1. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry Today you will…
Take notes over the Harlem Renaissance and A Raisin in the Sun
Compare and contrast art from the Harlem Renaissance
Read and analyze/answer questions over a poem
Turn in vocabulary & PowerPoint notes/handout
A Raisin in the Sun
by Lorraine Hansberry

2. Background
The title A Raisin in the Sun is an allusion to the poem “Harlem: A Dream Deferred” by Langston Hughes.

3. Langston Hughes was born in Joplin, Missouri, in 1902, to a family of abolitionists.
His uncle was the first black American to be elected to public office in 1855.

4. After high school, Hughes went on to Columbia University to study engineering, but soon dropped out to pursue his first love – poetry.
He never looked back.

5. Langston Hughes has earned a place amongst the greatest poets America has ever produced. But more than that, Hughes has given a voice to the African-American experience. Like the sharp peal of a jazz trumpet, Hughes’ poetry announced to the world that the streets of black America contained a culture rich and vibrant and fiercely poetic. This announcement was to become his life’s mission.
Written by Jeff Trussell

6. “Harlem: A Dream Deferred”
What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun Or fester like a sore—
And then run? Does it stink like rotten meat? Or crust and sugar over—
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags like a heavy load. Or does it explode?
Langston Hughes, 1951

7. Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry, an American playwright and painter, whose A Raisin In the Sun (1959) was the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

8. Lorraine Hansberry born May 19, 1930, in Chicago
the daughter of a prominent real-estate broker and
the niece of a Harvard University professor of African history.
parents were intellectuals and activists.

9. Lorraine Hansberry
8 years old: parents bought a house in a white neighborhood
They were “welcomed” one night by a racist mob.
Their discrimination led to a civil rights case.
Her father argued and won this anti-segregation case before the Illinois Supreme Court
Events in A Raisin in the Sun were loosely based on this event.

10. Lorraine Hansberry 2 years at the University of Wisconsin
Moved to New York in 1950 and started her career as a writer.
Died of cancer in 1965 at the age of 34, cutting short her promising career.

11. Social Background of A Raisin in the Sun
Published in 1959, four years after Rosa Parks’ was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person on a bus, sparking the Civil Rights Movement,

12. Social Background of A Raisin in the Sun
The play illustrates black America’s struggle to gain equal access to opportunity and expression of cultural identity.

13. I have a dream… a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
Sentiments in A Raisin… will be echoed by MLK in later speeches, marches, and rallies
I have a dream… a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.
I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.’
                                                                       

14. Dreams represented in the play and later echoed by King
I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

15. Dreams represented in the play and later echoed by King
I have a dream… where little black boys and black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls and walk together as sisters and brothers.

16. Brown v. The Board of Education
1954 Supreme Court case
it dismantled the legal basis for racial segregation in schools and other public facilities

17. Brown v. The Board of Education
By declaring that the discriminatory nature of racial segregation ... "violates the 14th amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees all citizens equal protection of the laws," Brown v. Board of Education laid the foundation for shaping future national and international policies regarding human rights.

19. Street Life, Harlem by William H. Johnson
Jeunesse by Palmer Hayden
As the song plays, compare and contrast these pieces of art from the Harlem Renaissance.

20. Harlem Renaissance What It Was
A flowering of African American art, literature, music and culture in the United States
led primarily by the African American community based in Harlem, New York City.

21. Harlem Renaissance Who?
Descendants from a generation whose parents or grandparents had witnessed slavery and Reconstruction
Lived in a country governed by Jim Crow laws.

22. Who?
Many of these people were part of the Great Migration out of the South and other racially stratified communities

23. The Great Migration
Between 1910 and 1930, the African American population in the North rose by about 20 percent overall. Cities such as Chicago, Detroit, New York, and Cleveland had some of the biggest increases.

24. Factors behind the Great Migration. Why move north?
Avoid the racial segregation of Jim Crow laws in the South. These were laws that…
Mandated segregation
“separate but equal”

25. Jim Crow Laws & Segregation

26. Factors behind the Great Migration. Why move north?
Boll weevil infestation in Southern cotton in the late 1910s forced people to search for other work
Blacks could take the service jobs that new white factory workers had vacated
Many African-Americans believed they could avoid the racial segregation of Jim Crow laws in the South by seeking refuge in the North where there was thought to be less racial persecution
The boll weevil infestation of Southern cotton fields in the late 1910s forced many sharecroppers to search for alternative employment opportunities
The enormous expansion of war industries created new job openings for blacks—not in the factories but in the service jobs that new factory workers vacated
World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924 effectively put a halt to the flow of European immigrants to the emerging industrial centers of the Northeast and Midwest, causing shortages of workers in the factories
Anti-immigration legislation after the war resulted in similar labor shortages
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and its aftermath displaced hundreds of thousands of African-American farm workers 26

27. Factors behind the Great Migration. Why move north?
The Immigration Act of 1924 stopped European immigrants, causing a shortage of factory workers;
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 displaced thousands of African-American farm workers.
Flood refugee camp
Many African-Americans believed they could avoid the racial segregation of Jim Crow laws in the South by seeking refuge in the North where there was thought to be less racial persecution
The boll weevil infestation of Southern cotton fields in the late 1910s forced many sharecroppers to search for alternative employment opportunities
The enormous expansion of war industries created new job openings for blacks—not in the factories but in the service jobs that new factory workers vacated
World War I and the Immigration Act of 1924 effectively put a halt to the flow of European immigrants to the emerging industrial centers of the Northeast and Midwest, causing shortages of workers in the factories
Anti-immigration legislation after the war resulted in similar labor shortages
The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and its aftermath displaced hundreds of thousands of African-American farm workers 27

28. Other Factors Contributing to the Harlem Renaissance
African-American urban migration north
trends toward experimentation throughout the country
the rise of radical African-American intellectuals.

29. Transformations & the Harlem Renaissance
The Harlem Renaissance transformed African-American identity and history
It also transformed American culture in general.
Never before had so many Americans read the thoughts of African-Americans and embraced the African-American community’s productions, expressions, and style.

30. Themes present in A Raisin in the Sun
Cultural Pride

31. Themes present in A Raisin in the Sun
Manly Pride

32. Themes present in A Raisin in the Sun
Family Pride