Although many accounts of the civil rights movement, including desegregation, emphasize the vicious racism Blacks experienced, Brown Girl Dreaming offers powerful moments of Black resistance to it. Failing to highlight Black resistance to racism is an erasure of the Black revolutionary spirit foundational to the civil rights movement’s successes. By presenting many robust moments of Black resistance, Jacqueline Woodson employs her work as a critical counternarrative to popular master narratives that depict Black bodies as docile during the civil rights movement. Also, this work exposes these narratives’ lies about racism, discrimination, and exploitation as the most vital parts of Blacks’ stories. The book centers Black humanity, Blacks’ alacrity to fight for it, and the Black radical imagination, an imagination that resists reification.
A pivotal moment that illuminates the centrality of Black humanity and the Black radical imagination occurs in the “South Carolina at war” chapter. The narrator states, “Because we have a right, my grandfather tells us — /we are sitting at his feet and the story tonight is/why people are marching all over the South — /to walk and sit and dream wherever we want” (72). Woodson’s grandfather resists efforts to commodify and reify Blacks, insisting they “have a right” not to be dehumanized and treated as mere appendages of capitalism’s machinery. He asserts their human and political rights: “Because we have a right.” The grandchildren receive training to believe in these rights, rights their Black humanity demands. Her grandfather also links these rights to “why people are marching all over the South.” Such teaching permits them to comprehend the magnitude of “marching.” Helping his grandchildren develop a radical imagination to combat the South’s oppression engenders utopian energies: “to walk and sit and dream wherever we want.” This message strives to prevent deep racial self-loathing from materializing and internalizing, which is what the (ill)logic of Jim Crow sought.
As Woodson’s grandfather continues to train his grandchildren about Black resistance, the narrator says, “But be ready to die,/my grandfather says,/for what is right./Be ready to die, my grandfather says,/for everything you believe in” (73). Woodson’s grandfather wants his grandchildren to love themselves and their beliefs so passionately that they are willing to “die” to defend them. Even though his grandchildren are young, he longs for them to “be ready.” For him, Black humanity is worthy of revolutionary struggle — a struggle that merits risking his beloved grandchildren’s lives.
Another potent moment occurs when Woodson’s mother introduces her children to the Black Panthers: “My mother tells us the Black Panthers are doing/all kinds of stuff/to make the world a better place for Black children” (304). This strategic sharing of knowledge helps them acknowledge a chief purpose of freedom fighting and revolutionary struggle: “to make the world a better place for Black children.” Such knowledge gives these children hope for freer lives where they can pursue limitless possibilities. During the civil rights movement, the Black Panthers were the most militant and revolutionary Blacks battling racism and white supremacy. The Black Panthers provide tangible expressions of Black resistance and the Black radical imagination in practice.
In short, these powerful moments reveal that the book is more than just a sharing of the author’s past experiences; more importantly, it testifies to Black people’s unwillingness to surrender to forces seeking to crush them. When telling Black stories, center their triumphs, give voice to Black greatness. To define Blacks, intentionally or unintentionally, as victims is to do the same violence that racism and capitalism have inflicted on them. Engage in serious self-reflection to ensure you’re not doing the same violence to Blacks as any racist or white supremacist has done and continues to do.
Dr. Antonio Maurice Daniels
Johns Hopkins University
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