Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming has been living in the hearts and souls of Black girls worldwide for 10 years now. To commemorate a decade of empowering young Black women, the best-selling author hosted an event in the heart of Manhattan at Symphony Space. The show included live reenactments of the story and various musical performances by stars such as Lena Waithe, Nicole Ari Parker, Marley Dias, Roxane Gay, Montego Glover, and Toshi Reagon.
A powerful memoir in-verse that dives into Woodson’s experiences with race and identity during the Jim Crow era, Civil Rights Movement and the Great Migration, Brown Girl Dreaming, has touched readers across generations. It has garnered numerous awards, including the National Book Award, the Coretta Scott King Award, and a Newbery Honor, and was named one of Time Magazine’s 100 Best Young Adult Books of All Time.
As National Literacy Month comes to a close and we look forward to Banned Book Week, Brown Girl Dreaming is important now more than ever. The book has been challenged in recent banned book discussions due to ongoing conversations about promoting critical race theory. In an interview Woodson did in 2019 with NPR, she tells Host Scott Simon, “The most dangerous thing you can do as a writer writing books that young people will read is try to teach them something…You know I write because I have all these questions, not because I have the answers.”
Throughout the program, people shouted in excitement, cried in empathy, and rejoiced in hearing Woodson and others speak on the life of the book Brown Girl Dreaming. The energy in the room was tangible.
“I really am so surprised with so many parts of the life that this book has had because I had no idea that any of that was going to happen. It’s reaching people that I would never have imagined it reaching. I was just stunned by the life that it had. And again, I think it comes back to how specific it was that it makes sense now, because I’m writing about a time when I was a young person, but now I’m in my 60s, so someone in their 60s, 70s, 80s, can read it and know that story. And someone who’s 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, because you can read it and have a sense of the girl or the boy, whatever part of it that they connect to,” Woodson shared.
Throughout her career, Woodson has consistently given back to young people, including founding Baldwin For The Arts, a residency that supports writers, composers, and interdisciplinary and visual artists from the Global Majority. Her work continues to reshape culture through her distinct perspective as an artist, academic, author, screenwriter, and activist, leaving a lasting impact on the community.
