Transcript A Raisin in the Sun: Historical Context

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 fruit
Blood on the leaves
Blood at the root
Black bodies swinging in the southern breeze
Strange fruit hanging from the poplar trees
Pastoral scene of the gallant south
The bulging eyes and the twisted mouth
The scent of magnolia sweet and fresh
Then the sudden smell of burning flesh
Here is a fruit for the crows to pluck
for the rain to gather
for the wind to suck
for the sun to rot
for the tree to drop
Here is a strange and bitter crop
The Play
A Raisin in the Sun
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

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.”
