What is the setting of Brown Girl Dreaming?

Jacqueline Woodson’s memoir Brown Girl Dreaming is set in the places where she grew up and where other family members continued to live after she left. Born in 1963, she spent her early years in Ohio, where the Woodsons were from, but after her parents separated, she and her siblings moved with their mother to Greenville, South Carolina, the hometown of the mother’s family, the Irbys. Amidst the upheavals of the Civil Rights era, the strong impact of segregation influenced her mother’s decision to return to the North. Their next move was to New York City, where their Aunt Caroline lived. Jackie finished school in Brooklyn, where a teacher’s mentoring set her on the path toward becoming a writer. Visits to the grandparents back in South Carolina reminded Jackie of the continued impact of racial discrimination.

When does Brown Girl Dreaming take place?

Brown Girl Dreaming is an autobiographical account of Jacqueline Woodson's childhood in the 1960s. It is written as a series of poems and is divided into five different sections, arranged in chronological order. The first section is entitled "i am born," and the first poem in this section is entitled "february 12, 1963." This is the date of Woodson's birth, in Columbus, Ohio.

During the 1960s, the civil rights movement in America was campaigning for equal rights for black Americans. The key events of this movement are described or referenced during the poems. Martin Luther King Jr.'s march on Washington and Malcolm X's speeches in Harlem, for example, are referenced in the poem entitled "second daughter's second day on earth."

In the final section of the book, entitled "ready to change the world," Woodson describes herself as a student in the fifth grade, which would make her about ten years old. In the poem entitled "a writer," she describes her fifth grade teacher, Ms. Vivo, who has a "smile bigger than anything" and tells Woodson, "You're a writer." The whole book, therefore, takes place in the ten years following the author's birth in 1963.