Content Warning: This section includes discussions of racism, rape, and racially motivated hate crimes.

Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? bases its events and characters on the historical experiences of Black Americans during the 20th and 21st centuries. Kitty was born Mary Ledbetter in the South during the Jim Crow era. Jim Crow laws enforced segregation between Black and white Americans in the South from 1877 to approximately 1954, when the Supreme Court declared segregation unconstitutional. Kitty’s origins incorporate other historical aspects of the early-20th-century experiences of Black women. Her mother, Hazel, was raped by her white employer, a legacy of sexual exploitation of Black women that stretches back to before the Civil War. Did You Hear About Kitty Karr? also refers to many historical events of the civil rights movement, including the murder of Emmett Till, the Montgomery bus boycott, and the work and death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Elise’s 2017 narrative also incorporates modern-day events and issues related to US racism, driving home the fact that racism is not a thing of the past. Elise alludes to historic moments like Colin Kaepernick taking a knee during the national anthem and the violent “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.