A Raisin in the Sun, written by Lorraine Hansberry and produced
on stage in 1959, marks a watershed moment in American theater.
On the face of it, A Raisin in the Sun was not destined for
success. With only one white cast member, an inexperienced
director, and an untried playwright, Hansberry had difficulty
finding financial backing for the play at a time when theater
audiences were overwhelmingly white. It was an immediate
success, however, and after several tours, it opened on
Broadway, making it the first-ever Broadway play written by an
African-American woman. What makes Hansberry’s writing
remarkable is not only her accuracy in capturing the racial
dynamics of her time, but her foresight in predicting the
direction black culture would take in subsequent years. The
play's setting covers a pivotal time period for race relations
in America – after WWII and before 1959. When Americans fought
in World War II, they were fighting to uphold equality for
all…which exposed the hypocrisy of the very unequal conditi