The Golden Gazette

Scene involving Mama expressing her views about Beneatha moving to Nigeria with Asagai: Mama: Sitting at their new kitchen counter, with a worrisome and pleading attitude. Beneatha, my dear daughter. You know my thoughts, and everyone else’s, about moving to Nigeria — it’s crazy! All of your arguments are based on blind rhetoric; all off of what Asagai has told you. How can you trust what he says when you are ignorant on the topic? You can’t just leave us all and move across the world! Now falling into a passionate rant. Today, Africa isn’t what you’re thinking of it as. It’s not the astounding land of unicorns and pink elephants! You say you want to do three things in Nigeria: marry Asagai, learn about your roots, and become a doctor! I don’t know why you’re so attached to Nigeria; especially since you do not even know if your own ancestors are from there! Living there will not be your perfect envision of a once upon a time story with a happily ever after ending! You can’t si...

Just over 3 years ago, I read A Raisin In the Sun for the first time. My almost eighth grade summer reading brain could read and comprehend the text just fine, but almost all of the symbolism and embedded meanings went completely over my head! When trying to remember anything about the book, I remembered that the central conflict was based on a true story from the author, Lorainne Hansberry's life. I began looking into it, and here’s the story of what happened: As we all know, A Raisin In the Sun included a black family facing discrimination after moving into an all white neighborhood.  In Hansberry’s reality, she was 8 years old (a little younger than Travis in the book), when her father, Carl Hansberry, bought a house in the primarily white neighborhood of Woodlawn, Chicago. At that time, there was a large housing covenant that had the goal to restrict African Americans from buying, renting, or leasing houses within the community. Carl Hansberry wanted to challenge that...