Does the setting play an important role, or is it simply the place and time where things happen?

THe setting is very important here. Mama indicates that her children are coming of age in a world much different from hers. Mama had been raised to be wary of speaking out against inequality, instead adapting to injustice through quiet passivity. But by the 1960s and 1970s, blacks had begun to challenge the status quo. By extension, a stronger African-American voice brought with it greater opportunities for advancement that Mama had not been afforded in her youth. Her daughter Dee also alludes to this changing sociopolitical atmosphere when she tells Maggie that this is "a new day" for them.

“After second grade the school was closed down. Don’t ask me why: in 1927 colored asked fewer questions than they do now.”