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Therefore, although she means only to find the best for her family, she also succumbs to the powerful materialism that drives the desires of the society around her. Still, her desire is somewhat radical, because Black Americans were largely left out of depictions of the American dream during this period.

Only white families populated suburban television programs and magazine advertisements. Therefore, Hansberry performs a radical act in claiming the general American dream for Black Americans.

Their concern foreshadows, among other developments, the arrival of Mr. Lindner, who reveals that the white people of Clybourne Park are just as wary of the Youngers as the Youngers are of white people. Ace your assignments with our guide to A Raisin in the Sun! SparkTeach Teacher's Handbook. Why does Mama buy a house in an all-white neighborhood? How does Walter plan to use the insurance money? Why does Lindner try to convince the Younger family not to move? How does Walter lose the insurance money?

Why do the Youngers decide to go through with the move? Summary Act II, scene i. Popular pages: A Raisin in the Sun. Extremely hard working, he attended school at night. When he heard about Hampton Institute in Virginia, a school for blacks, he enrolled in order to study brick masonry, paying for his education by working as the janitor.

Known mainly for his founding of Tuskegee Institute, Washington believed that blacks should be educated only by trade schools. He felt that they should develop manual skills and improve their craft at the building trades and that blacks should become experts in farming.

One of Washington's first staff appointments was Dr. George Washington Carver, whose brilliance in the field of agriculture is not as well documented as his "peanut" discoveries. Washington believed strongly that artistic endeavors and intellectual pursuits were not in the best interest of black people trying to emerge from a long period of slavery.

Washington felt that having a trade was more logical for black people than painting or poetry. In his "Atlanta speech," Booker T. Washington urged blacks to cultivate friendly relations with white men. He suggested that blacks devote themselves to agriculture, mechanics, domestic service, and the professions — placing more value on acquiring an industrial skill than on attaining a seat in Congress.

Washington's long-time opponent, W. Du Bois , was a man who dramatically espoused the opposite of Washington's philosophy. Du Bois, educated at Fisk, Harvard, and the University of Berlin, was a writer and political activist, activities which Washington perceived as frivolous. Black writers tend to side with W. Du Bois, who believed in the importance of artistic endeavors which Washington believed to be a frivolous activity.

Hansberry has one of her characters call Booker T. Washington a "fool," which is an elitist comment since only the very well read of her audience would even have known of the political rivalry between the two men. Blacks began to "choose sides," debating constantly over who was right, and over which philosophy was actually in the best interest of black people. Hansberry has the comical character of Mrs. Johnson act as the defender of Booker T.

Washington's philosophy, as she says, "I always thinks like Booker T. Washington said that time — 'Education has spoiled many a good plow hand. Johnson goes on to say that Washington "was one of our great men," Mama counters, almost angrily, with, "Who said so?

Johnson concedes by saying, "You know, me and you ain't never agreed about some things, Lena Younger. I guess I better be going —. Perhaps, because of such abuses by its kings, Mali, once one of the world's great trading nations, was eventually conquered by the neighboring kingdom of Songhai Songhay.

Songhai Songhay The Sunni dynastry of Songbai conquered Mali after Mali had progressively grown weaker with its line of ineffective kings. By the s, Songhai had become the largest and richest country in Africa, boasting the city of Timbuktu, which was the center of learning and trade for the Muslim world. In Timbuktu, men and boys only studied at its great university, utilizing to great advantage its many active libraries and books on history, medicine, astronomy, and poetry.

The first Songhai king, Sunni Ali, destroyed much of Timbuktu, but his successor, Askia, rebuilt this ancient city of learning. However, after the death of Askia, the Songhai Empire weakened and was finally conquered by neighboring enemies.

Timbuktu, once the center of learning, became a tiny desert town, important only because of its history. After the fall of the Songhai Empire, the days of the great black kingdoms of West Africa were over.

Attesting to Hansberry's preoccupation with the demise of such great African civilizations and her deep regret that there was a universal lack of knowledge of these ancient black kingdoms are her constant references to Africa in Raisin. Ghana, Mali, and Songhai were the three greatest of the many empires that flourished in West Africa, yet all that remains of these advanced civilizations of past great wealth and strength are relics of ruins and the tales of ancient travelers.

Benin When George Murchison mentions "the great sculpture of Benin," he is referring to the magnificent works of art that were produced throughout Africa, much to the astonished appreciation of Europeans who had come to Africa, first to trade and later to capture slaves.

But, of all the superior works of art that came out of Africa, the most remarkable were those found in Benin. Many factors contributed to the downfall of the aforementioned empires, including weakening from within by internal strife, invasions by outsiders and the beginnings of trade along the West Coast with European merchants.

The coastal people who had once been ruled by empires in the interior soon began to trade slaves and gold for firearms and ammunition since lances, spears, and arrows were no match against the rifles and cannons of the Arabs and Europeans.

Using their new weapons to fight their rulers, they eventually created their own kingdoms in the coastal forests of West Africa, the most powerful of which was that of Benin present-day Nigeria.

Benin's theocracy dictated the production of art for religious purposes. Thus began the Benin practice of making bronze-brass castings to memorialize important events.

Sadly, the people of Benin began to involve themselves in the lucrative Atlantic slave-trade — selling captured rival prisoners to Europeans and Americans. At this point, we should note that although Hansberry lauds the Ashanti empires specifically and speaks highly of the art of Benin through the dialogue of her character, Beneatha, Hansberry, herself, in other essays, refers specifically to the Ashanti as "those murderous, slave trading Ashanti. The inexcusable complicity of the Africans in the heinous slave trade, however miniscule it might have been, is often exaggerated — perhaps in an attempt to assuage guilt over the grand scale involvement in the violation of human rights by all those connected with the Atlantic slave trade.

As the economy of Benin grew to depend upon the slave trade, internal strife once again claimed an empire as Benin declined and was eventually overwhelmed by the British.

The British attack on Benin, ironically, was initially to retaliate for the killing of nine European travelers. But when the British stormed the city, they were so impressed by the Benin bronzes that they took them back with them, giving the British Museum an incomparable collection of rare treasures of African art.

Because this art received such worldwide attention, few wanted to believe that such magnificent artwork had been created by the Africans. Thus, the art of Benin was, at first, attributed to the Portuguese; then someone suggested that the bronzes had been washed ashore from the lost city of Atlantis or had been created by its descendants or survivors; others said that some lost and wandering Europeans had found themselves in Benin and had produced the bronze wonders; others said that nomadic Greeks had produced these works while journeying through Africa.

Still others insisted that these works, found in Africa, had been the products of the European Renaissance. All of this confusion was due to the widespread ignorance of Africa, its traditions, its people and their capabilities, and the great lost civilizations.

In this play, Hansberry attempted, in her own small way, to educate the world about Africa through her drama about a poor black family living on Chicago's Southside. Bantu The Bantu language is the tongue common to the peoples of Africa who live below the equator. There are many languages and tribes among the Bantu people — thus, the Bantu are one of the many native African groups who speak one of the Bantu languages.

Bantu is the largest language family and Swahili which consists of Bantu and Arabic is the most widely spoken. Clearly, Hansherry uses her own family's livelihood as being the livelihood of the rich black family in Raisin. Lorraine Hansberry's father was a successful real estate businessman; apparently, the Murchison family of Raisin is equally successful, for Walter refers to the Murchisons' purchase of a big hotel on the "Drive.

In , anyone, most especially a black person, who could afford to purchase a hotel — especially a hotel on such expensive property — would have been very wealthy. Prometheus As noted later in the character analysis of Walter Lee Younger, George Murchison's reference to Prometheus fits Walter's fiery personality, along with several other parallels. Prometheus, the god who was punished for having brought fire to mortals, was chained to Mt.