School and society
The first symbol for society that Moody ever knew was when she and her family literally moved from the country into a small town where she could go to school. To her, moving to school and moving into her cultural society are one and the same. Before long she realizes a horrible fact about her life. The white people in her town tend to disrespect her in public, as if she is not worth the same as them. She learns more and more about racism through school. By the end of her journey of school, she becomes a Civil Rights advocate.
Natural injustice
Because Moody's life started in a state of naturalistic bliss, more or less, her insight is oriented in natural life. She and her family were sharecroppers, which meant that they lived off of the land. This life was less sophisticated and technologically advanced, but Moody was much happier there, out on the land in the country. Then, when she goes to school and town, her bliss is interrupted by racism. She is a martyr of racism because her perspective of life is defined by the way injustice and racism robbed her of joy.
The whistler
Moody remembers hearing the news that a young man was tortured and murdered by white people without legal consequence. The horrific injustice was rooted in disgust; the white community was defending the honor of young woman who reported that she was whistled at suggestively. For that, they abducted, tortured, and murdered the young man. The news became symbolic across the country, and the Civil Rights movement gained more mass appeal because of this terrible martyrdom; Moody herself remembers the way it impacted her life to hear such terrifying and hateful news.
NAACP
Moody realizes in the prose that she does not have the power in her own solitary self to change the nation. As she strives to make a difference, she comes into community with a vibrant and growing organization called NAACP, which continues to be an effective organization today. To Moody, the organization symbolized the hope for change, because alone she might be ineffectual, but en masse, the black community has the power to rally for change. Her involvement with the NAACP is an entrance into the Civil Rights community as well.
The hit list
This is a terrible thing, but it is deeply symbolic, so it needs to be mentioned. Moody reports in this book that the Ku Klux Klan put her on their hit list. That means that she was liable to be attacked and abducted from her own home and murdered by this infamous hate group. To Moody, that threat represents her sacrifice in life; it represents her willingness to lay her life down for her community in an act of self-sacrifice and love. In general, it is a helpful symbol for unbridled hatred, which is a terrible problem which has often riddled Americans throughout history with regard to race.
