A Raisin in the Sun (1959)¶

Author: Lorraine Hansberry Type: Literary Text · Play Source: Random House (not public domain — school library copy required) Full Text: Available via Open Library — free digital borrowing (search: A Raisin in the Sun Hansberry) · school library copy required for extended reading Era/Period: USH Unit 6 — Civil Rights Era (1950s–60s); housing discrimination context USH Standards: US.6_12.3 · US.6_12.4 ELA Standards: 9-10.R.8 · 9-10.W.4

What This Text Is About¶

Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965), playwright and author of A Raisin in the Sun (1959). Photo: New York World-Telegram and Sun.

The Younger family — grandmother Lena, her son Walter Lee, his wife Ruth, their son Travis, and Walter Lee's sister Beneatha — live crowded into a small apartment on Chicago's South Side in the late 1950s. They are waiting for a $10,000 life insurance check from the death of Lena's husband, Walter Senior. The play is about what the family does with this money — and what each character believes the money represents. Walter Lee wants to invest in a liquor store. Beneatha wants to go to medical school. Lena wants to buy a house. The house she buys is in Clybourne Park, a white neighborhood whose residents' association sends a representative to pay the family not to move in.

Hansberry was the first Black playwright produced on Broadway. She wrote A Raisin in the Sun from direct personal experience: her own father, Carl Hansberry, had fought a legal battle — Hansberry v. Lee, which went to the Supreme Court in 1940 — against Chicago's restrictive housing covenants that prevented Black families from buying homes in white neighborhoods. The Younger family's choice is the choice her family made. The title comes from Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" (1951): "What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?" — the question the play poses and refuses to simply answer.

This text is dual-use in the most direct historical sense. As an ELA text, the play is one of the finest American examples of dramatic structure built around character foils — Walter Lee and Beneatha represent two visions of Black aspiration in direct tension with each other. The setting (a cramped apartment) functions as a character: physical space represents social constraint. The play's final decision — to move to Clybourne Park — is left deliberately ambiguous. As a Social Studies text, the play is a primary source for the specific mechanisms of housing segregation: restrictive covenants, "block busting," and the concentrated poverty that resulted from confining Black families to specific neighborhoods. These mechanisms created the geography of American cities — including Fargo — that students may inhabit today.

Read It¶

Fair-use excerpts for educational use. Connect with Mr. Reese or the Fargo South Library for the full text.

Act 1, Scene 1 — The Morning Routine¶

The setting introduces the Younger family's crowded apartment, highlighting their living conditions as a symbol of social inequality.

As Lena Younger prepares breakfast in her small kitchen, she speaks to Ruth about how tired Walter is from his job and the strain it puts on their family. This dialogue sets up the physical constraints of their space and its symbolic weight in societal oppression.

Act 2, Scene 2 — Walter and the Dream¶

Walter's speech reveals his aspirations for himself and his son, emphasizing the internal conflict between ambition and reality.

“I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy. I want colored Cadillac's, and I want night clubs, and I want to move into a fine house and have people say, ‘That’s Walter Lee Younger’s house’ when they see it.” This monologue captures Walter’s ambition amidst the struggle for economic freedom.

Act 3 — 'We have decided to move'¶

The climax of the play where the family decides on a course of action that prioritizes their dignity.

When Lindner offers the Youngers money not to move into an all-white neighborhood, Walter refuses and proclaims, “You hear me? We don’t need you or your offer! . . . You just want us to be grateful and go away and leave you alone.” This moment is a pivotal declaration of the family’s determination to pursue their dreams with dignity.

Full text available at Internet Archive and Open Library. Connect with Mr. Reese or the Fargo South Library for a physical copy.

ELA Standards This Connects To¶

R.8 — A Raisin in the Sun demonstrates several dramatic structures with unusual clarity. Character foils: Walter Lee and Beneatha are the play's central foil pair — Walter Lee's dream is economic (ownership, business, "making it" in capitalist terms); Beneatha's dream is professional and intellectual (medical school, identity, African heritage). They represent two competing visions of what Black liberation looks like in 1950s America, and the play does not fully resolve the tension. Setting as character: the apartment's smallness, its shared bathroom with neighbors, its single bedroom — these are not background detail. Hansberry uses the physical space to represent the social constraint the family lives under; the house in Clybourne Park represents freedom partly because it is larger. Dramatic structure: the play follows a clear five-act arc (complication, revelation, crisis, decision, departure) that rewards structural analysis.
W.4 — The play ends with the family deciding to move to Clybourne Park knowing the white residents will resist them. The question the play leaves open: What does this decision mean — hope or delusion? Students construct an argument about the ending using evidence from the play. This requires engaging with the specific historical context (the real violence that accompanied housing integration) and with Hansberry's own biography — her family fought this battle and won, but her father died young and embittered.

US.6_12.3 — The play's central conflict is legal and political: restrictive housing covenants were real legal instruments that bound white homeowners not to sell to Black buyers. The Supreme Court ruled restrictive covenants unenforceable in Shelley v. Kraemer (1948) — but the play's events occur after that ruling, and Mr. Lindner's visit makes clear that informal community enforcement continued. Students examine: How did housing segregation work legally? What did the Supreme Court ruling actually change? What does the gap between legal change and social reality reveal about how racial inequality is maintained?
US.6_12.4 — The Great Migration brought millions of Black Southerners to Northern cities in the early 20th century. The Younger family is part of this migration's second generation. The specific economic conditions of Chicago's South Side — concentrated in a small area by housing restrictions — created the poverty that Lena Younger's insurance check represents an escape from. Students analyze: What were the economic effects of housing segregation? What did it mean economically for a family to be confined to a specific neighborhood? How did this shape the geography of American cities?

Key Vocabulary¶

Term	Definition
Restrictive covenant	A legal clause in a property deed that restricted who could buy or occupy the property — commonly used to prevent Black families from purchasing homes in white neighborhoods; ruled unenforceable by the Supreme Court in 1948 but socially enforced for decades after
The Great Migration	The movement of millions of Black Americans from the Jim Crow South to Northern and Midwestern cities between 1910 and 1970 — the Younger family is part of this migration's second generation in Chicago
Blockbusting	A real estate practice in which agents deliberately sold homes in white neighborhoods to Black families to trigger white panic-selling, then bought the remaining properties cheaply — a mechanism of housing segregation
Langston Hughes — "Harlem"	The 1951 poem that gives the play its title; Hughes asks what happens to a deferred dream — "Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?" — the question the play dramatizes
Clybourne Park	The fictional white Chicago neighborhood where the Youngers buy a house — in 2011, playwright Bruce Norris wrote Clybourne Park, a play set in the same house showing what happened to the white residents before and after the Youngers arrived
Assimilationism	The belief that Black Americans should adopt the dominant white cultural norms to achieve equality — Beneatha rejects this in her confrontation with George Murchison, who represents the assimilationist view

Key Scenes and Passages¶

The play is copyrighted — do not reproduce extended passages. Focus on these key scenes:

The opening (the alarm clock): The play opens before dawn with Ruth getting Walter Lee up for work. The physical reality of the apartment and the exhaustion of its inhabitants is established before a word of dialogue. Students note: What does Hansberry communicate in staging alone, before anyone speaks?

Walter Lee's dream speech: Walter Lee explains to Travis what he envisions for their future — a vision built on business ownership and property. Students analyze: What does Walter Lee believe money represents? What values does his dream reflect? Why does Ruth find it painful rather than inspiring?

Beneatha and the African identity (Asagai scenes): Beneatha's relationship with the Nigerian student Joseph Asagai raises questions about Black identity, African heritage, and assimilation that are specific to the late 1950s context. Students analyze: What is the debate between Asagai's vision and George Murchison's assimilationist vision? What does Hansberry seem to argue?

Mr. Lindner's visit (Act II, Scene 3): The representative from the Clybourne Park Improvement Association offers to pay the Youngers not to move in — framing it as "the happiness of all concerned." This is the play's most politically explicit scene. Students note: What rhetoric does Lindner use? How does it compare to the explicit racism of segregation?

The final decision (Act III): Walter Lee's decision about whether to accept or refuse Lindner's second offer is the play's climax. Students analyze: What does he decide, and why? What does Lena's reaction reveal about what she values? What does the ending leave unresolved?

Studio Ideas¶

"The Deferred Dream" — EQ: What happens to people whose aspirations are blocked by forces outside their control? · Standard: US.6_12.4 + W.4 · Demo Mode: Written Assessment (connect the play's characters to the historical reality of housing segregation. Research what housing discrimination actually cost Black families economically — in wealth accumulation, educational access, and opportunity. Argue: Does the Younger family's situation represent individual failure or structural constraint? What evidence from history and the play supports your position?)
"What Does Mr. Lindner's Visit Mean?" — EQ: How does polite racism differ from explicit racism — and which is more dangerous? · Standard: US.6_12.3 + R.8 · Demo Mode: Verbal Conversation (analyze Lindner's language in Act II, Scene 3. What does he say explicitly? What does he imply? What rhetoric does he use to avoid sounding racist while making a racist argument? Compare to the rhetoric of actual housing covenants from this period — find primary source language.)
"Walter Lee vs. Beneatha: Two Visions of Freedom" — EQ: Can people who want the same thing want it for incompatible reasons? · Standard: R.8 + W.4 · Demo Mode: Portfolio Annotation (create a character analysis of Walter Lee and Beneatha as foils. What does each want? What does each believe money or education represents? What does each sacrifice to get it? What does the tension between them reveal about the competing philosophies of Black advancement in the 1950s?)
"Hughes to Hansberry — The Deferred Dream in History" — EQ: What does it mean that a poem and a play written ten years apart are asking the same question? · Standard: US.6_12.4 + IR.1–5 · Demo Mode: Extended Writing (read Langston Hughes's poem "Harlem" (1951). Analyze its central question. Then trace how Hansberry uses that question as the organizing frame of the play. Research: What were the specific historical conditions — in housing, employment, education — that made the dream "deferred" for Black Americans in the 1950s? Write an analysis connecting the two texts to the historical reality they describe.)

Why This Is Relevant Today?¶

A Raisin in the Sun premiered in 1959, three years before the Fair Housing Act existed and in a city where banks, real estate companies, and neighborhood associations collaborated to keep Black families out of white neighborhoods. The practice was called redlining — the systematic denial of mortgages and insurance to residents of Black neighborhoods, combined with racial covenants that prevented Black families from buying homes in white ones. Those policies were outlawed but not reversed: the wealth gap they created (homeownership is the primary way American families build wealth) persists today. The neighborhood the Youngers are trying to move into — and the white homeowner's association trying to buy them out — is not a historical artifact. Housing segregation in American cities is nearly as severe today as it was when Hansberry wrote the play. The specific argument Walter Lee and Mama have — about dignity, economic pragmatism, assimilation, and what the family owes itself — is also still being had in every community navigating the tension between economic survival and cultural identity.