How important is the setting of "Everyday Use" to the plot?

The narrator references
Johnny Carson, who went on the air in 1962, and because of the description of Dee's dress and
accessories, the story seems to be set in the 1960s. Further, Augusta, where Dee was sent away
to school, is a city in Georgia, in the American South. Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat
for a white person in , and the Civil Rights Act was finally passed in 1964; race relations
were, therefore, an especially hot-button topic during this era. Many black people were starting
to feel more pride and take greater interest in their ancestry, and movements to empower the
black community were on the rise. This social context helps us to understand what Dee is going
through and why she suddenly longs for the heirlooms that she once scorned. The setting helps, I
think, to soften Walker's apparent criticism of her: she is attempting to reclaim something she
feels she has lost, although she fails to realize that, in focusing on her racial heritage, she
is overlooking the importance of her family heritage as well.