing how deeply frightened Anne has become. However, once her colleagues realize that she is serious about her decision, they try to convince her to stay. When her colleague George does not understand, she reflects on how different his experience is as a man; because of the danger posed to Anne and her fellow female volunteers as women, they were required to stay at home and were not able to let loose. Anne boards a train and leaves Jackson, but she knows that she will never truly leave the Movement.