The backdrop for this poem is highly specific, and it is impossible to accurately interpret or analyze “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters” without possessing a basic understanding of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States, as well as the nuances of southern culture, Jim Crow laws, post-Reconstruction era southern politics—and, most significant to this poem—the murder of Emmett Till. (For a thorough explanation of Emmett Till’s murder, as well as the socio-political ramifications, see the “Chapter 1 | The Murder of Emmett Till” video clip from the PBS documentary in the Further Reading section of this guide.)

In 1955, 14-year-old Emmett Till, a native of Chicago, visited family in Mississippi, which was, at the time, a heavily segregated area of the country, ruled and regulated by Jim Crow laws (See “Jim Crow Laws: Definition, Facts & Timeline in the Further Reading section of this guide for an explanation of Jim Crow laws.) After speaking to a married white woman, Till was attacked and murdered by two white men. The men involved were acquitted of Till’s murder after the fact.

Brooks’s poem “A Bronzeville Mother Loiters” is a response to Till’s murder, and the details of the case appear, poetic and figurative, in the poem.