Historical Fiction, Thinly Veiled Autobiography
Several of these stories—"Nineteen Fifty-Five," "Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells," "Elethia," "Laurel," and "Source"—rely on a historical setting: the southern United States during the period of the Civil Rights Movement. Even when the events of the day are casually mentioned or are in the background, it's impossible to take the characters out of this context. There's this moment in "Nineteen Fifty-Five," for example, when Gracie Mae is trying to emphasize how long it has been since she's seen Traynor:
I didn't see the boy for seven years. No. Eight. Because just about everybody was dead when I saw him again. Malcolm X, King, the president and his brother, and even J. T. (Nineteen Fifty-Five.68)
This quote showcases how the political and the personal are never very far away from each other. And that's an issue that comes up with a vengeance in "Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells." The historical backdrop creates the major question in that piece: can Walker call out the injustice done to her white friend while also protecting the Black men in her life?
But don't get stuck on the description of these stories as fictional. Walker brings a lot of herself into some of the pieces, as we see especially in "Advancing Luna—and Ida B. Wells."
It's never wise to assume that the first-person narrator of a story = the author. But in this case, you wouldn't be far off the mark. Aside from the autobiographical details, the narrator steps outside the story to discuss difficulties she encountered while thinking about and writing up the experience.
And this is not the only place where bits of Walker find their way into a story. Why does she do this in a work that openly calls itself fiction? Hard to say, but here's a thought: autobiography is story, even though it's supposed to be true. Maybe Walker is just being a little more truthful here by presenting her life as story.