The folkways, mores, and taboos of society have been set long before recorded history. These social normalities that govern our beliefs, behavior, and interactions with others have been used to divide and categorize groups of people based on their physical characteristics, heritage, and mental state. Two social constructs that are upheld by the social norms of society are race and gender. Categorizing the human race based on the color of skin has long affected the interactions between people and has had an underlying role throughout history. Gender is the idea that the sex of a human defines their norms, behaviors, roles in society, and relationships with other humans. During the 1950s, many African American authors and artists portrayed the effects of these social constructs on the African American population in the US through literature and art. Hence, in A Raisin in the Sun, Lorain Hansberry comments on the struggles of people of color living in the 1950s by depicting their endurance through racism, misogyny, and assimilation into American culture. 

In particular, Hansberry depicts the effects of systemic racism through the Younger family’s struggle to purchase a house as they are prevented by housing discrimination and redlining in the 1950s. For instance, Mr. Lindner, a representative from the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, offers to pay the Younger family not to move to the all-white neighborhood claiming that African American “families are happier when they live in their own communities” (Hansberry 2.3). Many organizations like the fictional Clybourne Park Improvement Association were created to prevent African Americans to live among Caucasian Americans. Before the Civil Rights Act of 1964, institutions got away with segregation. Thus, African Americans often faced discrimination in the housing system as the Younger family did. Further, the author referenced redlining as Mama is searching for a house and finds that “them houses they put up for colored in them areas way out all seem to cost twice as much as other houses” (Hansberry 2.1). In the 1950s redlining was a way to prevent African Americans from moving up the social-economic ladder by “putting services out of reach for residents of certain areas based on race or ethnicity” such as the “systematic denial of mortgages, insurance, loans, and other financial” to minorities (Gross). This system perpetuated segregation in the country by “excluding blacks from neighborhoods with high-quality housing, schools, and other public services” (Turner). Given, the effects of this discrimination are still seen in modern times as many communities with a large population of African Americans have higher crime rates and more high school dropouts. Despite what some will think, these characteristics are not due to the identity of the group living in the areas but instead the system which dates back to times of slavery. Through the struggles of the Younger family in achieving their dreams of owning their own home, Hansberry expresses the perpetuated system that has long been in place to prevent the success of African Americans in the United States. 

To be African American in the 1950s was difficult; thus being an African American woman was ever more so as they endured racism as well as misogyny through their daily interactions. Moreover, the 1950s were the times of great achievement for women in society as many challenged the gender roles in the United States. In A Raisin in the Sun, Beneatha Younger, studying medicine at college, faces sexism from a romantic interest, George Murchison. For example, on their date, George silences Beneatha’s talk of her dreams exasperates, “you’re a nice-looking girl all over. That’s all you need, honey, forget the atmosphere. Guys aren’t going” for that (Hansberry 2.2). Astonished by this response to Beneatha expressing her feeling, she throws George out of the house. On a larger scale, society has held these stipulations and norms for women that confine them to traditional roles in society as homemakers. In the past, these beliefs prevented women from having access to the rights and education that the male gender receives. They are not able to move up the social-economic ladder by themselves, often having to marry into wealth. Thus, protesting this system, Beneatha dumps George and the confinement of women in marriage. She further fights the gender norms as she strives to become a doctor which was a male-dominated profession in the 1950s. As the 1960s came around the corner, “deep cultural changes were altering the role of women in American society [as] more females than ever were entering the paid workforce” (Ross). There was a new wave of feminism on the rise, and women like Beneatha lead the forefront as they challenge the gender norms set by their male counterparts. Hence, Hansberry comments on the misogyny and rising feminism within the African American community.

Additionally, Hansberry employs the character arch of Beneatha Younger in A Rasin in the Sun to convey the oppression of Afrocentric beauty and the assimilation of people of color into American society. For instance, as Beneatha tries on Asagai’s present, he comments on her appearance questioning “[y]ou wear it well, very well, mutilated hair and all… Were you born with it like that?” while Beneatha dryly replies with, “No, of course not” (Hansberry 1.2). Asagai, being born in Africa, is used to black people embracing their beauty and culture. However, in the 1950s many African American women straightened their hair appealing to the Eurocentric beauty standard in the United States. As the novel progresses, Beneatha learns to embrace her natural kinky hair and her African heritage through the influence of Asagai. She no longer sees her natural hair as messy or unkept but as beautiful. Similarly, Alice Walker, an African American social advocate, conveys in her speech “Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling On the Brain” that “eventually I knew precisely what my hair wanted. It wanted to grow, to be itself, to attract lint, if that was its destiny, but to be left alone by anyone, including me, who did not love it as it was” (Walker). She tells the story of her relationship with her hair, learning to love it over time and not to mold it to the beauty standards. Further, as the times progressed with the Civil Rights Movement, the way African Americans viewed their heritage changed. Hairstyles like the afro became popular in the 1960s where people of color were able to embrace their natural texture. By and large, the forced assimilation of people of color to westernized culture due to the oppression of their heritage is displayed through the introduction of Asagai and his relationship with Beneatha. 

Hence, through the Younger family’s endurance of racism, misogyny, and oppression of their heritage hindering their dreams, Lorain Hansberry conveys the indistinguishable struggles of the entire African American community fighting for their rights and social freedoms in a country pitted against them. Forthwith, Hansberry applies an overall message throughout the play that due to these obstructions, the aspirations of people of color in the 1950s dry up like a raisin in the sun alluding to the poem “Harlem” by Langston Hughes. By doing so, the play, A Raisin in the Sun, brings awareness to the historical oppression of African Americans and the lasting effects of racism in the United States. 

Bibliography
Gross, Terry. “A 'Forgotten History' Of How The U.S. Government Segregated America.” NPR, 3 May 2017, npr.org/2017/05/03/526655831/a-forgotten-history-of-how-the-u-s-government-segregated-america. Accessed 2 June 2021.
Hansberry, Lorraine. A Raisin in the Sun. Random House, 1997.
Ross, Loretta. “African-American Women and Abortion.” Abortion Wars: A Half-Century of
Struggle 1950-2000. Ed. Rickle Solinger. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1998: 174-175. Print.
Turner, Margery A. “Housing Discrimination: How Far Have We Come Since the March on Washington?” Urban Institute, 27 August 2013, urban.org/urban-wire/housing-discrimination-how-far-have-we-come-march-washington#:~:text=In%20the%201960s%2C%20black%20families,in%20neighborhoods%20of%20their%20choice. Accessed 3 June 2021.
Walker, Alice. "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain." 11 Apr. 1987.
Alice Walker the Official Website, alicewalkersgarden.com/2013/09/
oppressed-hair-puts-a-ceiling-on-the-brain/. Accessed 7 June 2021. Speech.

Walker, Alice. "Oppressed Hair Puts a Ceiling on the Brain." 11 Apr. 1987. 

     Alice Walker the Official Website, alicewalkersgarden.com/2013/09/ 

     oppressed-hair-puts-a-ceiling-on-the-brain/. Accessed 7 June 2021. Speech.