Liberals Lyndon Johnson & John Term Paper

Total Length: 1903 words ( 6 double-spaced pages)

Total Sources: 2

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Four little girls had been killed. In her prayers, Moody let her frustration come out; "You know something else, God? Nonviolence is out," Moody stated. "And if I ever find out you are white, then I'm through with you," she went on, "from now on, I'm my own God."

As time went on, President Kennedy was killed, and her faith in humanity was now in serious jeopardy. Her disillusionment wasn't so much that Kennedy didn't do enough to quell the white-perpetrated violence against blacks, but that now someone had shot Kennedy himself. And upon graduation, when families gathered to honor their children who had finished college, not a single member of her family attended the ceremony; "here I am...alone, all alone as I have been for a long time" (342) she wrote. Still, Moody is coming to terms with her own maturity, and with her place in the world. She has dinner with Rev. King's family (a white pastor that has been supportive) and "...silently, I asked him to forgive - forgive me for doubting him..."

At the end of her book, Moody writes (alluding to whether there will really ever be social justice), "We shall overcome some day...I wonder.
I really wonder" (348). At the end of his book, O'Brien writes that he "compromised one principle and fulfilled another... [and you learn that] war is not all bad; it may not make a man out of you, but it teaches you that manhood is not something to scoff at..." (207). Moreover, "dead bodies are heavy, and it's better not to touch them," O'Brien writes, and, as though unknowingly agreeing with Moody that there is a price to pay for disillusionment, O'Brien writes (207-208): "...fear is paralysis...you have to pick the times not to be afraid, but when you are afraid you must hide it to save respect and reputation."

Works Cited

Moody, Anne. Coming of Age in Mississippi. New York: The Dial Press, 1968.

O'Brien, Tim. If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home. New York: Broadway

Books, 1975.

Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (New York: Broadway Books, 1975) 11-12.

Tim O'Brien, If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home (New York: Broadway Books, 1975) 18-19.

Anne Moody, Coming of Age in Mississippi (New York:.....

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