Power of Patience

     Jacqueline Woodson’s autobiographic prose, Brown Girl Dreaming, follows her journey of finding her passionate self as a young girl.  Jacqueline develops her sense of self through her experiences that give her life to dream about and passions to excite her, but also force her to do a lot of waiting.  Her constant waiting in childhood forms her personal drive for constructive action and revolution.  She develops her own personal views through her life, but she uses her passion for writing to execute change within her communities and within herself as her internal fire rests within it. 

Jacqueline is a product of the dissonance of abiding by racist laws and expectations, while also working to maintain a sense of personal confidence and meaning, which results in a hope of change.  The civil rights movement has consistently been told to wait for this change, as noted in MLK’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail, which parallels the patient childhood Jacqueline led.  Her teachers wait for her to become like her sister (Woodson 219), just as she has been waiting for the days when she is able to find her secret talent, like her brother’s voice (Woodson 233).  This time of seeming limbo is truly her time of growth and finding a passion that excites her and can empower others.  Her waiting finally comes to an end with her writing, where she finds confirmation that she’s a writer from a poem defending civil rights (Woodson 312).  This poem forgets waiting and considers what is, as it discusses the consistent fearlessness and brilliance of blacks.  She is now ready to take part in the revolution that is part of her present history.  Change is not subject to one point in history but is always occurring, and Jacqueline expresses how she no longer needs to wait, but rather is ready to join the cause for progress in her generation (Woodson 309).  

Waiting is something that often feels unproductive and useless but watching it through the eyes of a young girl shows its importance.  Growth and progress should not wait or be oppressed, but belief in the self needs experiences to develop, just as Jacqueline did.  She waited to find her gift, she worked with this passion and then incited it with ideas that have been evident to her since before her birth because of the long-lasting, systemic roots of racism and segregation.  Jacqueline’s ambition and influential soul slowly grow within Jacqueline that begins to transfer out into the world through her life.  

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