What Is The Turning Point For The Play A Raisin In The Sun

In March of 1959, Lorraine Hansberry’s play, A Raisin in the Sun, debuted at the Barrymore Theater in New York. Being the first Broadway play directed and written by an African-American in over half a century, many were eager to attend a showing. People had many chances. A Raisin in the Sun was performed more than 500 times. This play won multiple awards such as the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play of the Year. In addition to the many performances and awards the Hansberry play won, there were some, arguably more important things that it accomplished. A Raisin in the Sun marked the turning point for Black artists in professional theater. The funding for this play was a struggle. It took over a year to raise enough money and
The goal of the movement was to end the injustice, segregation, and discrimination that had plagued the African-American community since the Civil War. The initial thought after the slaves were freed was that the United States could start again as an equal nation. It was common knowledge that this desired outcome would certainly not come immediately. But unfortunately, things seemed to get more unfair as time went on. In 1896, the landmark Supreme Court case, Plessy v. Ferguson, made segregation legal under the doctrine of “separate but equal”. This case, coupled with the continuation of the Jim Crow laws, strengthened racial inequality until 1954, the official start of Civil Rights Movement. Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka, another landmark case, unanimously overturned Plessy v. Ferguson. The Supreme Court justices determined that segregation in public schools was unconstitutional and this was the first major victory for the African-American community. Predictably, there was a large amount of resistance from the Southern states. This resistance was put down with the help from some high ranking officials in the government including President Eisenhower who sent some of the 101st Airborne Division to Arkansas. Plessy v. Ferguson paved the way for many other pivotal changes such as Executive Order 9981 enacted by Truman, which ended
The conflict, as stated by Allen Kamp, came around primarily due to the fact that “between 1900 and 1934, the city’s Black population grew from 30,000 to 236,000” (Kamp 483). Because of the segregation that plagued the African-Americans, they were running out of room to live in. “Geographically, Blacks were concentrated in two narrow corridors stretching westward and southward from downtown Chicago” (Kamp 483) Lorraine’s father, Carl Hansberry, decided to ignore the racially restrictive covenant of the Washington Park subdivision that was strictly limited to whites only. Predictably, the family was met with great hostility and was told to vacate their house by the Kenwood Improvement Association. This order was upheld in the Illinois Supreme Court and it was not until Hansberry v. Lee was taken to the highest court of the land, that Carl Hansberry scored the victory for which he was looking. On November 12, 1940, the United States Supreme Court unanimously rejected the restrictive covenant impacting the Hansberry family. This case not only was a landmark case for the United States, but it was a landmark event in Lorraine Hansberry’s life. The case went on to serve as an inspiration in her play, A Raisin in the