Brown Girl Dreaming, Jacquline Woodson Writing and the Civil Rights Movement

Jacquline Woodson, author of Brown Girl Dreaming speaks about the writing process

Brown Girl Dreaming and The American Civil Rights Movement

The Civil Rights Movement was a multi-decade movement intended to achieve equal rights and treatment for African Americans. The movement is considered to have taken place from 1954–1968, though it drew on a long history of protest against the mistreatment of African Americans. As Woodson notes multiple times in the book, even after the abolition of slavery in the United States in 1865, Jim Crow laws and general prejudice prevented African Americans from equal treatment in many arenas.

Many see the end of World War II as the impetus for the Civil Rights movement. Many African Americans fought in World War II, a war predicated upon the United States's commitment to freedom. This made the blatant discrimination they faced upon returning home to the United States all the more salient. Tensions from the post-war 1940s spilled over into the 1950s, and a series of non-violent protests were carried out. Famous examples include a walk out at a Virginia high school that led to the Brown v. Board of Education case, the Montgomery bus boycott (in 1955, just after the Civil Rights Movement is considered to have begun), and the Greensboro diner sit-ins in 1960. Non-violent protest was a major element of the early Civil Rights Movement, and many see this as key to the movement's success.

On August 28, 1963 one of the key events of the Civil Rights Movement took place: the March on Washington. More than 200,000 people, both black and white, peacefully marched on Washington in protest, and many famous Civil Rights leaders attended. It was on this day that Martin Luther King, Jr. gave his famous "I Have a Dream" speech. Brown Girl Dreaming states that Jacqueline Woodson was born on February 12, 1963, meaning she was born just 6 months before this important event.

As the 1960's progressed, the Civil Rights Movement suffered significant, violent setbacks. On March 7, 1965, 50 peaceful marchers were injured by a vigilante gang; the event is now called Bloody Sunday for the immense and senseless violence. In 1965 the Organization of Afro-American Unity founder Malcolm X was assassinated, and in 1968 Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated as well. In 1965, the Black Power Movement began grew in response to the setbacks encountered by the nonviolent protests of the Civil Rights Movement. A wave of riots and violent protests occurred over the next decade, driving some white support from the movement.

It is clear from Black Girl Dreaming that the Civil Rights Movement and its famous leaders had a great impact on Jacqueline Woodson. Some of the figures mentioned in the book are Martin Luther King, Jr., Rosa Parks, Ruby Bridges, Langston Hughes, James Baldwin, Malcolm X, and Angela Davis. Their legacies live on in Woodson's writing and in contemporary United States culture.

Brown Girl Dreaming focuses on the experience of growing up as an African-American child during the 1960s and early 1970s, a period of intense energy and organization surrounding questions of race and racial justice. The 60s were a turning point for race in America thanks to the Civil Rights Movement, which advocated for an end to Jim Crow Laws (laws that legalized segregation and racial discrimination) through nonviolent protest. The late 60s and early 70s also brought forth the Black Power Movement, which grew out of the Civil Rights Movement, but focused more on black pride, strengthening black communities, and socialist politics. Unlike the Civil Rights Movement, the Black Power Movement was not specifically nonviolent. Through the work done during these two movements, America took major steps towards racial justice.

Jacqueline grows up in the middle of these two movements, and her life is profoundly shaped by race— mostly negatively. Racial prejudice constantly infiltrates Jacqueline’s life and the lives of people she loves. It determines the space she and her family are allowed to occupy in stores and restaurants. It decides the streets she lives on and in what parts of town she is not welcome. It affects aspects of Jacqueline’s self-image. Even after the success of the Civil Rights Movement and the fall of legalized segregation, racism still persists; for example, Jacqueline notices how, after the end of Jim Crow Laws, Mama still sits in the back of the now-desegregated bus. Mama does this because, despite the change in laws, she fears violence from the white people on the bus.

Racial prejudice not only hinders Jacqueline and her family by dictating which spaces they are allowed to occupy: racial prejudice and the legacy of slavery also result in economic disadvantages for Woodson’s family. For example, when MaryAnn must go back to work, the only job available to her as a black woman is housework for white families, which is hard work that is not especially well paid.

Since Jacqueline’s daily life is so affected by race, her sense of her own existence is inseparable, not only from race, but also from her connections to the social movements attempting to change racist policy and mindsets. For example, as Woodson describes Jacqueline’s birth, she announces the birth and the state of civil rights in the same breath, saying that the United States is “a country caught between black and white.” In this beginning section of the book, Woodson also discusses Jacqueline’s family’s generational proximity to slavery, and lists some specific actors of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements (Martin Luther King, Malcolm X, etc.). By emphasizing the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements in the story of Jacqueline’s birth, Woodson firmly anchors her story, and the racial conditions she experiences as she grows up, within the context of a greater African-American history and struggle.

At the same time, by linking the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements to Jacqueline’s life, Woodson shows this pivotal moment to be more than just an abstract period in the timeline of American History; this was a time of revolutionary change for the better in the lives of real people. Woodson shows these changes by tracking the desegregation of stores and buses in the South and by showing the rise of Black Power while Jacqueline lives in New York. Thanks to desegregation and Black Power initiatives, Jacqueline’s race can finally be a positive aspect of her identity, rather than simply a burden to bear.

Through her examination of activism as a part of people’s daily lives, Woodson also shows that the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements did not have a monopoly on activism; while these movements created masterfully organized and publicized marches and protests, they were also bolstered by small, sometimes invisible gestures of defiance. Jacqueline, for example, refuses to shop at Woolworth’s in New York because of their poor treatment of black customers in the South.

Woodson also shows how individuals’ private obligations and constraints sometimes force them to submit to the racist status quo, arguably contradicting the activism they support. An example of this is when Mama sits in the back of the bus for fear of violence against her children. Although Mama strongly supports the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements, she does not want to jeopardize her children’s safety. Likewise, Gunnar and MaryAnn’s neighbor, Ms. Bell, hosts secret meetings in her house and wants to do more for the cause, but fears losing her job. Effectively, Woodson shows the reader a vision of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements that highlights the movements’ effects on individuals, rather than just giving an abstracted, idealized history of it.

 A visual pre-reading guide to the background of Brown Girl Dreaming (PDF)

Civil Rights protests of Birmingham, Alabama

from An Abstract of the Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of commons, in the years 1790 and 1791, on the part of the petitioners for the abolition of the slave trade. A diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade.