A Raisin In The Sun Segregation Essay

Through the Younger Family’s conflicts in A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry shows that segregation was still present in the 1950’s regardless of it being unconstitutional. African Americans had unequal opportunities in careers, housing, etc.

One effect of segregation was less opportunities. (What opportunities?) In the play, Walter is a limo chauffeur and Ruth is a maid. They had very few jobs available because of their race. Only having a little pool of career choices meant only having a little income. The 5 family members; grandma Lena, sister Berneatha, father Walter, mother Ruth and son Travis, all lived under one roof of a small apartment with a limited amount of living space. There are not enough bedrooms for the three generations

who share the apartment and they all share the hall bathroom with other families (Domina 20). Walter reveals his feeling of failure when he says “I got a boy who sleeps in the living room. . . and all I got to give him is stories about how rich white people are” (Hansberry 950). In Teron McGrew article "The History of Residential Segregation in the United States and Title VIII” he says Merzenbaum, one of the creators of the zoning standards declared the single family home to be the stamina of the country, the owner generally has the opportunity to have a little garden with a home that has fresh air and an abundance of light (23).
Hansberry must have read this statement because in the play when Lena looks for in a house she wanted the exact same features, she wants a normal house without her race interfering with her opportunities. The Youngers dream of owning a standard home and being free from their rundown rental house comes true but not without a fight from zoning, covenants, and racial steering issues.
Zoning, covenants, and racial steering were still occurring in Chicago regardless of laws in place banning them. Zoning resulted in communities which planned and orderly development provided a specific place for everything (McGrew 23). The Younger family lived in a crowed apartment complex that with research is assumed to be one of the low income homes for colored families. The article “Covenants without Courts: Enforcing Residential Segregation with Legally Unenforceable Agreements," by Richard Brooks stated that racial restrictive covenants were extensive in cities, like Chicago, where some estimates suggest that at one point they covered three-quarters of the city’s residential housing stock (360). The conventional view of covenants departs from an image of white homeowners in neighborhoods facing a threat of incursion by black buyers, who, initially, offer substantial premiums in order to gain entry into racially exclusive neighborhoods (B 360). Covenants, enforceable or not, were signals to black purchasers of the community’s resistance to their presence (Brooks 361). According to Myron Orfield, author of the article "Milliken, Meredith, and Metropolitan Segregation," racial steering occurs when housing providers direct prospective buyers to different areas according to their race (430). Lynn Domina, author of Understanding A Raisin in the Sun, argues that the Clybourne Park member, Linder, symbolizes the neighbors who are not accepting of the Youngers attempt at integration, because of their own prejudice (10). The role of violence, subsequent fair housing laws, suburbanization, and white flight are effects of zoning, covenants, and racial steering stress (Brooks 364).
After World War II in the 1950’s there were laws and acts that documented unlawful and unconstitutional actions in regard to segregation and equal opportunities for African Americans.

The Equal Protection Clause and the Fair Housing Act made building a disproportionate share of low-income housing in poor and segregated or integrated but resegregated neighborhoods illegal (Orfield 429). While exclusionary zoning is a violation of the Fair Housing Act if it is discriminatory or has racially disparate impact it remained common in predominately white suburbs and intensified both racial and social stratification (Orfield 430). The Housing Act of 1949 was amended in 1954, thereby broadening the 1949 slum clearance and urban development program (McGrew 25). Under this program, provisions were made for families displayed by demolition (McGrew 25). The Federal Fair Housing Act (Title VIII of the Civil Rights of 1968 and 1988) may be the most racially viable solution to ameliorate residential segregation (McGrew 25). It was established to help diminish the isolation of the urban ghetto and to promote a more racially integrated society (McGrew). Title VIII prohibits the denial of housing on the basis of color or national origin (McGrew). One of the Act’s primary purpose is to end racial segregation (McGrew 25). In 1948, racially restrictive private covenants were declared unconstitutional by the Shelley vs. Kramer case according to Arthur Nelson, author of the article “Urban Containment and Residential Segregation: A Preliminary Investigation" (425). The law made the discrimination from the white residents of Clybourne incapable of doing anything but accepting the change or moving

away.
Further research makes readers conclude that the Youngers integration of Clybourne Park would lead to success or white flight, whites fleeing from integrated suburbs and cities. Between 1950 and 1970, right after the time A Raisin in the Sun was set, the percentage of blacks more than doubled in most cities (Orfield 377). The Youngers and other Negro families started a revolution, because by the mid-fifties, the United States was home to a growing black bourgeois who had the means to purchase comfortable suburban housing on a greater scale than ever before (American Urban since WWII).
Like millions of other post war Americans, The Younger Family sought to own modern homes in recognizably middle-class neighborhoods. The Younger’s fight for dignity and equality by being the first African American family to integrate Clybourne Park. They will face “discriminatory treatment” and also be “risking their lives” by the move to all white Clybourne Park (Domina 11). The treatment they receive is unconstitutional by the 1949 Act banning “covenants” and segregated neighborhoods, as well as, the 1968 Fair Housing Law providing equal availability of housing to both whites and blacks. Today, no one could reasonably argue that the United States has achieved a color blind society, but in 2016, African Americans hold equal rights in every aspect of life.