America

The United States of America, with its history of slavery, racial conflict and tension, and its American "Dream" is the primary broad strokes setting for the book. There is the sense throughout the work that America is as much a concept as it is an actual place, if not more so: its history, values, and actions in response to both history and values define it, for the author, more than its geography and/or physical place in the world.

Baltimore

This city in the north-eastern American state of Maryland is the author's first home. The author portrays it as being a place of simmering, almost constant, race-defined tension: between white and black, but also between factions of its various black communities.

Washington, D.C.

The national capital of America becomes the author's home when he moves there to attend Howard University. The center of American political activity...