“Anne Moody’s Global Citizenship During the Late Cold War” (Book Section)
Title: “Anne Moody’s Global Citizenship During the Late Cold War”
Author: Leigh Ann Wheeler
Editor: Shelley E. Rose
Editor: Jennifer V. Evans
Abstract: Anne Moody cemented her legacy as a major figure in the U.S. Civil Rights Movement in 1968 when she published her bestselling memoir, Coming of Age in Mississippi. Soon after, she left the Movement and the United States. Northern racism, black nationalism, and FBI surveillance eroded her hopes for equality, racial integration, and her own personal safety. Like so many disillusioned black Americans before her, in 1969 Moody fled to France, hoping to find, if not opportunity, then at least respite. Her years in Europe provided her with a global stage to speak about civil rights; as a U.S. citizen, her voice validated, in its very existence, even as it denied, in its specific substance, her nation’s claims to lead the “free world.” By taking her stories of American racism to an international audience and recasting civil rights in terms of human rights, Moody developed a new identity and a new activist role. She was not simply a disgruntled expatriate, but a global citizen who invited the world to scrutinize her home country. In this capacity, she also exhorted her host countries to consider their own culpability in violations of human and civil rights, particularly as proponents of nationalism, specifically through sport.
Year: 2020
Publisher: Berghahn Books
Book Title: Gender in Global Contexts: Labor, Law, and Human Rights

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