Play Guide

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A Raisin in the Sunby Lorraine Hansberry

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Play Guide for

A Raisin in the Sun

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Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Synopsis . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Characters in the Play . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 12

Lorraine Hansberry by Peter Altman . . . 13

The Context of A Raisin in the SunThe Civil Rights Movement: A Chronology . . 17

Works of Lorraine Hansberry . . . . . . . . . 23

Lorraine Hansberry: In Her Own Words . . 24

Focus on Production: An Interview withLou Bellamy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29

The Poetry of Langston Hughes. . . . . . . . 32

Critical Comments on Raisin . . . . . . . . . . 37

Vocabulary from the play . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

Selected Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 44

Editor/Writer: Peter Altman, Laura MuirContributing Writer: Elaine Scott

Design: Elaine ScottExecutive Editor: Peter Altman

Published January 2006

4

A Raisin in the SunIInnttrroodduuccttiioonn

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?

—From “A Dream Deferred”by Langston Hughes

When A Raisin in the Sun

first appeared on stage

in 1959 it profoundly

changed American theatre, helping to

thrust a new African American

perspective into the American

mainstream. “Miss Hansberry forced

both blacks and whites to re-examine

the deferred dreams of black

America,” wrote Frank Rich of The

New York Times reevaluating the impact of Hansberry’s play at the time of its

25th anniversary. The attention attracted by her singular achievement opened the

LLoorrrraaiinnee HHaannssbbeerrrryy,, 11996644..

5

door for many other African American artists and helped to spark

the black theatre movement of the 1960s.

That same year, 1959, A Raisin in the Sun received the New

York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play, beating Tennessee

Williams’ Sweet Bird of Youth, Eugene O’Neill’s A Touch of the

Poet, and JB by Archibald MacLeish. Hansberry was only 29 at the

time, and her selection was not widely supported. Many critics

thought that because she was young and black, the honor might

have been based on liberal bias. Today, however, A Raisin in the

Sun is widely acclaimed among critics and scholars as a great

American classic.

The play takes its title from a Langston Hughes poem which

speaks to the

anguish beneath

black America’s

pursuit of the

American dream.

When Lena

Younger, the family

matriarch, receives

a life insurance

settlement of

$10,000 after the

death of her husband, she and her family must decide how to use

her windfall. Lena’s son Walter Lee dreams of owning a liquor store

as a means of providing financial stability for the family. Lena,

however, wants to move the family out of the Chicago South Side

ghetto where they have long resided and she uses the money to buy

a house in an all-white neighborhood. When their future neighbors

resist the Youngers’ move, Walter Lee for the first time begins to

value what money can’t buy, and in the process he achieves a new

level of self respect and pride.

A Raisin in the Sun is based in part on an incident in the

childhood of the playwright. Determined to battle racial

discrimination in housing, Lorraine Hansberry’s father Carl, a well-

to-do Chicago banker and real estate investor, moved his family into

a house he purchased in a white neighborhood where they

withstood daily assaults by mobs who hurled bricks and bottles

“There is always something left tolove. And if you ain’t learned that,you ain’t learned nothing

–Lorraine Hansberry

6

through their windows. The Hansberry family was eventually evicted from their

home by the Illinois courts, but Carl Hansberry and the NAACP took the case to

the U.S. Supreme Court and won. Hansberry vs. Lee (1940) became a landmark

civil rights ruling banning racially restrictive covenants in housing contracts.

While working on her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window,

Hansberry was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 1965 at the age of 34, leaving

behind an array of

unfinished work that

was led to publication

and performance by

her ex-husband and

literary executor,

Robert Nemiroff.

Before her death, she

had written the screen

play for the film version

of Raisin, which won first prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1961. Nemiroff

helped to complete What Use Are Flowers?, and, using excerpts from the

playwright’s letters, journals and plays, put together a dramatic autobiography

entitled To Be Young Gifted and Black, which had a highly successful Off-

Broadway run and has had many subsequent performances. Hansberry’s play Les

Blancs, set in Africa during a revolution, also has now become established and

honored as a major work.

A Raisin in the Sun has been translated into 30 languages and is the

preeminent achievement of a career cut tragically short. The play today is

acknowledged to be a masterpiece of American theatre and also an historic

breakthrough which presaged not only a revolution in black consciousness, but

one in women’s rights as well, as the play’s female characters respond in various

ways to the chauvinism and condescension of their husbands, brothers, suitors,

and society.

Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s current production of A Raisin in the Sun

–the first ever in the Rep’s 42-season history—comes at a time when the civil

rights era that was the backdrop for the play rings anew. Rosa Parks, the “mother

of the civil rights movement”, died on October 24, 2005, and one month later, the

Justice department completed its investigation into the 1955 murder of Emmett

Till. We now await word on whether or not that tragic case will be retried.

“The thing that makes you exceptional, if

you are at all, is inevitably that

which must also make you lonely.”

–Lorraine Hansberry

7

The lights come up on a run-down, cramped apartment on the South

Side of Chicago in the 1950s where three generations of the Younger

family live. It’s early morning and the household is slowly awakening.

The first person up is Ruth, who looks weary and unwell; her ten-year-old son

Travis, who sleeps on the couch in the family’s living room, is getting ready for

school and her husband Walter Lee enters from their bedroom. Ruth and Walter

Lee are soon in a familiar argument about his plans to open a liquor store using

his mother’s $10,000 insurance settlement which she acquired after from the

death of his father. The money is due to arrive in just a few days and he urges Ruth

to talk to his mother about his plans. Travis asks his mother for fifty cents for

school, but she says

she doesn’t have the

money, which sets up

the continuing

tension between

Ruth, who has pretty

much given up on

dreams, and the rest

of the family who

still cling to theirs.

Walter’s sister

Beneatha enters and Walter Lee is soon taunting her about wanting to become a

doctor; he secretly fears that their mother will use the $10,000 to pay for

Beneatha’s medical school expenses. Beneatha scolds Walter Lee saying, “That

money belongs to Mama and it’s for her to decide how she wants to use it.” Walter

Lee then accuses Beneatha of being ungrateful to family members who make it

possible for her to pursue her dream, at which point Beneatha falls on her knees

in a gesture of mock thanksgiving saying, “I do thank everybody…and forgive me

for ever wanting to be anything at all.”

A Raisin in the SunSSyynnooppssiiss

“Walter Lee say 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.”

–Lena Younger

8

As Walter Lee leaves for his job as a chauffer, his sixty-year-old mother

enters. Lena Younger is a formidable woman with hard-won wisdom.

Following Walter Lee’s urging, Ruth asks Mama how she plans to spend the life

insurance money. When Beneatha enters, the conversation shifts to her desire

to become a doctor and also to her lack of interest in eligible suitors. Beneatha

curses angrily and she is slapped by Mama. Stung by the reproach, Beneatha

gathers her books and leaves for school. Mama, preoccupied thinking about

her children and watering the scrawny plant she keeps on the window sill, only

gradually notices that Ruth has fainted.

In the next scene, the much anticipated insurance check is about to

arrive and the tension and anticipation in the household are building. Sure that

he can convince Mama to use the money to open a liquor store, Walter

telephones his business partner Willy Harris to inquire about their

arrangements, and then leaves. Ruth comes in from an early morning

appointment and announces to Mama and Beneatha that she is pregnant

and then collapses into a chair, distraught and unhappy. When the doorbell

rings, Mama guides Ruth to the bedroom to lie down.

Beneatha answers the door and Joseph Asagai, a young African man she

has met at college, enters with a large package. He is a well-traveled, educated

sophisticate from Nigeria who is smitten with Beneatha and is very supportive

of her desire to become a doctor. Asagai hands Beneatha the package from

which she pulls African records and an exotic Nigerian robe and headdress

which she holds up against her frame. Asagai lavishes approval on Beneatha

and she blooms under his gaze and acceptance. When Asagai leaves, Mama

comments to Beneatha, “Lord, that’s a pretty thing just went out of here.”

Travis enters, breaking Beneatha’s romantic spell with his teasing, and Mama

quickly sends him out on an errand.

The moment so keenly anticipated arrives when Travis enters with the

insurance check envelope which he has retrieved from the mail. Everyone

holds their breath as Lena stares at it with a face of growing unhappiness.

Tearing it open, she counts the zeroes saying, “Ten thousand dollars…put it

away somewhere, Ruth,” as if sensing the conflict brewing in her family.

Excusing Travis to play outside, Ruth and Mama talk about Ruth’s morning

appointment and Ruth confesses that she has visited a woman to discuss an

abortion. In the middle of their conversation, Walter enters, excitedly asking if

the check has arrived.

Mama is shocked by Ruth’s revelation of wanting to end her pregnancy

and urges Walter Lee to talk to his wife, but he will not be deterred from his

9

talking about the money and says angrily that he will talk to her later, yelling, “Will

somebody please listen to me today?” Infuriated by his outburst, Mama announces

that she will not give him money for his liquor store scheme, dashing Walter Lee’s

hopes. She is compelled to tell him that his wife is pregnant and considering an

abortion, but he doubts Ruth’s intentions and reuses to talk about the issue. Sadly,

Mama exclaims, “you are a disgrace to your father’s memory.”

Later that same day,

Mama’s stinging words to

Walter Lee are still hanging in

the air as the household goes

about its daily routine.

Beneatha enters from the

bedroom, dressed in her new

Nigerian clothes and promenades for a bemused Ruth, turning on the record

player to enjoy one of Asagai’s African records. An intoxicated Walter Lee enters

in the middle of Beneatha’s dance, and, making sarcastic comments, joins her in

dancing to the drum beats. Meanwhile, another of Beneatha’s suitors, George

Murchison, arrives for their date. He is unimpressed with Beneatha’s admiration

of her heritage. George, unlike Asagai, is an assimilationist and believes she should

accept modern realities and take her place as a black woman in a white society.

Attempts at a polite conversation between George and Walter Lee quickly

deteriorate and George is relieved when Beneatha returns and they hastily leave

the apartment to go to a show.

For once, Walter Lee and Ruth are alone in the apartment, but he still

refuses to discuss the baby, prompting her to decide to terminate the pregnancy.

Mama has been out for the day and when she returns Walter is suspicious of her

activities. He begs her tell him what she has done with the insurance money. She

replies by telling Travis, “Grandma went out and she bought you a house.”

Stunned to hear about the house and then to discover that it is in a white

neighborhood, Walter Lee says nothing as the women talk excitedly about moving

out of the old apartment. Mama pleads with Walter Lee to understand her actions,

but he bitterly says, “You the head of this family…you run our lives like you want

to…you butchered up a dream of mine–you–who always talking ‘bout your

children’s dreams.”

On a Friday night a few weeks later, the Younger household is in disorder

with packing crates everywhere. Beneatha and George have returned from an

evening out and he lectures her about life and questions her intellectual pursuits,

“Bitter? Man, I’m a volcano.”

–Walter Lee

10

adding that most men “just look at and want the packaging.” As

George continues talking, it becomes obvious that the relationship is

over and that when Beneatha says goodbye to him, it is for good.

Ruth learns that Walter Lee has not shown up at work for three

days. Admitting he doesn’t care and won’t be returning to his job, he

again tries to explain his dreams to Mama and Ruth, but to no avail.

As he leaves for his favorite bar, the Green Hat, Mama begins to

understand his frustrations and admits that she has been wrong. She

gives Walter the remaining sixty-five hundred dollars of the insurance

money and tells him to put three thousand dollars in savings for

Beneatha’s education and gives him control of the rest. “I’m telling you

to be the head of this family from now on like you supposed to be,”

says Mama. Dazed, looking at the money, Walter Lee grabs his coat

and hurries out the door

On Saturday one week later, excitement is in the air as the

Youngers are

preparing to move.

Even Walter Lee is

in good spirits. In

the midst of the

clowning and

reverie, Beneatha

opens the door to

an unassuming,

nervous middle-

aged white man,

Mr. Lindner. He

has come to

negotiate buying

the house in

Clybourn Park

from the Youngers in order to preserve the integrity of the white

neighborhood into which they hope to move. As the shock of Lindner’s

visit sinks in, his persistence to strike a deal sends Walter Lee into a

fury and he orders the man to leave. When Mama arrives the family

recounts Lindner’s visit but by then the event hardly makes an impact

on their excitement to leave their dingy apartment. As Mama picks up

her plant to prepare it for the move, Walter Lee and the family present

“...race prejudice simply doesn’t

enter into it...for the happiness

of all concerned...Negro families

are happier when they live in

their own communities.”

–Karl Lindner,

Clybourn Park

Neighborhood

Association

11

her with a special gift–a set of gardening tools to use at the new house.

In the middle of the moving excitement, Walter’s friend Bobo shows up

nearly in tears and tells Walter that Willy has absconded with their

investment money. Realizing the devastation of what’s happened,

Walter sinks into despair, confessing to Mama that he entrusted Willy

with all sixty-five hundred dollars, including Beneatha’s school money.

Mama beats her son with her Bible, praying aloud for strength to

survive this disaster.

Later that day, the family is feeling stunned by their turn of

fortune. Asagai comes to visit and tells Beneatha that he wishes to

marry her and take her with

him to Nigeria where she can

practice medicine. Confused,

but hopeful that there may be

a way to realize her dream,

Beneatha struggles with a

response and seeing this,

Asagai understands that she

must think his offer through

by herself and he leaves.

Mama is trying to be

cheerful as she begins to unpack, talking about ways the family can fix

up the apartment, when Walter enters, frantically looking for Mr.

Lindner’s business card. He now believes, over Mama’s objections, that

his only hope to restore the family’s money is to accept Lindner’s offer

of selling the house back to the neighborhood. When Mr. Lindner

arrives, Mama demands that Travis stay and observe “what our five

generations have come to.” But as the conversation with Lindner

proceeds, Walter undergoes a transformation. Suddenly expressing

pride of his family, Walter Lee acknowledges that he comes from a long

line of hard-working honest people and says that the family is going to

proceed with its plans to move into their new house. On his way out the

door, Lindner says with trepidation, “I hope you people know what

you’re in for.” Ruth breaks the stunned silence when she announces,

“Let’s get the hell out of here!”

One by one, the Youngers gather up the belongings they can

carry and walk out of the apartment, leaving Mama alone to take one

last look and then, cradling her fragile plant, she leaves the past behind.

“We have decided to

move into our house

because my father–my

father–he earned it. We

don’t want your money.”

–Walter Lee

12

Walter Lee Younger – Thirty-five-year old son of Lena Younger, the

husband of Ruth and father of Travis. Frustrated in his work as a chauffeur, he

dreams of one day owning his own business.

Ruth Younger – Walter Lee’s wife, about 30 years old. She bears the burden

of holding their family together, running its home, trying to make a decent life for

their son, and dealing with Walter Lee’s outbursts of anger and frustration.

Travis Younger – The son of Ruth and Walter Lee; about ten years old.

Beneatha Younger – Walter Lee’s younger sister. Beneatha is a college

student planning to go to medical school, an idealist who rebels against the

traditional values of society and her family.

Lena Younger (Mama) – Mother of Walter Lee and Beneatha. She and her

husband Walter Lee, Sr. moved to Chicago from the south to create a better life

for their children. She has lived her entire married life in the tiny apartment she

now shares with Beneatha, Walter Lee, Ruth and Travis. Now a widow, she is the

recipient of a $10,000 life insurance settlement following the death of her

husband, with which she wants to buy a home for herself and her family.

Joseph Asagai – College student from Nigeria who is a friend and suitor of

Beneatha’s. Asagai flames Beneatha’s interest in Africa, and hopes to take her

back there with him to live.

George Murchison – The son of a well-to-do Chicago family and also a

suitor of Beneatha’s. Her family encourages Beneatha to marry George because of

his family’s money, but Beneatha has a different vision for her life.

Karl Lindner – A representative of the Clybourn Park Neighborhood

Association, sent to discourage and pay off the Youngers to keep them from

moving into the home they have purchased there.

Bobo – Friend of Walter Lee’s and partner in a dubious scheme to buy a

liquor store.

A Raisin in the SunCChhaarraacctteerrss iinn tthhee PPllaayy

13

The first black woman playwright ever to have a play

produced on Broadway, Lorraine Hansberry was born in

Chicago on May 19, 1930. Her father, Carl Hansberry, Sr.,

was a prosperous real-estate developer and bank officer, a cultivated

man whose South Side home was a welcoming meeting place for

such prominent black figures as Langston Hughes, W.E.B. Du Bois,

Duke Ellington and Paul Robeson. Influenced by this

political and cultural environment, the future

playwright showed fervent interest in writing and art

as a student at Chicago’s Englewood High School.

After studying for two years at the University of

Wisconsin and for summers in Guadalajara, Mexico

and at Roosevelt University in Chicago, she moved to

New York City in 1950 hoping to become a journalist

and a painter.

Shortly after she moved to New York, Hansberry

became a reporter for Freedom magazine, a journal

published by Robeson. The niece of William Leo

Hansberry, a prominent African history scholar and

a Howard University professor, she was already

versed in the politics of African nationalism; as the

youngest member of Freedom’s staff, she wrote

articles about Egypt and Kenya as well as pieces

headlined “Child Labor is Society’s Crime Against

Youth” and “Negroes Cast in Same Old Roles in TV

Shows.” She also studied with the family friend Du

Bois, the “father of Pan-Africanism.” Within a year she was

promoted to Associate Editor of Freedom. In 1952 she traveled to

Montevideo, Uruguay to deliver a speech for Robeson at a peace

conference. Her passport was revoked as a result of this trip.

Lorraine HansberryBByy PPeetteerr AAllttmmaann

LLoorrrraaiinnee HHaannssbbeerrrryy

14

The same year that Hansberry began to work for

Freedom, she met Robert Nemiroff on a picket line at New

York University, where he attended graduate school. Two

years later they were married in Chicago. Nemiroff, then a

young songwriter and music publisher, collaborated closely

with the playwright and, following her death in 1965, became

her literary executor.

The earnings from Nemiroff’s 1956 hit song “Cindy, Oh

Cindy” enabled Hansberry to give up her job that year and to

turn her attention full-time to writing the play that became A

Raisin in the

Sun. Later

Hansberry

would write to

her mother

about the play:

“[it] will help a

lot of people

understand

that we have

among our

downtrodden

ranks people who are the very essence of human dignity.

That is what – after all the laughter and the tears – the play

is supposed to say.”

For A Raisin in the Sun Hansberry drew from an

incident in her own childhood that profoundly affected her

family’s life. In defiance of the “restrictive covenants” in real

estate contracts that confined many blacks to residential

ghettos in that era, Carl Hansberry, Sr. moved his family to

an all-white neighborhood. Mobs gathered outside the

Hansberrys’ new home, and eight-year-old Lorraine was

almost struck by a brick hurled through a window. The

family was finally evicted by Illinois authorities, but Carl

Hansberry and NAACP lawyers fought the state court

“My mother sent me to kindergarten in

white fur in the middle of the

Depression; the kids beat me up; and I

think it was from that moment I

became a rebel.”

–Lorraine Hansberry

15

decision all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, ultimately winning a

landmark decision prohibiting restrictive racial covenants

(Hansberry vs. Lee, 1940). Six years later, when his daughter

Lorraine was fifteen years old, Carl Hansberry, Sr. died of a cerebral

hemorrhage.

A Raisin in the Sun, according to The New York Times,

“changed American theatre forever.” With its Broadway opening in

1959, its twenty-nine-year-old author became the first black

playwright, the youngest American, and the fifth woman to win the

New York Drama Critics’ Best Play of the Year citation. James

Baldwin wrote of the play: “Never before in the history of the

American theatre had so much truth of black people’s lives been seen

on the stage.” A Raisin in the Sun has since gone on to become an

international dramatic classic, being published and produced in

some thirty languages and performed throughout the United States.

It has also been the source of a popular 1961 film version, with

screenplay by the playwright, which won a Cannes Film Festival

Award, and a successful, Tony Award-winning Broadway musical

entitled simply Raisin.

A Raisin in the Sun not only established Hansberry as a

successful playwright, it also propelled her into the role of significant

spokeswoman for and about black America. In an interview with

Studs Terkel, she declared that her play spoke not only for blacks but

for all people: “in order to create the universal, you must pay great

attention to the specific.” Her play, she asserted, is specifically about

the conflicts of a black Chicago family, but also about problems

which could face everybody.

Just five years after the Broadway opening of A Raisin in the

Sun, on January 12, 1965, the last night of the run of her second play

to be produced on Broadway, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s

Window, Lorraine Hansberry died of cancer. She was thirty-four

years old. Paul Robeson sang at her funeral, and Dr. Martin Luther

King, Jr., who gave a eulogy, predicted that “her commitment of

spirit, her creative literary ability and her profound grasp of the deep

16

social issues confronting the world today will

remain an inspiration to generations yet

unborn.” Following her death, a variety of her

writings were published and performed for the

first time. The play Les Blancs, first produced in

1970, portraying a panorama of characters’

experience during an African revolution, has

become over the years widely admired as a

major achievement, and the dramatic collage

given the title To Be Young, Gifted, and Black,

which had its premiere Off-Broadway in 1969,

is now also established as an important theatre

piece.

Were she still alive this year, Lorraine

Hansberry would be 75 years old, the same age

currently being widely celebrated for theatre

icons Stephen Sondheim and Harold Pinter.

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17

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1929 Martin Luther King, Jr. is born on January 15

in Atlanta.

1930 Lorraine Hansberry is born on May 19 in

Chicago. Her father is a successful realtor and an active

member of the National Association for the Advancement of

Colored People (NAACP)

1939 NAACP Legal

Defense and Education Fund

is organized to fight against

bias.

1940 U.S. Supreme

Court rules in case of

Hansberry vs. Lee that

restrictive racial covenants in

real estate are illegal. The case

had been brought with support

of the NAACP legal team after

Carl Hansberry’s family had

moved in 1938 into a white

neighborhood and had been

evicted by Illinois authorities.

Despite the ruling, restrictive covenants continued to be

common for years afterward.

On July 25, Emmett Louis Till is born in Chicago and

grows up in the same neighborhood as Lorraine Hansberry.

Till’s death fifteen years later is a catalyst in the civil rights

movement.

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18

1947 When racial problems erupt at

Englewood High School, where Hansberry

is president of the debating society, she is

impressed by the way poorer blacks from

nearby Wendell Phillips High fight back

against administrators.

1951 Hansberry and a delegation of

women present the governor of Mississippi

with a petition with almost one million

signatures in support of Willie McGee who

is awaiting execution for an alleged rape.

Their attempt is unsuccessful and McGee is

executed.

1954 On May 17, the U.S. Supreme

Court rules on the landmark case Brown vs.

Board of Education of Topeka, unanimously agreeing that

segregation in public schools is unconstitutional, paving the way for

large-scale desegregation.

1955 On August 21, Emmett Till travels to Mississippi to visit

his uncle. One week later, he is

kidnapped after allegedly whistling

at a white woman and is murdered.

On September 6, the same day

Till is buried in Chicago, J.W.

Milam and Roy Bryant are indicted

for his murder; on September 23

they are acquitted by an all-white

jury. The two later confess to the

killing in a magazine interview.

On December 1 in

Montgomery, Alabama–one

hundred days after Till’s

murder–Rosa Parks is arrested

after refusing to give up her seat at

the front of the “colored section” of a bus to a white passenger. She

later commented that it was Till’s murder that helped her decide on

her actions.

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19

1957 Arkansas Governor Orval Faubus orders that nine black

students will not be allowed to enter Central High School in Little

Rock, violating federal law. The National

Guard is called to intervene.

Hansberry writes A Raisin in the Sun

and reads it to Philip Rose, a family

friend, who decides to produce the play.

He signs actor Sidney Poitier and director

Lloyd Richards.

1959 On March 11, A Raisin in the

Sun becomes the first play by a black

woman ever to be produced on Broadway.

It wins the New York Drama Critics Circle

Award as Best Play of the Year.

1960 Hansberry and other

dramatists are commissioned to write a

slavery drama for NBC to commemorate the centenery of the U.S.

Civil War . Her segment, The Drinking Gourd, is considered too

controversial and the entire series is dropped.

A series of student sit-ins throughout

the south is successful in integrating

parks, swimming pools, libraries,

theatres, and other public facilities.

1961 James Meredith becomes the

first black student to enroll at the

University of Mississippi. White groups

try to block his attendance at the

university and violence erupts causing

President Kennedy to send in 5,000

federal troops.

The film version of A Raisin in the

Sun is released; it is nominated for Best

Screenplay of the Year by the Screen

Writers Guild, and wins a special award at

the Cannes Film Festival.

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20

1962 Hansberry continues her work for

the Student Non-violent Coordinating

Committee (SNCC) in its battle against

Southern segregation and speaks out against

the House Un-American Activities Committee

and about the Cuban missile crisis.

1963 Martin Luther King is arrested

and jailed during an anti-segregation protest

in Birmingham, Alabama.

Televised and published images of police

dogs and fire hoses being turned on non-

violent black demonstrators in Birmingham

gain worldwide sympathy for the American

civil rights movement.

More than 200,000 people join the

March on Washington on August 28 where

Martin Luther King delivers his famous “I

Have a Dream” speech.

In Birmingham, four

young girls attending

Sunday school are killed

on September 15 when a

bomb explodes at the

Sixteenth Street Baptist

Church.

President John F.

Kennedy is assassinated

in Dallas on November

22 by Lee Harvey

Oswald. Lyndon Baines

Johnson is sworn in as

President.

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21

1964 On July 2, President Johnson signs the Civil Rights Act

of 1964 prohibiting discrimination based on race, color, religion, or

national origin.

In August, the bodies are found of three civil rights workers—

two black, one white—who had been working in Mississippi to

register black voters. They had

been arrested by police on

speeding charges, jailed and then

released to members of the Ku

Klux Klan, who murdered them.

1965 Lorraine Hansberry

dies of cancer on January 12; she

is thirty-four. Dr. King delivers a

eulogy at her funeral.

On February 21, Malcolm X,

founder of the Organization of

Afro-American Unity, is shot to

death.

On August 10, Congress passes the Voting

Rights Act of 1965, banning the use of literacy

tests and other requirements commonly

employed to restrict black voting.

1968 On April 4, Martin Luther King, Jr.

is murdered in Memphis. Violence erupts in

100 cities.

1971 On April 20, the Supreme Court

upholds busing as a legitimate means for

achieving integration of public schools. Court

ordered busing will continue until the late

1990s in such cities as Charlotte, Boston,

Denver, and Kansas City.

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22

2004 In May, the U.S. Justice

Department reopens the Emmett Till

case.

2005 Rosa Lee Parks dies on

October 24 at the age of 92. She is

called the “mother of the modern day

Civil Rights Movement” by the U.S.

Congress. Her body is laid in honor in

the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.

In November, upon completion of

its investigation into the Till case, the

F.B.I. gives its report to the District

Attorney of Greenville, Mississippi on

whether there is enough evidence to

retry the case. At the time of this

printing, no decision has been

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23

Works of Lorraine Hansberry

Plays

A Raisin in the Sun, 1959

The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, 1965

To Be Young, Gifted and Black

(adapted by Robert Nemiroff from the plays,

letters and stories of Lorraine Hansberry), 1969

Les Blancs, 1970

The Drinking Gourd, 1972

What Use Are Flowers?, 1972

Other works

The Movement (a photo history of the

Civil Rights struggle, retitled A Matter of

Colour), 1964

24

Lorraine HansberryIInn HHeerr OOwwnn WWoorrddss

Years after the opening night of A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine

Hansberry wrote the following:

“…I had turned the last page out of the typewriter and pressed all the sheets

neatly together in a pile, and gone and stretched out face down on the living room

floor. I had finished a play; a play I had no reason to think or not think would ever

be done; a play that I was sure no one would quite understand…”

“I could no more imagine myself allowing the Youngers to accept [Mr.

Lindner’s] obscene offer of money than I could imagine myself allowing them to

accept a cash payment for their own murder. You see, our people don’t really have

a choice. We must come out of the ghettos of America, because the ghettos are

killing us, not only our dreams, as Mama says, but our very bodies. It is not an

abstraction to us that the average American Negro has a life expectancy of five to

ten years less than the average white.”

From a speech made at a Negro Writers’ Conference:

“I was born on the South Side of Chicago. I was born black and a female. I

was born in a depression after one world war, and came into my adolescence

during another. While I was still in my teens the first atom bombs were dropped

on human beings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and by the time I was twenty-three

years old my government and that of the Soviet Union had entered actively into

the worst conflict of nerves in human history–the Cold War.

I have lost friends through cancer, lynching and war. I have been personally

the victim of physical attack, which was the offspring of racial and political

25

hysteria. I have worked with the handicapped and seen the ravages

of congenital diseases that we have not yet conquered…I have like all

of you on occasions seen indescribable displays of man’s very real

inhumanity to man, and I have come to maturity as we all must,

knowing that greed and malice, indifference to human misery and

perhaps above all else, ignorance–the prime ancient and persistent

enemy of man–abound in this world…One cannot live with sighted

eyes and feeling heart and not know and react to the miseries which

afflict this world.”

Excerpt from a 1960 letter to Mr. Chuchvalec of the

State Theatre in Ostrava, Czechoslovakia:

“…I am the first to say that ours is a complex and difficult

country and some of our complexities are indeed grotesque. We who

are Negro Americans can offer that last remark with unwavering

insistence. It is, on the other hand, also a great nation with certain

beautiful and indestructible traditions and potentials, which can be

seized by all of us who possess imagination and love of man. There

is, as a certain play suggests, a great deal to be fought in America–

but, at the same time, there is so much which begs to be but re-

affirmed and cherished with sweet defiance. Vulgarity, blind

conformity and mass lethargy need not triumph in the land of

Lincoln and Frederick Douglass and Walt Whitman and Mark

Twain. There is simply no reason why dreams should dry up like

raisins or prunes or anything else in America. If you will permit me

to say so, I believe that we can impose beauty on our future…”

January 19, 1959 in a letter to her mother:

“Mama, it is a play that tells the truth about people, Negroes and

life and I think it will help a lot of people to understand how we are

just as complicated as they are–and just as mixed up–but above all,

26

that we have among our miserable and downtrodden

ranks–people who are the very essence of human dignity.

That is what, after all the laughter and tears, the play is

supposed to say. I hope it will make you very proud.”

From a speech made at a Negro Writers’

Conference:

“I must share with you part of a conversation I had with

a young New York intellectual in my living room in

Greenwich Village. “Why,” he said to me, “are you so sure

the human race should go on? You do not believe in a prior

arrangement of life on this planet. You know perfectly well

that the reason for survival does not exist in nature!” I

answered him the only way I could. “Man is unique in the

universe–the only creature who has in fact the power to

transform the universe. Therefore, it does not seem

unthinkable to me that man might just do what the apes

never will–impose the reason for life on life. I wish to live

because life has within it that which is good, that which is

beautiful and that which is love…Since I have known all of

these things, I have found them to be reason enough…to

live, moreover, for others to live for generations and

generations and generations…”

On writing:

“Since I was a child, I have been possessed of the desire

to put down the stuff of my life…There is only one internal

quarrel: how much truth to tell...It is brutal, in sober,

uncompromising moments, to reflect on the comedy of

concern we all enact when it comes to our precious images!”

27

On theatre:

“I’m particularly attracted to a medium where not only do you get to

do what we do in life everyday—talk to people–but to be very selective

about the nature of the conversation. [Playwriting is] an opportunity to

treat characters in the most absolute relief, one against the other, so that

everything, sympathy and conflict, can be played sharply. I suppose [what]

makes that appeal to me [is my own private] desire to talk to people, and

I suppose to also make them do what I want them to do.”

On commitment:

“Comfort has come to be its own corruption. I think of lying without a

painkiller in pain. In all the young years no such image ever occurred to

me. I rather looked forward to going to jail once. Now I can hardly imagine

surviving it at all. Comfort. Apparently I have sold my soul for it. I think

when I get my health back I shall go into the South to find out what kind

of revolutionary I am…”

On being young, gifted and black:

“Despair? Did someone say despair was a question in the world? Well

then, listen to the sons of those who have known little else if you wish to

know the resiliency of this thing you would so quickly resign to mythhood,

this thing called the human spirit.”

On Sean O’Casey and the qualities of good drama:

“I love Sean O’Casey. This, to me, is the playwright of the twentieth

century accepting and using the most obvious instruments of Shakespeare,

which is the human personality in its totality. O’Casey never fools you

about the Irish, you see…the Irish drunkard, the Irish braggart, the Irish

liar…and the genuine heroism which must naturally emerge when you tell

28

the truth about people. This, to me, is the height of artistic perception and is

the most rewarding kind of thing that can happen in drama, because when

you believe people so completely–because everybody has their drunkards

and their braggarts and their cowards, you know–then you also believe them

in their moments of heroic assertion, you don’t doubt them.”

Remarks about kindergarten:

“My mother sent me to kindergarten in white fur in the middle of the

Depression; the kids beat me up; and I think it was from that moment I

became a rebel…”

On being a woman:

“A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs

not so much the risk of loneliness as the challenge of exposure to more

interesting men—and people in general.”

On talent:

“The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that

which must also make you lonely. Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.”

On life:

“There is always something left to love. And if you haven’t learned that,

you ain’t learned nothing.”

29

Focus on ProductionAAnn IInntteerrvviieeww wwiitthh LLoouu BBeellllaammyy

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?

Or fester like a sore—and then run?

— excerpt from “A Dream Deferred”

by Langston Hughes

Many believe that Langston Hughes’ 1951 poem

“Dream Deferred” was the inspiration for the title

of A Raisin in the Sun and that the themes of the poem and

the play go hand in hand.

It is always difficult to be caught in a polemic like the chicken or

the egg. I don’t know if Hansberry read the poem first and then

created the drama, or if she created a piece and then found a title

that had poetic and practical experience. However, the historical,

cultural, and emotional power that is forged by linking the two is

worthwhile. Whether lost potential and frustration will erupt into

violence or can be channeled in a positive manner to make ourselves

Lou Bellamy continues his work with Kansas City

Rep having directed the Rep’s critically acclaimed

Two Trains Running. He is the founder and

artistic director of Saint Paul’s Penumbra Theatre, one of

America’s premier theatres dedicated to exploration of the

African American experience. The following interview was

conducted by Laura Muir, Kansas City Repertory Theatre’s

director of communications.

DDiirreeccttoorr LLoouu BBeellllaammyy

30

and our world better is the central question in both the play and in

the poem. It’s impossible now to separate the two artistic

statements. Both Hughes and Hansberry sought to comment on the

African American experience in ways that were complex, truthful,

and enlightening. Both achieved these ends several times in their

careers.

When A Raisin in the Sun opened in 1959, Hansberry

was the first black woman to have a play produced on

Broadway. Do you believe that the play still speaks with

relevancy to the African American experience?

When one experiences this play today, one is struck by its

uncanny relevance with regard to current issues and that now, fifty

years later, many of the same issues still plague American cities. It

is as though the civil rights movement opened the door for those who

were prepared to walk through (i.e., those who had the appropriate

preparation—socially, economically, educationally). The vast

majority of African Americans remain outside of the mainstream. A

drive down Troost Avenue is most instructive.

Not only were great opportunities not realized by the promise of

integration, the African American institutions that previously kept

its society healthy were lost. The result seems to be that the larger

society has left people of color hanging out to dry and since their

societal institutions have been abandoned, they have nowhere to

turn for succor. Hurricane Katrina exposed the utter destitution that

is the rule, rather than the exception for too many Americans. In Ms.

Hansberry’s play, the family moves away. We have no prescription

as to what will happen to them. They are leaving their community for

the promise of the future. Has it been realized?

31

Beyond the universal themes presented in Raisin– the importance

of dreams, strength of family, belief in good over evil– Hansberry’s

story also reflects the profound bravery of the Younger family.

Where do think they acquired their incredible strength of character?

The effort to find epic proportion and significance in the lives of everyday

people has been integral to the African American literary tradition since the slave

narratives. To the uninformed observer, these stories may take on a melodramatic

tinge, but many accurately reflect the condition of the vast majority of African

Americans. Constant attention and reaction to racism has measurable physical,

emotional, and economic ramifications that exact a terrible toll on those who

grapple with it every minute of every day. The struggle seems to take on an almost

mythical manifestation.

What are some of the challenges of directing Raisin?

Raisin is taught in most public schools, colleges and universities and there

have been two significant motion pictures. It is, in fact, an important part of the

Western cultural and dramatic framework. The challenge is to raise the

emotional stakes without allowing the audience to get ahead of the play.

Audiences are familiar with the story and will often have their favorite scenes or

passages. This kind of familiarity with the play makes exposition difficult to

handle and challenges the dramatic team to unfold the plot in a compelling, yet

recognizable manner.

32

The Poetry of Langston Hughes

From the time she was a young girl, Lorraine

Hansberry was deeply influenced by the poetry of

Langston Hughes, a poet, playwright and novelist

of the Harlem Renaissance who was a friend of her father. It

was Hughes’ poem, “A Dream Deferred” from his Harlem

collection that provided the title to Hansberry’s play A

Raisin in the Sun.

James Langston Hughes (1902-1967) was born in

Joplin, Missouri and graduated from Lincoln

University in Pennsylvania. While working as a

bus boy in a Washington, D.C. hotel in 1925,

Hughes was “discovered” by poet Vachel

Lindsay. Within a year he won recognition with

his first poetry collection, Weary Blues (1926).

He went on to become a major figure in the

Harlem Renaissance, and to pioneer black

realism in novels, stories, poetry, songs,

speeches and children’s books. In 1936 and

1937, he worked in Spain as Madrid

correspondent for The Baltimore Afro-

American. In his work, he often wrote about

city life and the experiences of urban blacks. He

treated race issues with insight and

sophistication, wit and anger. His books of verse

also include The Dream Keeper (1932),

Shakespeare in Harlem (1942) and Freedom’s

Plow (1943). Other works include the novel Not

Without Laughter (1930), and the short story collections Laughing

to Keep from Crying and The Ways of White Folks (1930).

LLaannggssttoonn HHuugghheess11990022--11996677

33

Me and the Mule

My old mule,

He’s got a grin on his face.

He’s been a mule so long

He’s forgot about his race.

I’m like that old mule–

Black–and don’t give a damn!

You got to take me

Like I am.

Stars

O, sweep of stars over Harlem streets,

O, little breath of oblivion that is night.

A city building

To a mother’s song.

A city dreaming

To a lullaby.

Reach up your hand, dark boy, and take a star.

Out of the little breath of oblivion

That is night,

Take just

One star.

34

Note on Commercial Theatre

You’ve taken my blues and gone–

You sing ‘em on Broadway

And you sing ‘em in Hollywood Bowl

And you mixed ‘em up with symphonies

And you fixed ‘em

So they don’t sound like me.

Yep, you done taken my blues and gone.

You also took my spirituals and gone.

You put me in Macbeth and Carmen Jones

And all kinds of Swing Mikados

And in everything but what’s about me–

But someday somebody’ll

Stand up and talk about me,

And write about me–

Black and beautiful

And sing about me,

And put on plays about me!

I reckon it’ll be

Me myself!

Yes, it’ll be me.

35

(Hansberry’s first working title for A Raisin

in the Sun was “The Crystal Stair,” based on this

Langston Hughes poem.)

Mother to Son

Well, son, I’ll tell you:

Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

It’s had tacks in it,

And splinters,

And boards torn up,

And places with no carpet on the floor–

Bare.

But all the time I’se been a climbin’ on.

And reachin’ landin’s,

And turnin’ corners,

And sometimes goin’ in the dark

Where there ain’t been no light.

So boy, don’t you turn back.

Don’t you set down on the steps

‘Cause you finds it’s kinder hard.

Don’t you fall now–

For I’se still goin’, honey,

I’se still climbin’,

And life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.

36

IIddrreeaamm aa wwoorrlldd wwhheerree mmaann

NNoo ootthheerr mmaann wwiillll ssccoorrnn;;

WWhheerree lloovvee wwiillll bblleessss tthhee eeaarrtthh

AAnndd PPeeaaccee iittss ppaatthh aaddoorrnn..

II ddrreeaamm aa wwoorrlldd wwhheerree aallll

WWiillll kknnooww sswweeeett FFrreeeeddoomm’’ss wwaayy;;

WWhheerree ggrreeeedd nnoo lloonnggeerr ssaappss tthhee ssoouull,,

NNoorr aavvaarriiccee bblliigghhttss oouurr ddaayy––

AA wwoorrlldd II ddrreeaamm wwhheerree bbllaacckk oorr wwhhiittee,,

WWhhaatteevveerr rraaccee yyoouu bbee,,

WWiillll sshhaarree tthhee bboouunnttiieess ooff tthhee eeaarrtthh

AAnndd eevveerryy mmaann iiss ffrreeee;;

WWhheerree wwrreettcchheeddnneessss wwiillll hhaanngg iittss hheeaadd

AAnndd jjooyy,, lliikkee aa ppeeaarrll,,

AAtttteenndd tthhee nneeeeddss ooff aallll mmaannkkiinndd––

OOff ssuucchh II ddrreeaamm,, mmyy wwoorrlldd!!

I Dream A World

I dream a world where man

No other man will scorn

Where love will bless the earth

And Peace its path adorn.

I dream a world where all

Will know sweet Freedom’s way;

Where greed no longer saps the soul,

Nor avarice blights our day–

A world I dream where black or white

Whatever race you be,

Will share the bounties of the earth

And every man is free;

Where wretchedness

will hang its head

And joy, like a pearl,

Attend the needs of all mankind–

Of such I dream, my world.

37

Critical Comments on Raisin

“Of the four chief characters in the play, Walter Lee is the most

complicated and the most impressive. He is often unlikable,

occasionally cruel…The play is concerned primarily with his

recognition that, as a man, he must begin from, not discard, himself

–that dignity is a quality of men, not bank accounts…Walter Lee’s

difficulty…is that he has accepted the American myth of success at

its face value, that he is trapped, as Willy Loman was trapped, by a

false dream.”

—Gerald Weales, “Thoughts on A Raisin in the Sun” in

Commentary, June, 1959

“Miss Hansberry…completes a circle begun by [Langston]

Hughes. In a new and much more realistic setting, she too has had a

vision of a romantic reunion between Negro American and black

African. But her vision is shaped by new times, new outlooks. It is no

longer a wispy literary yearning after a lost primitivism, nor does she

beat it out on synthetic tomtoms. Nor is it any longer a matter of

going back to Africa as the ultimate option of despair in America. In

Lorraine Hansberry’s time it has become a matter of choice between

new freedoms now in the grasp of black men, both African and

American.”

—Harold R. Isaacs, “Five Writers and their African Ancestors,

Part II” (Originally a lecture given at the University of

Pennsylvania in June 1960.)

38

“One of the biggest selling points about [A Raisin in the Sun]…was how much

the Younger family was just like any other American family. Some people were

ecstatic to find that “it didn’t really have to be about Negroes at all!” It was, rather,

a walking, talking, living demonstration of our mythic conviction that,

underneath, all of us Americans are pretty much alike…This uncritical

assumption, sentimentally held by the audience, powerfully fixed in the character

of the powerful mother with whom everybody could identify…made other

questions about the Youngers…irrelevant…Everybody who walked into the

theatre saw in Lena Younger…his own great American Mama.

The play was about Walter Lee and what happens to him as a result of having

his dream…endlessly frustrated by poverty and its attendant social and personal

degradation. Walter Lee’s dream of “being somebody”–of “making it” like

everybody else was not respectable to mama, but…it was Walter Lee’s dream, and

it was all he had. …That made it a matter of life and death to him, revolutionary,

dangerous in its implications...for it could explode if frustrated. It could destroy

people, it could kill...That’s what Lorraine was warning us about.”

—Actor Ossie Davis, “The Significance of Lorraine Hansberry” in

Freedomways, Summer, 1965

“…This strength we [African-American women] celebrate has sometimes

crippled black men, as does Mama Lena in A Raisin in the Sun. Though her virtue

may be its own reward, there are nonetheless direct consequences for the

husbands and children. Critics have debated for years whether or not Mama Lena

actually changes at the end of A Raisin in the Sun and turns the reins of control

over to her son Walter Lee. The banter in the final scene, however, shows that she

is still playfully ordering her family around…and what that presages for the future

is unclear, as her strong physical and moral presence continues to loom large.”

–Trudier Harris, “This Disease Called Strength: Some Observations on

the Compensating Construction of Black Female Character”

39

“Like all plays, [A Raisin in the Sun] is about love and death and deep

personal struggle. Suffering! There’s only one subject in the theatre and that’s

suffering, there isn’t another one. It’s a fantastically beautifully written story

about a particular kind of suffering and the survival of suffering. Like all good and

exciting stories, you never know until the last moment whether the key characters

are going to get what they want.”

–Director David Lan from an interview by staff of the Young Vic Theatre

Company

“Raisin lives because…Hansberry has done more than document, which is the

most limited form of realism. She is a critical realist, in the way that Langston

Hughes, Richard Wright and Margaret Walker are. She analyzes and assesses

reality, and her statement cannot be separated from the characters she creates.”

–Robert Neimroff, literary executor and ex-husband of Lorraine Hansberry

“I think the thing that Lorraine Hansberry does brilliantly in the script is

explore the four different generations in the family. There is mother’s generation

for whom life was about not being lynched and being able to make it to the north.

Then there’s Walter’s generation that is post WWII of [hard-fighting] men coming

home, talking about who they are going to be in America. For Walter it’s about

being a man in his own right, not a man who has to settle for anything, but a man

who can define himself. The next generation is Beneatha’s–a fifteen year gap from

Walter’s. She will go to University and be educated in non-segregated

universities…because she will be the first generation to have the right to benefit

from [the battles] of Walter’s generation. The final generation is Travis who will

inherit the wind if everyone gets what they want. Things that his grandmother and

his father and his aunt fought for he will take as a matter of course. His war will

be something completely different.”

–Actor Lennie James

40

“If we ever reach a time when the racial madness that afflicts

America is at last truly behind us–as obviously we must if we are to

survive in a world composed four-fifths of people of color–then I

believe A Raisin in the Sun will remain no less pertinent. For at the

deepest level it is not a specific situation, but the human condition,

human aspiration, and human relationships–the persistence of

dreams, of the bonds and conflicts between men and women,

parents and children, old ways and new, and the endless struggle

against human oppression, whatever the forms it may take, and for

individual fulfillment, recognition, and liberation—that are at the

heart of such plays. It is not surprising therefore that in each

generation we recognize ourselves in them anew.”

—Robert Nemiroff

41

Vocabulary from the Play

Ashanti Empires – a dynasty that prevailed in Western Africa, near

present day Ghana (known in colonial times as the Gold Coast), from about

300 A.D. to 1200 A.D. Many of the slaves who were brought to America came

from the Gold Coast.

Assimilationism – a term used to denote the belief in the incorporation

of one group into another. Specifically, in the case of Raisin, Beneatha uses it

to mean black people who deny their own cultural heritage to fit into the

prevailing white society.

Bantu – an African people native to the equatorial and southern regions

of the continent. Beneatha remarks about poetry in Bantu.

Buckingham Palace – The London residence of the royal family of

Great Britain.

Civil – a minimum level of courtesy and politeness.

Clybourn Park – a fictional neighborhood in Chicago, where Lena

Younger buys a home.

Colonel McCormick – owner of the Chicago Tribune in the 1950s.

Colonialism – control by one power over a dependent area or people; a

policy based on such control. Beneatha refers to colonialism in Africa, where

for more than 300 years the native people were controlled by colonial

governments in Europe.

Cracker – a slang term meaning “white person.”

Ethiopia – a nation in eastern Africa bordering on the Red Sea, site of an

ancient civilization. The earliest evidence of ancient mankind has been found

in Ethiopia.

“Garbo Routine” – silence and reserve. Refers to the film star Greta

Garbo, the most admired screen actress of the 1920s who, after retiring young,

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refused to be interviewed or appear in public, and lived a secretive and secluded life

until her death.

Ghetto – a city neighborhood notable for poor conditions and overcrowding,

where a minority group is forced to live because of social, legal or economic pressure.

Heathenism – an uncivilized, irreligious manner of living.

Ku Klux Klan – a post-Civil War secret society advocating white supremecy. It

has evolved into a secret fraternal group held to confine its membership to American-

born white Christians.

Liberia – an African nation founded in 1822 by the American Colonization

Society as a place to send free blacks from the United States. Comes from the root word

meaning “liberty.”

Monsieur Le Petit-Bourgeois (French) – “Mr. Middle Class.” Beneatha uses

the phrase to make fun of Walter Lee’s desire to raise himself up as part of the middle

class power structure by owning his own business.

NAACP – National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, an

association dedicated to ending racial discrimination in America. The NAACP was

founded in New York City in 1909 with a merging of the Niagara movement of black

scholar and social leader W.E.B. Du Bois and a group of concerned whites. The NAACP

is still one of the largest and most influential antidiscrimination/racial equality

organizations in the U.S. today. In 1982, it had a membership of more than 500,000

people.

Napoleon (1769-1821) – French military hero and emperor. One of the greatest

military leaders of all time, he led the French army to a successful conquest of most of

Europe in the early 19th century, but was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 and

was exiled to the British island of St. Helena.

Nigeria – the most populous nation in Africa and home to many tribal dynasties

of the Yoruba, the Songhay, and the Benin. The British established Nigeria as a colonial

protectorate in 1906. Nigeria gained its independence from Britain in 1960.

Prometheus – a Greek mythological figure who was a Titan (precursors to the

Greek gods). Prometheus stole fire from the gods and gave it to man. He also taught

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mankind many arts and sciences. In retaliation, Zeus, king of the gods, chained

Prometheus to a mountain where an eagle each day ate out his liver. Each night the

liver would grow back, to be eaten again at daylight.

Queen of the Nile – name for Cleopatra, queen of Egypt. Used to refer to

Beneatha’s wrapping herself in the Nigerian robes given her by Asagai, and to her

acting like a regal African queen.

Sharecropper – a tenant farmer who farms land owned by another, often

with tools and seed provided by the landlord, and in exchange receives a portion of

the resulting harvest. In the southern United States, this system was abused as a

means of keeping blacks economically dependent.

Songhay Civilization – the Songhay empire was the largest ancient empire

of West Africa, in the region that is now Mali. It was founded around 700 A.D.,

became Muslim in 1000 A.D. and ended in 1700 A.D.

South Side – a neighborhood in Chicago that is largely poor and mainly

African American.

The Man/Captain Boss/Mistuh Charley/Mr. Bossman – slang terms

used by African Americans for a white man, originally an overseer or boss.

Titan – any of the early deities of Greek mythology, the progenitors of the

Greek gods. The titans were the children of Uranus and Gaea (heaven and earth).

Uncle Tom – from the character in Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle

Tom’s Cabin. It became a denigrating slang term used to describe African

Americans.

Washington, Booker T. – black American educator (1856-1915), born a

mulatto slave, and founded the Tuskegee Institute, a school for blacks at Tuskegee,

Alabama. It became one of the leading black educational institutions in America

aimed at providing a means of economic independence. Washington was an active

orator, but drew opposition from other black leaders including W.E.B. Du Bois for

maintaining that it was pointless for blacks to demand social equality before

attaining economic independence through education.

Yoruba – a tribe native to the African country of Nigeria.

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Bibliography

Carter, Steven R. Hansberry’s Drama: Commitment Amid

Complexity. University of Illinois Press. 1991.

Cruse, Harold. The Crisis of the Negro Intellectual. New York

Review Books. New York, 1967.

Hansberry, Lorraine. The Movement: Documentary of a

Struggle for Equality. Simon and Schuster, 1964.

Huntington Theatre Company. A Raisin in the Sun Play

Guide. Boston, 1995.

Scheader, Catherine. Lorraine Hansberry: Playwright and

Voice of Justice. 1998.

Scott, Mark. “Langston Hughes of Kansas,” Excerpt from

Kansas History, Spring, 1980, Kansas State Historical Society

at www.kshs.org/publicat/history/1980spring_scott.htm.

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Peter Altman, Producing Artistic Director4949 Cherry Street • Kansas City, MO 64110

A Raisin in the Sun is sponsored by:

Partial support for this production is provided by

For information about the Sprint Student Matinee Series,please call 816-235-2707.

The 2005-06 season is supported in part by Muriel McBrien Kauffman Foundation,Hallmark Corporate Foundation, the Hall Family Foundation, and the University ofMissouri-Kansas City.

Now in its 42nd season, Kansas City Repertory Theatre is the professional theatre inresidence at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. The Rep produces up to sevenmainstage plays each season, employs more than 250 professional artists, techniciansand administrators, and serves approximately 100,000 patrons annually. As the region’sonly professional theatre with membership in the national League of Resident Theatres,the Rep operates under agreements with Actors’ Equity Association (the national unionof professional actors and stage mangers), the Society of Stage Directors andChoreographers, Inc., and United Scenic Artists Local USA-829 IATSE.