A Family Portrait:
Fifty Years of the American Dream
A dramaturgical essay by Sarah Bellamy

Upon its debut on Broadway in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun rang in a lot of "firsts" – it was the first time a play written by a black playwright, Lorraine Hansberry, directed by a black director, Lloyd Richards, and featuring an all-black principal cast hit the big time. Hansberry was both an intellectual and an activist and used the play as a vehicle to address significant issues of the day including segregation, poverty, political resistance, social justice, feminism and reproductive rights. This introspective look at one black family living in Chicago's South side brought into sharp focus the issues facing black people in America and abroad in the 1950s. In the decades following, the play would become an integral addition to grade school curricula throughout the country. The story reached audiences far and wide, in production and on the page. It was welcomed by audiences formerly wary of racial topics, breaking through barriers with an undeniably human story that was universal in scope and yet a definitively African American tale.

Few realize that the play is based on a true story. In the late 1930s, Hansberry's parents found and attempted to purchase a home outside of Chicago, Ill., but ran into complications when members of the all-white community tried to prevent the family from moving in. A legal struggle ensued, resulting in the Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940), which opened housing in Chicago neighborhoods that was previously segregated by "Restrictive Covenants."

While Barack Obama's inauguration marks significant advancement toward social change, the racial and economic segregation of the 1950s is hardly ancient history. In fact, the story you are about to watch unfold is strikingly similar to Michelle Obama's. Born on Chicago's South side, she was raised in a one-bedroom apartment not unlike the one in which this play is set. Like Beneatha, she worked hard in school and had dreams for a successful career. From Whitney M. Young Magnet High School to Princeton and Harvard universities, Michelle took her parents' promise to heart – that with hard work she would succeed – even though neither one had gone to college before her.

At that time education was the key to escaping poverty. It is reminiscent of the tender moment in this play when Walter Lee asks his son Travis what he wants to be when he grows up. Travis' answer - that he wants to be a bus driver - is more than just the endearing reply we might expect from a child. It also refl ects the limited scope of dreams for families living on Chicago's South side in the 1950s. Walter Lee tells his son to dream bigger, promising him admittance into the finest universities in the world.

So it was that many of the children born in the 1950s were armed with pride and a very particular "audacity of hope." It armed them with strength to be the fi rst to desegregate public schools, to march in Selma and Birmingham, to stand up and be counted amongst those pressing for social change. That momentum has finally made its way to Washington, where the struggle for true and lasting change continues.

This article has been excerpted from the study guide, available for free download at www.penumbratheatre.org.

© 2012 Penumbra Theatre