A RAISIN IN THE SUN Study Guide for Teachers - Weston ...

A RAISIN
IN THE SUN
Study Guide for Teachers
The Weston Playhouse Theatre Company
THE WESTON PLAYHOUSE THEATRE CO.
World-Class Theatre in the Heart of Vermont

A RAISIN IN THE SUN
Teacher’s Study Guide
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PREFACE
“Harlem” by Langston Hughes Page 3
ABOUT THE PLAY AND PLAYWRIGHT
About the Playwright Page 4
About the Play Page 7
Synopsis Page 8
Characters Page 8
Versions of A RAISIN IN THE SUN Page 10
Themes Page 12
CONNECTIONS AND CONTEXTS
History of African Americans in Chicago Page 16
Afrocentrism Page 21
DISCUSSION TOPICS AND QUESTIONS
Essay Topics and Review Questions Page 26
Quotes Page 27
RESOURCES Page 30
The 2009 Annual Teachers Workshop and creation of this study guide have been generously supported by The
Vermont Humanities Council and the National Endowment for the Humanities and The Mountain Room Foundation.
© 2009 Weston Playhouse Theatre Company, a nonprofit 501(c)(3) educational and cultural institution. WPTC
Performance Guides may be duplicated at no charge for educational purposes only. They may not be sold or used in
other publications without the express written consent of the Weston Playhouse Theatre Company.
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WHAT MAKES HUGHES’ POEM IMPORTANT?
“HARLEM”
By Langston Hughes
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes' poem "Harlem" exhibits how powerful subject
matter can produce what Ezra Pound defines poetry as being "news
that stays news." The poem begins by questioning, "What happens
to a dream deferred?" This draws on the black experience of the
American Dream. The poem questions the position of an oppressed
people and the subject has remained topical ever since the 1930s
when Hughes wrote the poem. The poem does not define what
exactly the "dream" is: economic equality, respect, dignity or forty
acres and a mule? Thirty years after the publication of Hughes' poem
in a speech illustrative of the impact of Hughes’ question, Dr. Martin
Luther King Jr. defined the "dream."
A "raisin in the sun" is a charged simile. It's one of the most powerful images in Black Literature. Lorraine
Hansberry used this line as the title of her play about the black experience in America, which shows how
powerful the image remained for generations after Hughes. Normally one would expect a grape to be left
in the sun in order to produce a raisin. Here the raisin, an object already drained, is left in the sun. The
image brings to mind slavery and sharecropping institutions that forced blacks to work in the fields under
the sun. The last line of the poem--"Or does it explode?"—has been and remains charged with meaning
for blacks. It was meaningful for the blacks beaten and terrorized as they went on "freedom rides," bus
trips from the South to Washington D.C. to demand equality; for the SNCC; for the blacks attacked by
police in Birmingham, Alabama during the sixties, and for all African Americans facing inequality today.
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About the Playwright: Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun
exploded onto the American theater scene on
March 11, 1959, with such force that it
garnered for the then-unknown black female
playwright the Drama Circle Critics Award for
1958-59--in spite of such luminous competition
as Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth,
Eugene O'Neill's A Touch of the Poet, and
Archibald MacLeish's J.B.
Since its Broadway debut, Raisin has been
translated into over thirty languages, including
the language of the eastern German Sorbische
minority, and has been produced in such
culturally diverse places as China, the former
Czechoslovakia, England, France, and the
former Soviet Union. Its universal appeal defies,
in retrospect, some of the early critics' views of
Raisin as being simply "a play about Negroes."
Although Raisin addresses specific problems of
a black family in Southside Chicago, it also
mirrors the very real problems of all people. In
an interview with social historian Studs Terkel,
Hansberry explains, ". . . in order to create the
universal, you must pay very close attention to the specific."
Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930, the last of four children born to the
independent, politically active, Republican, and well-to-do Carl and Nannie Perry Hansberry. Hospitals
were required at that time to list the racial identities of newborns; however, upon receiving their
daughter's birth certificate, Hansberry's parents crossed out the word "Negro" and wrote "Black," an act
of minor significance but certainly a testament to the Afrocentric ideology that the elder Hansberrys
bequeathed to their children.
Although 1930 is the year that most Americans associate with the Great Depression, Hansberry's family
remained economically solvent through this period. By 1930s standards, the Hansberrys were certainly
upper middle class, but by the standards of most Chicago blacks, many of whom lived in abject poverty at
this time, they would have been considered "rich."
Hansberry was never comfortable with her "rich girl" status, identifying instead with the "children of the
poor." Admiring the feistiness exhibited by these children who were so often left alone, Hansberry often
imitated their maturity and independence. They wore housekeys around their necks, symbols of their
"latchkey children" status, so Hansberry decided to wear keys around her neck--any keys that she might
find, including skate keys--so that she too might be thought of as one of them. The characters in Raisin do
not know the middle-class comforts of the Hansberry family; in her plays, Hansberry focuses on the class
of black people whom she cared most about, even though her knowledge of these people was, at best,
peripheral.
Though Hansberry grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood, she never lived
in a "Younger" household, although she closely observed such households throughout her childhood.
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Hansberry's father, Carl, not only established one of the first black savings banks in Chicago, but he was
also a successful real estate businessman. Credited with developing the concept of the "kitchenette," the
studio apartment, he was able to maximize all available space, converting a large area into several smaller
areas.
The family then moved into an all-white neighborhood, where they faced racial discrimination. Hansberry
attended a predominantly white public school while her parents fought against segregation. Always
politically active, Hansberry’s father engaged in a legal battle against a racially restrictive covenant that
attempted to prohibit African-American families from buying homes in a white area where no other
blacks lived. The legal struggle over the Hansberry’s move to the neighborhood led to the landmark
Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). Though victors in the Supreme Court,
Hansberry's family was subjected to what Hansberry would later describe as a "hellishly hostile white
neighborhood."
Shortly afterward, Hansberry herself was nearly killed by a brick hurled through a window by angry
whites. Hansberry remembers her mother's "standing guard" many times with a loaded gun in order to
protect her family from the violence of racism. Such traumatic memories were probably a part of the
reason that Hansberry incorporated into her first play the theme of a black family's courageous decision
to move into a hostile and new environment.
When Hansberry enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, she had every intention of remaining there for
the four years necessary for graduation. However, after two years, her growing interest in the arts took
her other places for brief periods. She attended the Art Institute of Chicago, Roosevelt College, the New
School of Social Research in New York, and studied art in Guadalajara, Mexico. In New York, she worked
on the staff of Paul Robeson's Freedom magazine, hung around the theater, read plays, and honed her
craft. Several critics have noted that Hansberry's artwork, her drawings and sketches, is almost as
noteworthy as her writing.
Her father's death at the age of fifty-one touched Hansberry deeply; she often said that it was perhaps
her father's constant battle with the forces of racism that hastened his early death. Interestingly, the
cause and effect of much of the action in Raisin evolves as a consequence of the death of Big Walter, a
character whom the audience never sees, although much of the dialogue contains references to him.
Hansberry's own untimely death of pancreatic cancer at the age of thirty-four on January 12, 1965, left a
void in American theater and in the circle of black writers. Jean Carey Bond, in an article in Freedomways
magazine, says of Hansberry: "[Her] brief sojourn was, in one of its dimensions, a study in pure style. Born
into material comfort, yet baptized in social responsibility; intensely individual in her attitudes and
behavior, yet sensitive to the wills and aspirations of a whole people; a lover of life, yet stalked by death-she
deliberately fashioned out of these elements an articulate existence of artistic and political
commitment, seasoned with that missionary devotion which often intensifies the labors of the mortally
ill."
Hansberry left behind three unfinished plays and an unfinished semi-autobiographical novel.
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Her Works
• A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
• A Raisin in the Sun (film), screenplay (1961)
o A Raisin in the Sun (film), produced (2008)
• On Summer (Essay)
• The Drinking Gourd (1960)
• The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964)
• The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965)
• To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969)
• Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays / by Lorraine Hansberry Edited by Robert Nemiroff (1994)
Other works
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window ran for 99 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died.
Her ex-husband Robert Nemiroff became the literary executor for several of her unfinished works.
Notably, he adapted many of her writings into the play, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was the
longest-running Off-Broadway play of the 1968-1969 season. It appeared in book form the following year
under the title, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words.
Raisin, a musical based on A Raisin in the Sun, opened in New York in 1973, (Book by Nemiroff, music by
Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Britten) winning the Tony Award for Best Musical.
Legacy
A result of the success of A Raisin in the Sun was Hansberry's becoming the foremother of the modern
African-American drama. She also contributed to the understanding of abortion, discrimination, and
Africa. In San Francisco, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which specializes in original stagings and revivals
of African-American theatre, is named in her honor. Singer and pianist Nina Simone, who was a close
friend of Hansberry, used the title of her unfinished play to write a civil rights-themed song "To Be Young,
Gifted and Black" together with Weldon Irvine. The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts. A studio
recording by Simone was released as a single and the first live recording on October 26, 1969 was
captured on Black Gold (1970).
In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Lorraine Hansberry on his list of 100 Greatest African
Americans.
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About the Play
Hansberry's recognition of the close relationship
between art and propaganda is the reason she
chose the environment of the powerless as a
backdrop for her work about American culture.
Her objective was to be a spokesperson for those
who, prior to Raisin, had no voice. The thought
that anyone outside of the black community
would care about the struggles of a black family
in Southside Chicago, prior to the opening of
Raisin, was all but preposterous. Not only did
Hansberry choose as the voice of her theme a
black family (and a poor black family, at that), but
she also threaded information about Africa
throughout the fabric of her play, mainly through
her most stable character, Asagai, Beneatha's
suitor from Nigeria.
Through Asagai (and sometimes through
Beneatha), the audience gains valuable insight
into African history, politics, art, and philosophy.
Even the character of George Murchison
glorifies, by default, the ancient African
civilizations when he derisively mentions "the
African past," "the Great West African Heritage,"
"the great Ashanti empires," "the great Songhay
civilizations," "the great sculpture of Benin," and
"poetry in the Bantu." Although George is being facetious, still he uses adjectives that praise and laud the
accomplishments of a continent with which many theatergoers, at the time of the opening of Raisin, were
extremely unfamiliar.
To structure her drama, Hansberry utilizes the traditional classic European dramatic forms: Raisin is
divided into three conventional acts with their distinct scenes. Yet, Hansberry employs techniques of the
absurdist drama--particularly in the scene in which a drunken Walter Lee walks in on Beneatha's African
dancing and is able to immediately summon a memory which psychically connects him with an African
past that his character, in reality, would not have known. Walter Lee is able to sing and dance and chant
as though he had studied African culture.
Hansberry's skillful use of this momentary absurdity makes Walter's performance seem absolutely
plausible to her audience. Note also in this work that Hansberry refers to an ancient Greek mythological
titan, Prometheus, then makes a reference to an icon of the American entertainment world, Pearl Bailey,
and then a reference to Jomo Kenyatta, a major African scholar and politician, yet there is no loss of
continuity because the audience is able to immediately perceive the connection.
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SYNOPSIS
This play tells the story of a lower-class black family's struggle to gain middle-class acceptance. When the
play opens, Mama, the sixty-year-old mother of the family, is waiting for a $10,000 insurance check from
the death of her husband, and the drama will focus primarily on how the $10,000 should be spent.
The son, Walter Lee Younger, is so desperate to be a better provider for his growing family that he wants
to invest the entire sum in a liquor store with two of his friends. The mother objects mainly for ethical
reasons; she is vehemently opposed to the idea of selling liquor. Minor conflicts erupt over their
disagreements.
When Mama decides to use part of the money as a down payment on a house in a white neighborhood,
her conflict with Walter escalates and causes her deep anguish. In an attempt to make things right
between herself and her son, Mama entrusts Walter Lee with the rest of the money. He immediately
invests it secretly in his liquor store scheme, believing that he will perhaps quadruple his initial
investment.
One of Walter Lee's prospective business partners, however, runs off with the money, a loss which tests
the spiritual and psychological mettle of each family member. After much wavering and vacillating, the
Youngers decide to continue with their plans to move--in spite of their financial reversals and in spite of
their having been warned by a representative of the white neighborhood that blacks are not welcome.
List of Characters
Ruth Younger
The thirtyish wife of Walter Lee Younger and the
mother of Travis, their ten-year-old son. Ruth acts as
peacemaker in most of the explosive family
situations. Very low-key, Ruth reveals her strongest
emotions only when she learns of the possibility of
their moving to a better neighborhood.
Travis Younger
The ten-year-old son of Walter and Ruth Younger.
Living in a household with three generations in
conflict, Travis skillfully plays each adult against the
other and is, as a result, somewhat "spoiled." In spite
of this, he is a likeable child.
Walter Lee Younger
In his middle thirties, he is the husband of Ruth, father of Travis, brother of Beneatha, and son of Lena
(Mama) Younger. Walter works as a chauffeur and drinks a bit too much at times. When he discovers that
his mother will receive a $10,000 check from his father's insurance, he becomes obsessed with his dreams
of a business venture which will give him financial independence and, in his mind, will make him a more
valuable human being.
Beneatha Younger
The twentyish sister of Walter Lee and the daughter of Lena Younger. She is a college student planning to
go to medical school. The only family member privileged to have the opportunity for a higher education,
she is sometimes a little overbearing in the pride she takes in being an "intellectual."
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Lena Younger (Mama)
The mother of Walter Lee and Beneatha, mother-in-law of Ruth, and grandmother of Travis. Lena's
(Mama's) every action is borne out of her abiding love for her family, her deep religious convictions, and
her strong will that is surpassed only by her compassion. Mama's selfless spirit is shown in her plans to
use her $10,000 insurance check for the good of her family, part of which includes plans to purchase a
house in a middle-class white neighborhood.
Joseph Asagai
An African college student from Nigeria, Asagai is one of Beneatha's suitors. Mannerly, good looking, and
personable, he is well liked by all members of the Younger household.
George Murchison
Beneatha's other boyfriend, he too is a college student. His wealthy background alienates him from the
poverty of the Youngers. Easily impressed, Ruth is the
only member of the Younger household who naively
overlooks George's offensive snobbishness.
Mrs. Johnson
Brash and abrasive neighbor of the Youngers, she
insensitively points out to the Youngers all the negative
repercussions that await them should they decide to
move into the white neighborhood.
Karl Lindner
A middle-aged white man, Lindner is the spokesman
for the white community into which the Youngers plan
to move. He has been sent to persuade the Youngers
not to move into the white neighborhood. In fact, he
has been authorized by the white community to offer
the Youngers a monetary incentive not to move in.
Bobo
The somewhat dimwitted friend of Walter Lee who,
along with another friend, Willy, plans to invest in
Walter Lee's business scheme.
Two Moving Men
Having no speaking parts, they enter at the end of the play to help the Youngers move to their new
neighborhood.
Walter Younger
The husband of Lena Younger, father of Walter Lee and Beneatha, and grandfather of Travis. His death
before the action of Act I provides the insurance money that will change the lives of the Younger family.
Willy
The unscrupulous "friend" of Walter Lee and Bobo who absconds with all the money for the prospective
business venture. Although the audience never meets him, Willy's character is assessed through the
dialogue of others.
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VERSIONS OF A RAISIN IN THE SUN
Original Stage Play, Original Screenplay, the American Playhouse Presentation, musical and recent
Broadway revival and 2008 Made-for-TV movie.
The complete, original version of Hansberry's play includes several scenes with which most people are not
familiar, for these were omitted from the original stage presentations of Raisin when it opened in 1959.
Most of the cuts from the complete version were made because of time constraints.
For example, the entire scene with Mrs. Johnson was eliminated from the original stage presentation of
Raisin. Another deletion from the complete version was the scene in which Beneatha has cut her hair and
is wearing it in the "natural" style that she knows Asagai will admire.
This scene, although very important to Hansberry, was taken out because, just before the show opened,
the actress playing the role of
Beneatha had inadvertently
been given a disastrous haircut,
which everyone involved in the
production of Raisin felt would
have made a negative
statement to the audience
about Hansberry's true,
positive feelings about the
natural hairstyle. The dramatic
change in Beneatha's hairstyle
is shown in the complete
version, the American
Playhouse television
presentation.
Another omission from the
original stage production, but
one which appears in the complete version (and in the American Playhouse presentation), is the scene in
which Travis is playing with a group of neighborhood boys; for sport, they are chasing a rat. Later, Travis is
at home, telling his family about the fun he had chasing the rat with his friends.
In each of these scenes which were omitted from
the original stage production, Hansberry was
attempting to make a deeply felt statement. In the
scene with Mrs. Johnson, Hansberry takes a
position on the Booker T. Washington/W. E. B. Du
Bois debate, in which Hansberry is clearly siding
with Du Bois. Hansberry is also using this scene to
poke fun at the blacks who are too fearful of racist
reprisals to demand equality.
In the scene where Beneatha unveils the natural
look, Hansberry is making a statement on the
identity crisis within the black community long
before the Afrocentric awakening of the 90s.
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In the scene where Travis is chasing a rat for sport, Hansberry is attempting to show the horrors that daily
confront the children of the poor.
The screenplay of Raisin (the film was released in 1960) is altered in many ways. In Act I, Scene 1, Walter
Lee gives Travis a dollar (that he can ill afford). In the complete version and in the American Playhouse
presentation, Walter Lee returns to ask Ruth for fifty cents for carfare to work. This is omitted from the
screenplay. In the screenplay, not only does Walter not return, but he is later seen at his job as a
chauffeur. In this scene in the screenplay, Walter is standing near his boss' limousine in a heavily
populated metropolitan area. In the stage presentation and even in the complete version (which includes
the American Playhouse presentation), Walter talks about going to the Green Hat, a bar that he frequents,
but the screenplay version has Mama going to the bar in order to find Walter. In the screenplay, Mama
goes to the Green Hat (called “The Kitty Kat”) and gives Walter the $6,500 in the bar.
The screenplay also shows the Younger family actually going to
their new house in Clybourne Park. Neither the original stage
production nor the complete version nor the American Playhouse
presentation shows the Younger family in any setting other than
their Southside apartment.
A Raisin in the Sun was revised as the musical Raisin and ran on
Broadway from October 1973 until December 1975 for 847
performances. It won the Tony and Grammy Awards as Best
Musical, and it toured 50 cities. Raisin was so well received that
the mayors of the cities and the governors of the states in which it
toured often proclaimed the show's arrival as "Lorraine Hansberry
Day."
A recent Broadway revival and TV movie starred Rap star Sean Combs and Phylicia Rashad and sought to
update the play for a new generation. The Broadway revival opened in 2004 and won Drama Desk Awards
for Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald. The Made-for-TV movie was released in 2008. Both versions
included some of the previously omitted scenes and the movie includes updated versions of scenes from
the original screenplay.
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THEMES
The underlying theme of Hansberry's Raisin is in the question posed by Langston Hughes' poem “Harlem”
from "Montage of a Dream Deferred," when he asks, "What happens to a dream deferred?" and then
goes on to list the various things that might happen to a person if his dreams are put "on hold,"
emphasizing that whatever happens to a postponed dream is never good. More simply, the question
Hansberry poses in her play is, "What happens to a person whose dreams grow more and more
passionate--while his hopes of ever achieving those dreams grow dimmer each day?" Even the Bible
concerns itself with this problem; in Proverbs 13:12, we read: "Hope deferred maketh the heart sick; but
when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life." We see clearly what happens to Walter as his dream
continues to be postponed by too many circumstances that are beyond his control.
Several other motifs are also successfully intertwined into this drama. Hansberry's avant-garde concerns,
her prophetic political vision, and her ability to perceive the future importance of events that few people
in 1959 were even aware of are used as lesser motifs or minor themes throughout the play.
The issue of feminism is one such example. Three generations of women reside in the Younger household,
each possessing a different political perspective of herself as a woman. Mama (Lena Younger), in her early
sixties, speaks "matter-of-factly" about her husband's prior womanizing. Ruth, about thirty, is more vocal
about her feelings to her own husband than Mama was; still, Ruth is not as enlightened about a woman's
"place" as is Beneatha, who is about twenty and pursuing a career that, in 1959, was largely a maledominated
profession.
Much of the conflict between Beneatha and Walter revolves around Walter's chauvinistic view of
Beneatha. When Walter complains that Beneatha's medical schooling will cost more than the family can
afford, he bases his argument on the fact that since Beneatha is a woman, she should not even want to
become a doctor. Walter's resentment and anger erupts in Act I, Scene 1: "Who in the hell told you you
had to be a doctor? If you so crazy 'bout messing 'round with sick people--then go be a nurse like other
women--or just get married and be quiet."
Beneatha's defiance toward Walter is symbolic of her defiance toward all barriers of stereotype. She
never yields to Walter and, in some cases, even goads him into a confrontation. Ruth's advice to Beneatha
is that she should just "be nice" sometimes and not argue over every one of Walter's insensitive remarks.
This advice is, of course, totally unacceptable to a character like Beneatha, to whom feistiness is a virtue
and docility a "sin." Whereas Ruth tries to change herself in order to please everyone in her life, most
especially to please her husband, Beneatha insists that others accept her as she is. She makes it clear,
early on, that she has no use for George Murchison because of his shallow beliefs. She makes it clear to
Ruth that she doesn't understand how anyone could have married someone like Walter. And she defies
her mother on religious points; in fact, Mama has to slap Beneatha before she will back down. However,
after Mama has left the room, Beneatha still says to Ruth that there is no God.
Mama is the "head of her household" only by default. She had to take charge after the death of Big
Walter, whose name suggests that he was in charge of his family prior to his death. Mama appears to be
always ready to hand over the reins to her son and let him be "head of the household" for one reason: He
is a man. She entrusts Walter with the remaining insurance money because she feels that she has robbed
him of his "manhood" by having done with the money what she thought was best. Mama is the type of
woman who believes that the man should be in charge. Ruth apparently agrees, but Beneatha does not.
Hansberry skillfully introduces issues of feminism that were not addressed as a political issue until a
decade after the play's Broadway opening.
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Along with feminism, the theme of fecundity (fertility; being fruitfully prolific) is threaded throughout this
play. Three generations of Youngers live in the same household; in addition, both Ruth's possible
pregnancy and her contemplation of abortion become focal points of the drama, and Mama's reference
to the child that she lost is emphasized. She does not merely mention Baby Claude in conversation; rather
she dwells upon her loss dramatically.
At the beginning of the play, Ruth serves eggs--but not without getting into an argument with Walter over
the eggs--which again accentuates the importance of this symbol of fertility to the play. In addition,
toward the end of the play, we learn that Mama's maiden name was Lena Eggleston, a name that
underscores the theme of fecundity as much as the argument over eggs at the beginning of the play.
A related motif is the subject of abortion, which was taboo and illegal in 1959. Ruth considers an abortion
in order to save her "living family" from further economic distress. The slightest reference to the word,
however, sends the other family members into an emotional tailspin. Conflicts erupt between Mama and
Walter, between Mama and Ruth, and between Ruth and Walter. Even Beneatha's inadvertently callous
response to Ruth's pregnancy is "Where is it going to sleep? On the roof?" Other remarks are also proof
that Beneatha's views on unplanned pregnancy differ sharply from her mother's. Mama says in
exasperation: "We [are] a people who give children life, not who destroys them"; she would never agree
to Ruth's having an abortion.
Ruth is trapped both by poverty and by the knowledge that her relationship with Walter Lee is rapidly
deteriorating. Walter, although surprised to learn that she is contemplating an abortion, is still too caught
up with his "get-rich-quick" scheme to offer her emotional support. Ruth contemplates an abortion
because she believes this decision would be in the best interest of her family. Whether or not Ruth will
actually decide on an abortion is debatable, for Ruth says to Mama in Act I, "Ain't no thin' can tear at you
like losin' your baby." Ruth says this as Mama is recounting the pain of having lost her own baby, Claude.
At this point in the play, Ruth's pregnancy has not yet been verified, but the dialogue spawned by the
abortion controversy in this drama is as relevant today as it was in 1959, when the play opened.
Afrocentrism, or the expression of pride in one's African heritage, so popular among the black youth of
the 1990s, was, in 1959, a little-known phenomenon. But Lorraine Hansberry's affinity for all things
African resulted from the people of greatness that she was acquainted with through her family. Langston
Hughes, for example, was a friend of her father's and often came to the Hansberry home for dinner.
Lorraine's uncle, Leo Hansberry, a noted historian and professor, was the teacher of Kwame Nkrumah
while he was a student at Howard University (Kwame Nkrumah was the leader of the fight for freedom of
the Gold Coast from British rule and became its first president in 1957. The British name "Gold Coast" was
changed to the Republic of Ghana in honor of that ancient kingdom.). Hansberry's knowledge and pride in
her African heritage was a result of her family and her family's associations, something of which few other
blacks could boast.
In this play, Beneatha expresses Hansberry's knowledge of and pride in her African heritage. Beneatha's
Afrocentric spirit is nurtured by her relationship with the African, Asagai. Not only is Beneatha's dialogue
peppered with a knowledge of 1959 African politics, but her dialogue also shows a knowledge of the
ancient kingdoms of Africa, something few historians spoke of and even fewer people knew about.
In Act II, Scene 1, when Beneatha defines an "assimilationist Negro" as being "someone who is willing to
give up his own culture and submerge himself completely in the dominant . . . oppressive culture," George
Murchison responds immediately with, "Here we go! A lecture on the African past! On our Great West
African Heritage! In one second we will hear all about the great Ashanti empires; the great Songhay
civilizations and the great sculpture of Benin and then some poetry in the Bantu. . . . Let's face it, baby,
your heritage is nothing but a bunch of raggedy-assed spirituals and some grass huts."
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In response to George's self-deprecating sarcasm about the historical achievements of black people,
Beneatha screams at him from another room: "The Ashanti were performing surgical operations when the
English--were still tatooing themselves with blue dragons." It is clear that whatever George knows about
Africa's past great civilizations has been learned through his association with Beneatha.
Note that when Beneatha's African suitor, Asagai, is on his way to the Younger apartment, Beneatha gives
her mother a hasty briefing on African history, coaching her mother in conversational protocol. She tells
Mama that Asagai is from Nigeria, which Mama immediately confuses with Liberia. After correcting her,
Beneatha begs Mama not to make stereotypical comments about Africans and tells her that the only thing
that most people seem to know about Africa has been learned from Tarzan movies. Beneatha berates
those missionaries who, like Mama, are more concerned with changing the African's religion than in
overthrowing colonial rule.
After Asagai arrives, Mama's attempt to impress him with her new knowledge of Africa is almost pathetic
as she parrots what Beneatha has just told her, echoing Beneatha's previous dialogue almost verbatim.
When Raisin opened in 1959, most people's knowledge of Africa was as limited as Mama's. Although a
more enlightened modern audience might be chagrined by the political misconceptions of the late 50s,
Lorraine Hansberry's prophetic vision is accurate and important, as though she envisioned the day that
the true history of Africa would be widely known and that the shackles of colonialism would be broken. In
1959, when Raisin opened on Broadway, most African countries were under European rule. The following
year, 1960, fifteen African countries gained their independence, and in eight more years, thirteen more
had become independent.
In Act III, Beneatha and Asagai address the possibility of the African countries' replacing oppressive
colonial rule with corrupt African leaders. Beneatha asks, "Independence and then what? What about the
crooks and thieves and just plain idiots who will come into power and steal and plunder the same as
before--only now they will be black and do it in the name of the new Independence." Kwame Nkrumah
received worldwide praise for his role in leading Ghana into independence in 1960.
However, immediately after taking office, Nkrumah began to spend the country's money with reckless
abandon and embraced the Communist Parry. The people rebelled against all of his dealings, staged a
successful coup d'etat, and he was overthrown in 1966. In retrospect, Hansberry's prophetic accuracy is
once again evident, for Nkrumah, in particular, was one of the leaders most admired by Hansberry in
1959, when Raisin opened. Other African nations also experienced political instability after their post-
1959 independence.
Closely related to the theme of Afrocentrism in this play is Beneatha's decision to change her hairstyle.
Although the dialogue concerning Beneatha's decision to change her hairstyle was omitted from the
original stage presentation and from the original screenplay, this dialogue is in the complete, original
version of the play and was used in the 1989 American Playhouse TV presentation.
In Act I, Scene 2, Asagai's off-hand remark about Beneatha's straightened hair is the catalyst for her
dramatic change in Act II, Scene 1 (ironically, for her date with George Murchison and not for a date with
Asagai). In Act I, Scene 2, when Asagai presents Beneatha with Nigerian tribal robes, he says, "You wear it
well . . . mutilated hair and all." His meaning is clear, although Beneatha's sensitivity does not permit her
to immediately grasp his meaning. So Asagai explains by asking, "Were you born with it [your hair] like
that?"
In Act II, Scene 1, Beneatha was supposed to have come out for her date with a natural (unstraightened)
hairstyle; this scene, however, was omitted at the last minute from the original stage presentation
because the actress, Diana Sands, in the role of Beneatha, received an imperfect haircut. Since this would
have given a negative impression of the natural look, both Hansberry and Sands decided to omit the
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hairstyle change from the Broadway opening. It is interesting to note that in 1959, Beneatha's new
hairstyle would have sent some shock waves throughout the audience, whereas ten years later, the same
style had become so popular nationwide that it was promoted by Madison Avenue as the "Afro." Once
again, Hansberry's prophetic vision was accurate and on target.
Throughout Raisin, Hansberry expresses her own desire to see blacks in entrepreneurial ventures. So few
blacks were in business in 1959 that sociologists of that day addressed this concern in academic
publications. Mama says, in response to Ruth's echoing Walter's dream of owning his own business, "We
ain't no business people, Ruth. We just plain working folks," and Ruth answers with: "Ain't nobody
business people till they go into business. Walter Lee says colored people ain't never going to start getting
ahead till they start gambling on some different kinds of things in the world--investments and things."
Because the percentage of black people who own their own businesses has increased dramatically since
1959, one might conclude that, here once again, Hansberry had an accurate view of the future.
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HISTORY OF AFRICAN AMERICANS IN CHICAGO
The history of African Americans in Chicago dates back to Jean Baptiste Pointe du Sable’s trading activities
in the 1780s. Fugitive slaves and freedmen established the city’s first black community in the 1840s. By
the late 19th c., the first black had been elected to office. The Great Migrations from 1910-1960 brought
hundreds of thousands of blacks from the South to Chicago, where they became an urban population, and
created churches, community organizations, important businesses, and great music and literature. African
Americans of all classes built community on the South Side of Chicago for decades before the Civil Rights
Movement. Their goal was to build a community where blacks could pursue life with the same rights as
whites.
The Great Migration
The black population in Chicago significantly increased in the
early to mid-1900s, due to the Great Migration out of the
South. While African Americans made up less than two
percent of the city's population in 1910, by 1960 the city was
nearly 25 percent black.
At the turn of the century, southern states
succeeded in passing new constitutions and
laws that disfranchised most blacks and many
poor whites. Deprived of the right to vote, they
could not sit on juries or run for office. They
were subject to laws passed by white legislators.
Segregated education for black children and
other services were consistently underfunded in
a poor, agricultural economy. Violence against
blacks had increased while Jim Crow laws imposing segregation created more restrictions in public life. In
addition, the boll weevil infestation ruined the cotton industry in the early 20th century. Voting with their
feet, blacks started migrating out of the South to the North, where they could live more freely, get their
children educated, and get new jobs.
Industry buildup for World War I pulled thousands of workers to the North, as did the rapid expansion of
railroads and the meatpacking and steel industries. Between 1915 and 1960, hundreds of thousands of
black southerners migrated to Chicago to escape violence and segregation, and to seek economic
freedom in the North. They went from being a mostly rural population to one that was mostly urban. “The
migration of African Americans from the rural south to the urban north became a mass movement.” The
Great Migration radically transformed Chicago, both politically and culturally.
From 1910-1940, most African Americans who migrated North were from rural areas. They had been
chiefly sharecroppers and laborers, although some were landowners pushed out by the boll weevil
disaster. After years of underfunding of public education for blacks in the South, they tended to be poorly
educated, with relatively low skills to apply to urban jobs. Like the European rural immigrants, they had to
rapidly adapt to a different urban culture. Many took advantage of better schooling in Chicago and their
children learned quickly. After 1940, however, which was the much larger migration, black migrants
tended to be already urbanized, from southern cities and towns. They were the most ambitious, better
educated with more urban skills to apply in their new homes.
The masses of new migrants arriving in the cities captured public attention. At one point in the 1940s,
3,000 African Americans were arriving every week in Chicago - stepping off the trains from the South and
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making their ways to neighborhoods they had learned about from friends and the Chicago Defender. The
Great Migration was charted and evaluated. The North was starting to change, and urban white
northerners started to get worried, as their neighborhoods rapidly changed. At the same time, recent and
older immigrants competed for jobs and housing with the new arrivals, especially on the South Side,
where the steel and meatpacking industries had the most numerous jobs.
Ethnic Irish were heavily implicated in gang violence and the rioting that erupted in 1919. They had been
the most established ethnic group and defended their power and territory in the South Side against both
ethnic whites and blacks. “Chicago was a focal point of the great migration and the racial violence that
came in its wake.” With Chicago's industries steadily expanding, opportunities opened up for new
migrants, including southerners, to find work. The railroad and meatpacking industries recruited black
workers. Chicago’s African-American newspaper, the Chicago Defender, made the city well known to
southerners. It sent bundles of papers south on the Illinois Central trains, and African-American Pullman
Porters would drop them off in black towns. “Chicago was the most accessible northern city for African
Americans in Mississippi, Louisiana, and Arkansas.” “Then between 1916 and 1919, 50,000 blacks came to
crowd into the burgeoning black belt, to make new demands upon the institutional structure of the South
Side.”
Segregation
On the Streets of the South Side
Especially after the Civil War, Illinois had some of the most
progressive anti-discrimination legislation in the nation. School
segregation was first outlawed in 1874, and segregation in public
accommodations was first outlawed in 1885.
In the 1920s, however, the state became a pioneer in using racially
restrictive housing covenants, a type of private restriction on
housing integration. The large black population in Chicago (40,000
in 1910, and 278,000 in 1940) faced some of the same
discrimination in Chicago as they had in the South. It was hard for
many blacks to find jobs and find decent places to live because of
the competition for housing among different groups of people at a
time when the city was expanding in population so dramatically.
At the same time that blacks moved from the South in the Great Migration, Chicago was still receiving
tens of thousands of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe. The groups competed with each
other for working class wages.
Though other techniques to maintain housing segregation had been used, by 1927 the political leaders of
Chicago began to adopt racially restrictive covenants. The Chicago Real Estate Board promoted a racially
restrictive covenant to YMCAs, churches, women's clubs, PTAs, Kiwanis clubs, chambers of commerce and
property owners' associations. At one point, as much as 80% of the city was included under restrictive
covenants.
The Supreme Court of the United States in Shelley v. Kraemer ruled in 1948 that racially restrictive
covenants were unconstitutional, but this did not quickly solve blacks' problems with finding adequate
housing. Homeowners' associations discouraged members from selling to black families, thus maintaining
residential segregation. There was also the pressure of European immigrants and their descendants.
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In a succession common to most cities, as black families and new immigrants started to move in, more
established white residents moved out of certain neighborhoods to seek newer housing. The white
residents who had been in the city longest were the ones most likely to move to newer, most expensive
housing, as they could afford it. The early white residents (many Irish immigrants and their descendants)
on the South Side began to move away under pressure of new migrants and with newly expanding
housing opportunities after WWII. African Americans continued to move into the area, which had become
the black capital of the country. The South Side became predominantly black. The Black Belt was formed.
Housing
Between 1900 and 1910, the African-
American population rose rapidly in Chicago.
White hostility and population growth
combined to create the ghetto on the South
Side. In 1910 more than 75 percent of blacks
lived in predominantly black sections of the
city.
Chicago's Black Belt, April 1941.
The eight or nine neighborhoods that had been set as areas of black settlement in 1900 remained the
core of the Chicago African-American community. The Black Belt slowly expanded to accommodate the
growing population. As the population grew, African Americans became more confined to a delineated
area, instead of spreading throughout the city. When blacks moved into mixed neighborhoods, ethnic
white hostility grew. After fighting over the area, often whites left the area to be dominated by blacks.
This is one of the reasons the Black Belt region started.
The Black Belt of Chicago was the chain of neighborhoods on the South Side of Chicago where threequarters
of the city's African American population lived by the mid-20th century. The Black Belt was an
area of aging, dilapidated housing that stretched 30 blocks along State Street on the South Side. It was
rarely more than seven blocks wide. The South Side Black Belt expanded in only two directions in the
twentieth century - south and east. The Black Belt also contained zones related to economic status. The
poorest blacks lived in the northernmost, oldest section of the black belt, while the elite resided in the
southernmost section. In the mid-1900s, blacks began slowly moving up to better positions in the work
force. During this time, Chicago was the capital of Black America. Many African Americans who moved to
the Black Belt area of Chicago were from the Black Belt in the Southeastern region of the United States.
Immigration to Chicago was another pressure of overcrowding, as primarily lower-class newcomers from
rural Europe also sought cheap housing and working class jobs. More and more people tried to fit into
converted "kitchenette" and basement apartments. Living conditions in the Black Belt resembled
conditions in the West Side ghetto or in the stockyards district. Although there were decent homes in the
black sections, the core of the Black Belt was a slum. A 1934 census estimated that black households
contained 6.8 people on average, whereas white households contained 4.7. Many blacks lived in
apartments that lacked plumbing, with only one bathroom for each floor. With the buildings so
overcrowded, building inspections and garbage collection were below the minimum mandatory
requirements for healthy sanitation. This unhealthiness increased the threat of disease. From 1940-1960,
the infant death rate in the Black Belt was 16% higher than the rest of the city.
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Crime in African-American neighborhoods was a low priority to the police. Associated with problems of
poverty and southern culture, rates of violence and homicide were high. Some women resorted to
prostitution to survive. Both low life and middle class strivers were concentrated in a small area.
In 1946, the Chicago Housing Authority (CHA) tried to ease the pressure in the overcrowded ghettos and
proposed to put public housing sites in less congested areas in the city. The white residents did not take
to this very well, so city politicians forced the CHA to keep the status quo and develop high rise projects in
the Black Belt and on the West Side. Some of these became notorious failures. As industrial restructuring
in the 1950s and later led to massive job losses, residents changed from working class families to poor
families on welfare.
Culture
Between 1916 and 1920, almost 50,000 Black Southerners moved to Chicago, which profoundly shaped
the city's development. Growth increased even more rapidly after 1940. In particular, the new citizens
caused the growth of local churches, businesses and community organizations. A new musical culture
arose, fed by all the traditions along the Mississippi River. The population continued to increase with new
migrants, with the most arriving after 1940.
The black arts community in Chicago was especially
vibrant. The 1920s were the height of the Jazz Age,
but music continued as the heart of the community
for decades. Nationally renowned musicians rose
within the Chicago world. Along the Stroll, a brightlight
district on State Street, jazz greats like Louis
Armstrong headlined at nightspots including the Delux
Café.
Richard Wright, author
Black Chicagoans' literary output between 1925 and
1950 was also prolific, and rivaled that of the Harlem
Renaissance. Prominent writers included Richard
Wright, Willard Motley, William Attaway, Frank
Marshall Davis, St. Clair Drake, Horace R. Clayton, and Margaret Walker. In Chicago, black writers turned
away from the folk traditions embraced by Harlem Renaissance writers, instead adopting a grittier style of
"literary naturalism" to better depict life in the urban ghetto. The classic Black Metropolis, written by St.
Clair Drake and Horace R. Clayton, exemplified the style of the Chicago writers. Today it remains the most
detailed portrayal of Black Chicago in the 1930s and
1940s.
Business
Chicago’s black population developed a class structure
composed of a large number of domestic workers and
other manual laborers, along with a small, but growing,
contingent of middle-and-upper-class business and
professional elites. In 1929, black Chicagoans gained
access to city jobs, and expanded their professional class. Fighting job discrimination was a constant battle
for African Americans in Chicago, as foremen in various companies restricted the advancement of black
workers, which often kept them from earning higher wages. Then in the mid-20th century, blacks began
slowly moving up to better positions in the work force.
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The migration expanded the market for African American business. "The most notable breakthrough in
black business came in the insurance field." There were four major insurance companies founded in
Chicago. Then, in the early twentieth century, service establishments took over. The African-American
market on State Street during this time consisted of barber shops, restaurants, pool rooms, saloons, and
beauty salons. African Americans used these trades to build their own communities. These shops gave the
blacks a chance to establish their families, earn money, and become an active part of the community.
Achievements
In the early 20th century many prominent African Americans were
Chicago residents, including Republican and later Democratic
congressman William L. Dawson (America’s most powerful black
politician) and boxing champion Joe Louis. America's most widely read
black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, was published there and
circulated in the South as well.
Joe Louis
After long efforts, in the late 1930s, workers organized across racial
lines to form the United Meatpacking Workers of America. By then,
the majority of workers in Chicago's plants were black, but they
succeeded in creating an interracial organizing committee. It
succeeded in organizing unions both in Chicago and Omaha, the city
with the second largest meatpacking industry. This union belonged to the Congress of Industrial
Organizations (CIO), which was more progressive than the American Federation of Labor. They succeeded
in lifting segregation of job positions. For a time, workers achieved living wages and other benefits,
leading to blue collar middle-class life for decades. Some blacks were also able to move up the ranks to
supervisory and management positions. The CIO also succeeded in organizing Chicago's steel industry.
Blacks began to win elective office in local and state government.
The first blacks had been elected to office in Chicago in the late
19th c., decades before the Great Migrations.
And in 2008, another resident of the South Side, Barack Hussein
Obama, was elected the first African-American President of the
United States.
President Barack Obama
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AFROCENTRISM
Afrocentrism or Afrocentricity is a world view that emphasizes the importance of African people in
culture, philosophy, and history. Fundamental to Afrocentrism is the assumption that approaching
knowledge from a Eurocentrist perspective, as well as certain mainstream assumptions in the application
of information in the West, has led to injustices and also to inadequacies in meeting the needs of black
Africans and the peoples of the African diaspora.
Afrocentrists commonly contend that Eurocentrism has led to the neglect
or denial of the contributions of African people and focused instead on a
generally European-centered model of world civilization and history.
Therefore, Afrocentrism is a paradigm shift from a European-centered
history to an African-centered history. More broadly, Afrocentrism is
concerned with distinguishing African achievements apart from the
influence of European peoples. Some Western mainstream scholars have
assessed some Afrocentric ideas as pseudohistorical, especially claims
regarding Ancient Egypt as contributing directly to the development of
Greek and Western culture. Contemporary Afrocentrists may view the movement as multicultural rather
than ethnocentric. According to US professor Victor Oguejiofor Okafor, concepts of Afrocentricity lie at
the core of the disciplines such as African American Studies.
History
Afrocentrism developed first as an argument among leaders and intellectuals in the Western Hemisphere.
It arose following social changes in the United States and Africa due both to the end of slavery and
expansion of British Colonialism. Modern Afrocentricity has its origins in the work of African and African
diaspora intellectuals in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
By the late 19th century, the United Kingdom had become a superpower. Throughout the century, British
and French governments, travelers, scholars, artists and writers increasingly turned their attentions to
Africa and the Near East as places of exploration (both physical and intellectual), settlement, exploitation
of new resources, and playing out of their longstanding rivalries. They completed the Suez Canal in 1869,
simplifying ship passage between Europe and the Far East. Based on their self-appraisal of the value of
technology, industrialization, Western infrastructure, and culture, these European nations assumed their
superiority to the peoples and cultures they encountered in Africa.
19th and early 20th century
Edward Wilmot Blyden, an Americo-Liberian educator and diplomat active in the pan-Africa movement,
perceived a change in perception taking place among Europeans towards Africans in his 1908 book African
Life and Customs, which originated as a series of articles in the Sierra Leone Weekly News. In it, he
proposed that Africans were beginning to be seen simply as different and not as inferior, in part because
of the work of English writers such as Mary Kingsley and Lady Lugard, who traveled and studied in Africa.
Such an enlightened view was fundamental to refute prevailing ideas among Western peoples about
African cultures and Africans.
Blyden used that standpoint to show how the traditional social, industrial, and economic life of Africans
untouched by "either European or Asiatic influence," was different and complete in itself, with its own
organic wholeness. In a letter responding to Blyden's original series of articles, Fante journalist and
politician J.E. Casely Hayford commented: "It is easy to see the men and women who walked the banks of
the Nile" passing him on the streets of Kumasi. Hayford suggested building a University to preserve
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African identity and instincts. In that university, the history chair would teach:
“Universal history, with particular reference to the part Ethiopia has played in the affairs of the
world. I would lay stress upon the fact that while Ramses II was dedicating temples to 'the God of
gods, and secondly to his own glory,' the God of the Hebrews had not yet appeared unto Moses
in the burning bush; that Africa was the cradle of the world's systems and philosophies, and the
nursing mother of its religions. In short, that Africa has nothing to be ashamed of in its place
among the nations of the earth. I would make it possible for this seat of learning to be the means
of revising erroneous current ideas regarding the African; of raising him in self-respect; and of
making him an efficient co-worker in the uplifting of man to nobler effort.”
The exchange of ideas between Blyden and Hayford embodied the fundamental concepts of Afrocentrism.
A 1911 copy of the NAACP journal The Crisis depicting an Afrocentric artist's
interpretation of "Ra-Maat-Neb, one of the kings of the Upper Nile"
In the United States, writers and editors of publications such as The
Crisis and The Journal of Negro History sought to counter the
prevailing view that Sub-Saharan Africa had contributed nothing of
value to human history that was not the result of incursions by
Europeans and Arabs. Authors in these journals theorized that
Ancient Egyptian civilization was the culmination of events arising
from the origin of the human race in Africa. They investigated the
history of Africa from that perspective.
Afrocentrists claimed The Mis-Education of the Negro (1933) by Carter G. Woodson, an African- American
historian, as one of their foundational texts. Woodson critiqued education of African Americans as]"miseducation"
because he held that it denigrated the black while glorifying the white. For these early
Afrocentrists, the goal was to break what they saw as a vicious cycle of the reproduction of black selfabnegation.
In the words of The Crisis editor W.E.B. Du Bois, the world left African Americans with a
"double consciousness," and a sense of "always looking at one's self through the eyes of others, of
measuring one's soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity."
In his early years, W.E.B. Du Bois researched West African cultures and attempted to construct a
pan-Africanist value system based on West African traditions. In the 1950s, Du Bois envisioned and
received funding from Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah to produce an Encyclopedia Africana to
chronicle the history and cultures of Africa. Du Bois died before being able to complete his work. Some
aspects of Du Bois's approach are evident in work by Cheikh Anta Diop in the 1950s and 1960s.
Du Bois inspired a number of authors, including Drusilla Dunjee Houston. After reading his work The
Negro (1915), Houston embarked upon writing her Wonderful Ethiopians of the Ancient Cushite Empire
(1926). The book was a compilation of evidence related to the historic origins of Cush and Ethiopia, and
assessed their influences on Greece.
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1960s and 1970s
The 1960s and 1970s were times of social and political ferment which gave rise in the U.S. to the Black
Nationalist, Black Power and Black Arts Movements, all driven to some degree by a rejection of Western
values and an identification with "Mother Africa." Afrocentric scholars and black youth also challenged
Eurocentric ideas in academia. 1968 signaled a new era in student unrest in the U.S. when Howard
University became the first major university to be shut down by student protests, in part over demands
for a more Afrocentric orientation of the institution.
The work of Cheikh Anta Diop became very influential. In the
following decades, histories related to Africa and the diaspora
gradually would incorporate a more African perspective. Since that
time, Afrocentrists have increasingly seen African peoples as the
makers and shapers of their own histories.
You have all heard of the African Personality; of African democracy,
of the African way to socialism, of negritude, and so on. They are
all props we have fashioned at different times to help us get on our
feet again. Once we are up we shan't need any of them anymore.
But for the moment it is in the nature of things that we may need
to counter racism with what Jean-Paul Sartre has called an antiracist
racism, to announce not just that we are as good as the next
man but that we are much better.
—Chinua Achebe, 1965
Tejumola Olaniyan writes that Chinua Achebe easily might have included Afrocentrism in his list of
"props." In this context, ethnocentric Afrocentrism was not intended to be essential or permanent. It was
a consciously fashioned strategy of resistance to the Eurocentrism of the time. Afrocentric scholars
adopted two approaches: a deconstructive rebuttal of what they called "the whole archive of European
ideological racism" and a reconstructive act of writing new self-constructed histories.
Some Afrocentric writers focused on study of indigenous African civilizations and peoples, to emphasize
African history separate from European or Arab influence.
1980s and 1990s
In the 1980s and 1990s, Afrocentrism increasingly became seen as a tool for addressing social ills and a
means of grounding community efforts toward self-determination and political and economic
empowerment.
In his (1992) article "Eurocentrism vs. Afrocentrism", US anthropologist Linus A. Hoskins wrote:
The vital necessity for African people to use the weapons of education and history to extricate
themselves from this psychological dependency complex/syndrome as a necessary precondition
for liberation. [...] If African peoples (the global majority) were to become Afrocentric
(Afrocentrized), ... that would spell the ineluctable end of European global power and
dominance. This is indeed the fear of Europeans. ... Afrocentrism is a state of mind, a particular
subconscious mind-set that is rooted in the ancestral heritage and communal value system.
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Although Afrocentricity is often associated with liberal or
left-wing politics, the movement is not homogeneous. During
the 1980s and 1990s, sociological research became
increasingly preoccupied with the problem of the "black
underclass." Some Afrocentric scholars began to frame
Afrocentric values as a remedy for what they perceived to be
the social ills of poor African Americans. American educator
Jawanza Kunjufu made the case that hip hop culture, rather
than being creative expression of the culture, was the root of
many social ills. For some Afrocentrists, the contemporary
problems of the ghetto stemmed not from race and class
inequality, but rather from a failure to inculcate black youth
with Afrocentric values.
Afrocentric ideas also received a considerable boost from the
cultural shift known as postmodernism and its privileging of
difference, micro-struggles, and the politics of identity. Postmodernism's general assault on the authority
and universalist claims of Western "culture" is also a mainstay in many Afrocentric agendas. In turn,
postmodern pluralism has begun to permeate Afrocentric thought.
In the West and elsewhere, the European, in the midst of other peoples, has often propounded
an exclusive view of reality; the exclusivity of this view creates a fundamental human crisis. In
some cases, it has created cultures arrayed against each other or even against themselves.
Afrocentricity’s response certainly is not to impose its own particularity as a universal, as
Eurocentricity has often done. But hearing the voice of African American culture with all of its
attendant parts is one way of creating a more sane society and one model for a more humane
world. -Asante, M. K. (1988)
By the end of the 1990s, the ethnocentric Afrocentrism of the '50s, '60s and '70s had largely fallen out of
favor. In 1997, US cultural historian Nathan Glazer described Afrocentricity as a form of multiculturalism.
He wrote that its influence ranged from sensible proposals about inclusion of more African material in
school curricula to what he called senseless claims about African primacy in all major technological
achievements. Glazer argued that Afrocentricity had become more important due to the failure of
mainstream society to assimilate all African Americans. Anger and frustration at their continuing
separation gave black Americans the impetus to reject traditions that excluded them.
Many Afrocentrists continue to challenge concepts such as white privilege, so-called color-blind
perspectives, and race-neutral pedagogies. There are now strong ties between Afrocentricity and Critical
Race Theory.
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Contemporary
Today, Afrocentricity takes many forms, including serving as a tool for creating a more multicultural and
balanced approach to the study of history and sociology. Afrocentricity contends that race still exists as a
social and political construct. It argues that for centuries in academia,
Eurocentric ideas about history were dominant: ideas such as blacks having no
civilizations, no written languages, no cultures, and no histories of any note
before coming into contact with Europeans. Further, according to the views of
some Afrocentrists, European history has commonly received more attention
within the academic community than the history of sub-Saharan African
cultures or those of the many Pacific Island peoples. Afrocentrists contend it is
important to divorce the historical record from past racism. Molefi Kete
Asante's book Afrocentricity (1988) argues that African-Americans should look
to African cultures "as a critical corrective to a displaced agency among
Africans." Less concerned about specific claims about the race of the Egyptians
or other controversial topics, some Afrocentrists believe that the burden of
Afrocentricity is to define and develop African agency in the midst of the
cultural wars debate. By doing so, Afrocentricity can support all forms of multiculturalism.
Afrocentrists argue that Afrocentricity is important for people of all ethnicities who want to understand
African history and the African diaspora. For example, the Afrocentric method can be used to research
African indigenous culture. Queeneth Mkabela writes in 2005 that the Afrocentric perspective provides
new insights for understanding African indigenous culture, in a multicultural context. According to
Mkabela and others, the Afrocentric method is a necessary part of complete scholarship and without it,
the picture is incomplete, less accurate, and less objective.
Studies of African and African-diaspora cultures have shifted understanding and
created a more positive acceptance of influence by African religious, linguistic
and other traditions, both among scholars and the general public. For example
Lorenzo Dow Turner's seminal 1949 study of the Gullah language, a dialect
spoken by black communities in Georgia and South Carolina, demonstrated that
its idiosyncrasies were not simply incompetent command of English, but
incorporated West African linguistic characteristics in vocabulary, grammar,
sentence structure, and semantic system. Likewise, religious movements such as
Vodou (Voodoo) are now less likely to be characterized as "mere superstition,"
but understood in terms of links to African traditions. Scholars who adopt such
approaches may or may not see their work as Afrocentrist in orientation.
In recent years Africana Studies or Africology departments at many major universities have grown out of
the Afrocentric "Black Studies" departments formed in the 1970s. Rather than focusing on black topics in
the African diaspora (often exclusively African American topics), these reformed departments aim to
expand the field to encompass all of the African diaspora. They also seek to better align themselves with
other university departments and find continuity and compromise between the radical Afrocentricity of
the past decades and the multicultural scholarship found in many fields today.
A RAISIN IN THE SUN TEACHERS GUIDE- WPTC Page 25

ESSAY TOPICS AND REVIEW QUESTIONS
1. In literature, as in life, a character may search for a better way of life. Show how two characters from
A Raisin in the Sun are searching for a better way of life. Explain what each character is hoping to gain
through this search and discuss the ways in which each character attempts to bring about a change in his
or her life.
2. Discuss the ways in which the setting of Raisin has a profound effect upon two of the characters.
3. If people can be divided into three groups--those who make things happen, those who watch things
happen, and those who wonder what happened--apply each of these to the three characters in Raisin
who respectively prove that this is so.
4. Often, pressure from other people or from outside forces might compel a person to take an action
that he or she might not have taken ordinarily. Discuss a character from Raisin who was pressured into
taking an action that he or she might not have taken on his or her own.
5. Show how Raisin deals with the generation gap--the problems that the older generation has in dealing
with the younger generation and vice versa.
6. Discuss the ways in which two characters in Raisin have made adjustments to negative aspects of
their environment. These adjustments might be to the character's physical surroundings, to other people,
or to the customs and traditions of the society in which they live.
7. Sometimes something as seemingly trivial as a meeting or a conversation between two people can
have a lasting effect upon the life of one or even of both of them. Discuss how either a seemingly
unimportant meeting or a casual conversation brings about a significant change in the life of one of the
characters in Raisin.
8. Sometimes in one work of literature, we might find two characters who contrast markedly from one
another. Discuss two characters from Raisin who are the opposite of each other in their views, beliefs,
and philosophy of life.
9. In literature, as in life, a character might feel trapped. Discuss a character from Raisin who feels
trapped and give examples of the ways in which this character chooses to deal with those feelings.
10. Discuss a character from Raisin who changes significantly, telling specifically of the forces that bring
about this change. How does this character relate to the other characters before the change and how
does this character relate to the other characters after the change?
11. Most people define loneliness as being alone, but a person might experience loneliness even when
surrounded by other people. A person can be lonely if his/her ideas, feelings, or circumstances are
different from those around them. Discuss a character from Raisin who experiences loneliness because of
the differences in his/her ideas, feelings, or circumstances.
12. Often, in life, a situation may reach a "point of no return"--the point after which the life of a person
can never be the same. Describe such a turning point for a character in Raisin.
13. Add another ending to the already existing ending of Raisin. Describe what you think happens next-after
the Youngers have left their Southside Chicago apartment and have moved into their new house.
A RAISIN IN THE SUN TEACHERS GUIDE- WPTC Page 26

You might write a composition or you may wish to continue in Hansberry's genre, using the dialogue of
the characters to show your plot.
14. Noting Lorraine Hansberry's unique writing style, compare Walter Lee's imitation of a subservient,
stereotypical begging "darky," (the heartbreaking speech he plans to deliver to Lindner in order to regain
the lost money) with the speech that Walter Lee actually gives when Lindner arrives. How are they
different in language? What is Hansberry's point in having Walter Lee practice one speech and then say
something completely different?
15. After reading a full-length biography of Langston Hughes, show how he might have had a profound
effect on Lorraine Hansberry's writing of A Raisin in the Sun.
16. After reading a full-length biography of Lorraine Hansberry, discuss the ways in which events of her
own life are interwoven into her play A Raisin in the Sun.
17. Research the following events of 1955 and tell how each might have contributed to Lorraine
Hansberry's political philosophy: the arrest of Rosa Parks; Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka; and the
murder of Emmett Till.
18. In order to be more aware of the historical events surrounding the opening of Raisin on Broadway,
summarize the headlines of The New York Times for March 11, 1959 (the date Raisin opened on
Broadway); also summarize a full-length article from Life magazine for that week; and summarize an
article from Ebony magazine for that month.
QUOTES
Quote 1: "Weariness has, in fact, won in this room. Everything has been polished, washed, sat on, used,
scrubbed too often. All pretenses but living itself have long since vanished from the very atmosphere of
this room" Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 3
Quote 2: "Check coming today?" Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 6
Quote 3: "Now - whose little old angry man are you?" Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 11
Quote 4: "Yeah. You see, this little liquor store we got in mind cost seventy-five thousand and we figured
the initial investment on the place be 'bout thirty thousand, see. That be ten thousand each... Baby, don't
nothing happen for you in this world 'less you pay somebody off!" Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 14-15
Quote 5: "We one group of men tied to a race of women with small minds." Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 17
Quote 6: "a woman who has adjusted to many things in life and overcome many more, her face is full of
strength. She has, we can see, wit and faith of a kind that keep her eyes lit and full of interest and
expectancy. She is, in a word, a beautiful woman. Her bearing is perhaps most like the noble bearing of
the women of the Hereros of Southwest Africa - rather as if she imagines that as she walks she still bears a
basket or a vessel upon her head." Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 22
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Quote 7: "Mama, something is happening between Walter and me. I don't know what it is - but he needs
something - something I can't give him any more. He needs this chance, Lena." Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 25
Quote 8: "Big Walter used to say, he'd get right wet in the eyes sometimes, lean his head back with the
water standing in his eyes and say, 'Seem like God didn't see fit to give the black man nothing but dreams
- but He did give us children to make them dreams seem worth while.'" Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 29
Quote 9: "The Murchisons are honest-to-God-real-live-rich-colored people, and the only people in the
world who are more snobbish than rich white people are rich colored people. I thought everybody knew
that." Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 34
Quote 10: "In my mother's house there is still God." Act 1, Scene 1, pg. 37
Quote 11: "Now I ain't saying what I think. But I ain't never been wrong 'bout a woman neither." Act 1,
Scene 2, pg. 41
Quote 12: "Assimilationism is so popular in your country." Act 1, Scene 2, pg. 48
Quote 13: "When a man goes outside his home to look for peace." Act 1, Scene 2, pg. 60
Quote 14: "Something has changed. You something new, boy. In my time we was worried about not being
lynched and getting to the North if we could and how to stay alive and still have a pinch of dignity
too...Now here come you and Beneatha - talking 'bout things we ain't never even thought about hardly,
me and your daddy. You ain't satisfied or proud of nothing we done. I mean that you had a home; that we
kept you out of trouble till you was grown; that you don't have to ride to work on the back of nobody's
streetcar - You my children - but how different we done become." Act 1, Scene 2, pg. 62
Quote 15: "Oh, it's just a college girl's way of calling people Uncle Toms - but that isn't what it means at
all." Act 2, Scene 1, pg. 72
Quote 16: "I see you all the time - with the books tucked under your arms - going to your (British A - a
mimic) 'clahsses.' And for what! What the hell you learning over there? Filling up your heads - (Counting
off on his fingers) - with the sociology and the psychology - but they teaching you how to be a man? How
to take over and run the world? They teaching you how to run a rubber plantation or a steel mill? Naw -
just to talk proper and read books and wear white shoes..." Act 2, Scene 1, pg. 76
Quote 17: "What you need me to say you done right for? You the head of this family. You run our lives like
you want to. It was your money and you did what you wanted with it. So what you need for me to say it
was all right for? So you butchered up a dream of mine - you - who always talking 'bout your children's
dreams..." Act 2, Scene 1, pg. 87
Quote 18: "And from now on any penny that come out of it or that go in it is for you to look after. For you
to decide. It ain't much, but it's all I got in the world and I'm putting in your hands. I'm telling you to be
head of this family from now on like you supposed to be." Act 2, Scene 2, pg. 94
Quote 19: "Girl, I do believe you are the first person in the history of the entire human race to successfully
brainwash yourself." Act 2, Scene 3, pg. 98
Quote 20: "Well - I don't understand why you people are reacting this way. What do you think you are
going to gain by moving into a neighborhood where you just aren't wanted and where some elements -
well - people can get awful worked up when they feel that their whole way of life and everything they've
A RAISIN IN THE SUN TEACHERS GUIDE- WPTC Page 28

ever worked for is threatened...You just can't force people to change their hearts, son." Act 2, Scene 3, pg.
105-6
Quote 21: "He talked Brotherhood. He said everybody ought to learn how to sit down and hate each other
with good Christian fellowship." Act 2, Scene 3, pg. 107
Quote 22: "I seen...him...night after night...come in...and look at that rug...and then look at me...the red
showing in his eyes...the veins moving in his head...I seen him grow thin and old before he was
forty...working and working and working like somebody's old horse...killing himself...and you - you give it
all away in a day..." Act 2, Scene 3, pg. 117
Quote 23: "I live the answer! (pause) In my village at home it is the exceptional man who can even read a
newspaper...or who ever sees a book at all. I will go home and much of what I will have to say will seem
strange to the people of my village...But I will teach and work and things will happen, slowly and swiftly.
At times it will seem that nothing changes at all...and then again...the sudden dramatic events which
make history leap into the future. And then quiet again. Retrogression even. Guns, murder, revolution.
And I even will have moments when I wonder if the quiet was not better than all that death and hatred.
But I will look about my village at the illiteracy and disease and ignorance and I will not wonder long. And
perhaps...perhaps I will be a great man...I mean perhaps I will hold on to the substance of truth and find
my way always with the right course..." Act 3, pg. 124
Quote 24: "Sometimes you just got to know when to give up some things...and hold on to what you got."
Act 3, pg. 130
Quote 25: "There is always something left to love. And if you ain't learned that, you ain't learned nothing."
Act 3, pg. 135
Quote 26: "He finally come into his manhood today, didn't he? Kind of like a rainbow after the rain..." Act
3, pg. 141
A RAISIN IN THE SUN TEACHERS GUIDE- WPTC Page 29

RESOURCES
Quotes from the Play
http://www.bookrags.com/notes/rai/QUO.html
Lesson Plans
Excellent lesson plan for RAISIN
http://teacherweb.sewanhaka.k12.ny.us/~bdiscala/
Great lesson plan for extending the play.
http://edsitement.neh.gov/view_lesson_plan.asp?id=449
Loads of lesson plans for RAISIN
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=a+raisin+in+the+sun&rating=3
Lorraine Hansberry
Biography
http://www.cliffsnotes.com/WileyCDA/LitNote/A-Raisin-in-the-Sun-About-the-Author.id-150,pageNum-1.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry Quotes
http://womenshistory.about.com/od/quotes/a/hansberry.htm
Lorraine Hansberry Theatre
http://www.lhtsf.org/
Afrocentricity
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Afrocentrism
Molefi Kete Asante’s work and books
http://www.asante.net/books.html
African American Chicago
History of African Americans in Chicago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_African_Americans_in_Chicago
http://www.loc.gov/exhibits/african/afam011.html
Great Migration
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Migration_(African_American)
African American Literature – Chicago Writers
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/926640/African-American-literature/232361/Chicago-writers
DuSable Museum of African American History
http://www.dusablemuseum.org/
A RAISIN IN THE SUN TEACHERS GUIDE- WPTC Page 30