the raisin in the sun as an outcome of harlem renaissance.

Hansberry used a line from Langston Hughes poem, Harlem, as the title of the play. Harlem speaks to the hopefulness and promise that blacks embraced in the 1920s..... the Harlem Renaissance, or as it was also known the "Jazz Age". Hughes poem, wriiten in 1951, remembered that time of promise, a time in which the black community was encouraged by the success and popularity of black artists, who were embraced throughout America.

Unfortunately, the Jazz Age ended with the Great Depression, as did the hopes of African Americans..... hopes of acceptance and new opportunities. The Great Depression devastated the country, and the black communities fell into complete ruin. The "white flight", which took place after WWII, found whites moving in large numbers to suburban communities, leaving blacks to remain in what had become slums with no hope of prosperity. Blacks were not welcome in the suburbs, and they lacked opportunuties for upward movement.

In essence, A Raisin in the Sun, illustrates the outcome of the Renaissance, but as Hughes asks..... do those dreams wither like a raisin in the sun? Hansberry uses Hughes' words to relay the importance of dreams..... the importance of dreams for individuals, as well as the black community as a whole.