Black America’s First Mortgage Crisis

Fifty years ago, 'A Raisin in the Sun' captured our struggle for the American Dream. With our home equity up in smoke and our savings depleted, Hansberry's play perfectly captures our modern war between instant gratification and common sense.

By: Henry Louis Gates Jr.

I can’t quite believe that it has been 50 years since A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway. Like many people, my first encounter with Lorraine Hansberry’s groundbreaking play was through the 1961 film, acted by the original Broadway cast. Because I first saw the film during the black power era, my initial fascination was with Beneatha, the aspiring medical student who—to the horror of her family and probably to my parents—begins to embrace her African heritage.

Still, while Beneatha’s story line remains a powerful and resonant one for me all these years later, what grabs me most about Lorraine Hansberry’s masterpiece is not its nascent appeal for black cultural nationalism. No, the gravitational force behind the play is its dominant central theme: the need for the black community to ground itself in the essence of our tradition, an unbending belief in the future against the greatest odds, because the future of our people absolutely depends upon it.

What is striking to me now is how very contemporary Raisin’s message is for African Americans in the early 21st century. For, ultimately, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened on March 11, 1959, is about deferred gratification, its merits and its necessity if black America is ever going to catch up economically to the rest of the country and take our rightful place in the larger American middle class. Why talk about an old play in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Depression? Because this is precisely the time for us to do some very hard thinking about how the downturn is going to reshape the class structure of black America, and what we—within the race—can do about it. And Raisin holds clues.

Think of Walter Lee as the antecedent of hip-hop culture and the larger American material culture. He is the Man of Bling, Mister Instant Gratification. He wants to take all the proceeds of his father’s life insurance policy and buy a liquor store in the neighborhood. Think of Mama as the voice of the black tradition. She wants to use part of the money for a down payment on a home in a white suburb, use another portion for her daughter’s medical school tuition, invest the rest and demand that the four adults in the household pool their meager lower working class wages to cover the $125-a-month mortgage payment. Plan wisely and 50 years later, she reasons, ka-ching!

Black America’s First Mortgage Crisis....