Introduction During the 1950s, many African Americans were migrating to the Southside of Chicago. Living conditions were not good though; housing areas were extremely crammed. Homes that were meant to house 11,000 residents actually housed 27,000 (Chicago Southside 1950’s, 2011). The Southside was primarily made up of African-Americans, in fact, according to Chicago Southside 1950’s, 2011, it was considered the “Capital of Black America.” In A Raisin in the Sun, a play written by Lorraine Hansberry, the difficulties of African-American families living in Chicago were portrayed. Chicago has improved when it comes to crime rates, but poverty and police brutality are things that still greatly affect blacks living in the Southside of Chicago.
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The play is centered around a lower class African-American family, the Youngers, who have just received a check worth $10,000; all of the adults in the family have different ideas on how to spend the money, and they often get into arguments over it. They live in a two-bedroom house with a five-member family. When Hansberry describes the house, she says, “Moreover, a section of this room, for it is not really a room unto itself, though the landlord’s lease would make it seem so, slopes backward to provide a small kitchen area, where the family prepares the meals that are eaten in the living room proper, which must also serve as dining room.” (Hansberry, 1966, p …show more content…
The color of your skin had a huge impact on many things back then, and that is made evident multiple times throughout the play. Lena decides to take some of the $10,000 and buy a house, but the house she settles on is in a white neighborhood, Clybourne Park. The family isn’t exactly pleased about where the house is located, but they choose to accept it. Karl Lindner, a courier from the Clybourne Park neighborhood, comes to the Younger’s house and offers to pay more than what Lena paid for the house in exchange for them not moving in. He speaks to the Youngers and says, “It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” (Hansberry, 1966, p
The play is centered around a lower class African-American family, the Youngers, who have just received a check worth $10,000; all of the adults in the family have different ideas on how to spend the money, and they often get into arguments over it. They live in a two-bedroom house with a five-member family. When Hansberry describes the house, she says, “Moreover, a section of this room, for it is not really a room unto itself, though the landlord’s lease would make it seem so, slopes backward to provide a small kitchen area, where the family prepares the meals that are eaten in the living room proper, which must also serve as dining room.” (Hansberry, 1966, p …show more content…
The color of your skin had a huge impact on many things back then, and that is made evident multiple times throughout the play. Lena decides to take some of the $10,000 and buy a house, but the house she settles on is in a white neighborhood, Clybourne Park. The family isn’t exactly pleased about where the house is located, but they choose to accept it. Karl Lindner, a courier from the Clybourne Park neighborhood, comes to the Younger’s house and offers to pay more than what Lena paid for the house in exchange for them not moving in. He speaks to the Youngers and says, “It is a matter of the people of Clybourne Park believing, rightly or wrongly, as I say, that for the happiness of all concerned that our Negro families are happier when they live in their own communities.” (Hansberry, 1966, p