A Raisin in the Sun

By Lorraine Hansberry

HISTORICAL CONTEXT

Racism and Segregation

Jim Crow Laws

“Strange Fruit”performed by Billie Holiday

Southern trees bear strange fruitBlood on the leavesBlood at the rootBlack bodies swinging in the southern breezeStrange fruit hanging from the poplar treesPastoral scene of the gallant southThe bulging eyes and the twisted mouthThe scent of magnolia sweet and freshThen the sudden smell of burning fleshHere is a fruit for the crows to pluckfor the rain to gatherfor the wind to suckfor the sun to rotfor the tree to dropHere is a strange and bitter crop

The Play

Opened on Broadway on March 11, 1959

Cast includes Sidney Poitier, Claudia McNeil, and Ruby Dee

The New York Drama Critics name it the Best American Play of 1959

Ran for nearly 2 years on Broadway Made into a film starring most of the

Broadway cast in 1961

A Raisin in the Sun

Connection with Hansberry’s Life

Hansberry’s father was a wealthy, real estate broker in segregated Chicago

In 1937, her father purchased a home in the Washington Park Subdivision – Washington Park had a restrictive

covenant that said no black person could live in or own a home in the subdivision

Washington Park fought Hansberry and they went to court in 1937

Judge orders the Hansberrys eviction on August 19, 1938

Hansberry appeals to the Supreme Court of Illinois

The case of Hansberry, et al vs. Lee, et al goes all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States on October 25, 1940– The U.S. Supreme Court deems restrictive

covenants non-existant

“Hansberry Decision Opens 500 New Homes to Race”

The Chicago Defender Saturday, November 16, 1940

“Iron Ring in Housing”The Crisis (NAACP Magazine) 47.7

(July, 1940)

NAACP estimates that 80% of Chicago is covered by restrictive covenants

“The iron ring of restrictive covenants which surrounds the Negro community has prevented its normal expansion in spite of the fact that the colored population has more than doubled in in the last two decades. Within the community practically no living units have been built and few new residences have been made available during the past twelve years.”