Raisin in the Sun the

¶ … Raisin in the Sun The play, Raisin in the Sun, was first performed on Broadway in 1959, and it was rather amazing because it was the first time a play about an African-American family had appeared on stage in a musical in New York. A lot of blacks had performed and acted and sang and danced in Broadway musical productions before 1959, but never had there been a play that really reflected how life was for blacks in America.

The fact that the scene was set in the low-income areas on the south side of Chicago made it very realistic. It was an eye-opener for a lot of white folks, and that was important at that time, because in America a lot of Jim Crow attitudes and mentalities were still out there. Segregation was still alive and well, you could say, in the south. If I remember my history right, public education - Brown v.

Board of Education was in 1954 - was slowly getting better for black children but a lot of southern universities still were not accepting black students. In Mississippi and Alabama, especially, things were really bad. All those historical facts add up in my mind to a pretty amazing conclusion when I think of the play and how it still to this day truly reflects what a lot of average black Americans have to go through.

James Baldwin wrote an essay about the play, and he called it "Sweet Lorraine"; it was published as a Preface to "To be Young, Gifted, and Black." Baldwin said in that essay (an elegy to Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965): "Never in the history of the American theatre had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage." Yes, Broadway musicals had been using black music, black singers and choreographers and other black talent since the early 1920s, Baldwin mentioned, but black folks tended to "ignore the theatre because the theatre had always ignored them." like what Baldwin said very much.

I like his writing. And because the play was set in a very depressing dark, cramped house with cockroaches everywhere; as Baldwin says, black people related to it. That is still to this day the way a lot of black folks live, in the south side of Chicago, in Detroit, Newark, Los Angeles, and in a lot of cities. So Baldwin, one of my heroes, went on to talk about the play, and his words ring very meaningful to me at this time in my life.

I would like to quote some more from him, to give his spirit to my essay. That dingy, depressing house the play was set in struck a chord with many people; "Black people recognized that house and all the people in it," Baldwin wrote in his essay.

And black folks "...supplied the play with an interpretative element which could not be present in the minds of white people: a kind of claustrophobic terror, created not only by their knowledge of the house but by their knowledge of the streets." think it took a lot of guts for the people who put money into this play, as 1959 was not even during the Civil Rights movement and blacks were still called "Negroes" and also the "N" word was heard a lot in America.

It still is heard by racist people today, but not quite as much probably. I looked up the history of what happened in 1959, just to give an example of how gutsy it was for Broadway to put on a musical using a south side of Chicago family in their poor home and depressing environment.

I found that a man named Mack Charles Parker, an African-American man who was accused of raping a white woman, was taken from jail in Poplaville, Mississippi, by a mob, and he was lynched by a mob on April 25 of 1959. My reaction to the play is that I think about my heritage and the bad things, but also the good things that have happened to my people over the past forty or so years.

We're not where we should be in terms of economic power and political power, but we're getting there. I'm proud that there were creative and courageous writers like Lorraine Hansberry to bring the real life issues of black families into the entertainment genre. Especially in New York City, the big apple, which is the place where more things get attention like plays. My personal response to the play is I loved reading it and the more I thought about families (not just black families) when I read through it again.

The oldest son in the play was trusted to deposit the money from the check (to buy a better home), but he turned out to be unable to follow through with his responsibility. That's sad. Also, in the play it was brought home to me that the neighbor was willing to pay the family NOT to move into his neighborhood. It still is that way today.

White folks fear that black folks will bring loud parties into their neighborhood, and that black folks won't take good care of their property and it will devalue the neighborhood. That's not fair to assume such a thing about blacks, but unfortunately, a lot of white people still believe those things. That's why the play is still pertinent to the social climate in America today. A cannot precisely imagine what a Caucasian male in his 50s would think about Raisin in the Sun, but I can guess.

Let's say he's not a racist at all and that a family that believed in fairness and justice raised him. And in my mind he believes that diversity is what makes America what it is today. This man was aware of the Civil Rights Movement, and in fact had albums by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez and Pete Seeger, folk music from back in the day.

He saw the dogs that were turned loose on black demonstrators by Sheriff Bull Conner and Sheriff Jim Clark (Selma Alabama) on the TV news. Okay, what would he say, how would he react, to seeing a Raisin in the Sun, if he were to see it today on Broadway? I can imagine he would enjoy it a lot, but he would probably think to himself, there aren't that many black folks who have to live in squalor like that anymore.

Thank God, he would say to himself, life has gotten better for most black families. There is now a huge black middle class, he would think, after watching the play, and blacks send their kids to colleges, they buy homes (and are able to get mortgages easily), they drive decent cars, they have high speed Internet and digital cable TV and are a lot like all the rest of the middle class.

I think that he would think about life for blacks, though, and probably wonder how many people have to live with cockroaches.