ers of the BLACK ARTS MOVEMENT, which are valued
by afro-wearing Beneatha, who is interested in ex-
ploring her African roots.
When Lena accuses Walter Jr. of not being a
“man” like his father, Hansberry also expresses the
necessity of African Americans to discuss notions
of masculine identity. Walter Jr.’s need to establish
his “manhood” is one of the primary concerns of
the play. He accuses the women of trying to “keep
him down,” and whites of treating him like a “boy.”
In the final act, when he refuses to accept the offer
made by the white neighborhood association that
would keep the Younger family from moving to
the suburbs, Walter Jr. enacts his own dream and
creates his own identity.
Finally, in A Raisin in the Sun Hansberry makes
a definitive statement about the importance of
making choices. Her characters are forced to make
choices that allow them to control their personal fu-
ture. Hansberry makes this point most poignantly
in her treatment and characterization of the three
women characters, Mama (Lena), Ruth (Walter’s
wife), and Beneatha. Whereas Lena clearly repre-
sents the traditional prescribed domestic role as-
signed to the women of her generation, Ruth, who
represents a generation in transition, debates with
herself and her mother-in-law whether she has the
right to have an abortion, which is something Lena
would never have considered. Not only is Beneatha
not interested in getting married and being cared
for by a man, but also she is fiercely intent on be-
coming a doctor, a profession generally set aside
for men. Beneatha insists on exercising total agency
over her life. Interested in experimenting “with
different forms of expressions” (53), Beneatha is
convinced that she alone—not her mother’s Chris-
tian God, her brother, her sister-in-law, or anyone
else—can choose the direction and outcome of her
life. As she tells her mother; “There simply is no
blasted God—there is only man, and it is he who
makes miracles” (55).
A pioneering work that explored issues of race,
class, and gender in the middle of the 20th century,
literally decades before it became vogue to do so in
the academy, A Raisin in the Sun is now a classic of
American realistic drama. It continues to be one of
America’s most widely performed plays.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Bernstein, Robin. “Inventing a Fishbowl: White Su-
premacy and the Critical Reception of Lorraine
Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun.” Modern Drama
42, no. 1 (Spring 1999): 16–27.
Hansberry, Lorraine. “A Raisin in the Sun.” In Con-
temporary Black Drama, From A Raisin in the Sun
to No Place to Be Somebody, edited by Clinton F.
Oliver and Stephanie Sills, 27–120. New York:
Charles Scribner’s Sons.
Keppel, Tim. “Interpreting Legacies: Echoes of Hans-
berry’s A Raisin in the Sun in Wilson’s The Piano
Lesson.” Griot 19, no. 2 (Fall 2000): 55–61.
Washington, J. Charles. “A Raisin in the Sun Revis-
ited.” Black American Literature Forum 22, no. 1
(Spring 1988): 109–124.
Tracie Church GuzzioRandall, Dudley (1914–2000)
Dudley Randall was born in Washington, D.C.,
on January 14, 1914; while he was still a child, his
family moved to Detroit, where he spent most of
his life. He graduated from Wayne State University
in 1949; in 1951, he received a master’s degree in
library science from the University of Michigan.
Randall worked in the foundry at Ford and served
in the Signal Corps in the South Pacific during
World War II before embarking on his college edu-
cation. During his college days he worked as a clerk
and delivered mail for the postal service. After re-
ceiving the library of science degree, he served as
a librarian at Lincoln University in Missouri, Mor-
gan State College in Maryland, and Wayne County
Public Library in Detroit. He ended his librarian
career at the University of Detroit, where he was
also poet-in-residence. Married to Vivian Barnett
Spencer for 43 years, Randall was father to one
daughter. He died at age 86, in Detroit, on August
5, 2000.
In 1965, Randall founded and became the first
publisher of Detroit’s Broadside Press, through
which he succeeded in bringing established poets,
such as GWENDOLYN BROOKS and AUDRE LORDE, to
a new audience; he also introduced fresh voices,
such as NIKKI GIOVANNI and SONIA SANCHEZ, whoRandall, Dudley 427