In the last year, the conversation about America’s ongoing struggles with racial equality has come to the forefront. This has been a dialogue that has always been on going intensified with people home with time to reflect and the overwhelming incidents of police brutality against people of color coming more into focus on social media platforms and in mainstream media. Whether it is a video of an assault or a picture of a protest or a mural to a victim, visuals are being used to tell stories, important stories, about the way this country handles issues of race. Visuals alone are not used to tell the story, but are often the source of vocal outrage.
Young people are increasingly aware of what is going on in the world around them. They are aware that they are growing up in times where people will need to continue to stand up and fight against oppression. Currently, there are major movements involving racism against the African American and the Asian American communities as well as ongoing discussion of sexual harassment, gender inequality, and the acceptance of transgender people. The students need to believe that they play a critical role in shaping the world for their own futures.
Students today are aware of the changing social landscape. The Black Lives Matter movement is a response to the increasing number of murders of unarmed people of color by law enforcement. Building on the history of the Civil Rights Movement, BLM continues the call to action of people to bring about change to systems that are failing their people. Inclusivity is a major tenet of the BLM movement that was not as present in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s. BLM is engaged in not only racial equality, but examining issues related to gender and sexuality. 6 These are all elements of the world my students grow in.
In the world of education, it is important to learn from history. History provides student a lens to explore how people dealing in different times handled different problems. Examining past historical events, such as the work of the Spiral Group, provides a lens to examine how activists of the time used their voice. In particular, students will be examining how artist activists will used their voices to fight for social change.
Lorraine Hansberry & Politics
“… I energetically suffer the view that, more than anything else, the compelling obligation of the Negro writer, as writer and citizen of life, is participation in the intellectual affairs of all men, everywhere.” 7
Lorraine Hansberry is an accomplished playwright whose identity, ideology, and art merged together to create several memorable dramas. One of those works is her 1959 work “A Raisin in the Sun.” In the play, Hansberry directly deals with the issues of racism, the evolving identities of men and women, the assimilationist ideology, and abortion among others. Her work very much so is a product of its time.
Writing is a political act. Lorraine Hansberry’s beliefs came through clearly in her writing. Besides fiction, Hansberry also wrote many non-fictional works that fell into the same category as well as representing other sides of her political outlook. One place that this is present is in Hansberry’s work with Paul Robeson’s newspaper, Freedom. During this time, Hansberry not only wrote about issues of race, but of gender. Hansberry’s coverage of the Sojourners for Truth and Justice, a feminist organization protesting for widespread advancement for women, helped the group’s message reach a broader audience.8 These feminist themes would also appear later in her fictional writing as well.
Furthermore, Hansberry’s politics also appeared in the speeches she delivered. In her essay “The Negro Writer and His Roots: Towards a New Romanticism,” Lorraine Hansberry demonstrates she is a writer compelled to enter the conversation about the world in which she was living in because she wanted to do more than just exist. She wanted to fight, in her own words, “the war against the illusions of one’s time and culture.” 9 Hansberry goes on to speak about how art has a multitude of purposes. While one primary purpose may be entertainment, another significant role that art plays is social statement. It is not enough to just create art which is visually appealing but also ideologically compelling to the viewer. In her writing, Hansberry made it clear that she sees art as a call to arms and that one of the main enemies of the artist is the illusion perpetuated by society.
Illusion is a subject that comes up in the core text of this unit, “A Raisin in the Sun,” in a number of ways. Karl Lindner presents an illusion regarding the reasons why the community doesn’t want the Youngers to move in. Ultimately, Walter is the one to shatter those pretexts after having his own illusion shattered when he learns that his business partner has absconded with the money Walter had used to invest in the company. On a larger level, Hansberry disrupted the societal illusion that “A Raisin in the Sun” was a ‘universal’ work making sure that critics and scholars were aware that her story was one of an African American family, and that their identity was critical to telling of the story.
Hansberry herself is engaging in a dialogue with the other writers of the time. Her work’s title is an allusion to Langston Hughes’ work “Dream Deferred,” which compared a dream to a dried up raisin drained of all the essence it had when it was still a grape. Hansberry presents the moment where different members of the Younger family are presented a moment where their dreams could explode. Rather than deferring their dream, as Hughes suggests, Hansberry instead suggests that the dream evolves. While Walter may have lost the liquor store, he stands up to Mr. Lindner and joins the dream of his wife and mother by supporting the family’s move from the city to the suburbs.
Even within this context, Hansberry appears to be commenting on capitalism. In her article, “To Be a Man: A Re-Assessment of Black Masculinity in Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun and Les Blancs,” writer Julie M. Burrell views “A Raisin in the Sun” as a work that demonstrates progressive view of masculinity that is not only anti-capitalist, but also anti-colonialist. Burrell believes Hansberry is uniting white supremacy and capitalism and thoroughly rejecting them through Walter’s action at the end of the play.10
Some critical scholarship believes that Hansberry’s work made her communist beliefs clear, while others felt her work was anti-communist. When considering layers, one critic, John Davis, noted that “Hansberry seems to be aware that writing for a non-black market, which is most often the object of black writers’ protest, has to be such that the audiences ‘applaud the very protest directed at them.’” 11 The decision to accept or reject the status quo is a form of political action.
In her essay on “The Negro Writer,” Hansberry expresses her awareness of the commercial nature of art. 12 Walter desperately wants to be his own boss and a businessman. He sees this the as the sole way he can be a man and support his family. This is in direct contrast to his mother, Lena Younger, who directly calls him out to go to his wife Ruth after Ruth announces she has provided a down payment for an abortion. It is a down payment that has the potential to devastate the family, yet it is another potential down payment, Lena using her husband’s insurance money to purchase the family a house, that would suggest that Hansberry recognizes that these are characters that are still acting within a capitalist society. While Lena may recognize the societal acceptance of alcohol, she informs her son that she will not participate in the sale of it. Mrs. Younger makes the choice not be an agent in that market. In turn, even the purchase of the house, Lena Younger isn’t compliant in the capitalist system. She refuses to follow the rules set forth by the market and instead of purchasing a home in a predominantly black neighborhood, she chooses to purchase a home in a predominately white community. Lena recognizes that the rules are stacked against her family (loans for homes in African American neighborhoods are predatory) and instead to recognize the most important rule of the market: money talks. While critical of this economic practice, money over everything else, Lena Younger manages to use this to her advantage by using her husband’s insurance money to secure a home for her family, and, in turn, secure their future as she sees it. 13
Hansberry was raised to question the status quo. In her youth, Hansberry first hand experienced racism in the real estate market when her parents bought a home in a white neighborhood. 14 When the neighborhood association tried to use contracts to make life difficult for Hansberry’s family, Hansberry’s father took his case to the Supreme Court. Lorraine Hansberry’s family’s struggle for homeownership led to a critical court case. When Carl Hansberry, Lorraine’s father, purchased a home in Chicago in 1940, white community tried to evict the family on the basis of housing covenants. The Supreme Court ruled in Hansberry’s favor setting a legal precedent. This very significant historical event was deeply personal to Hansberry and acts as the origin of her work, “A Raisin in the Sun.” 15 Experiences like this taught Hansberry that things didn’t need to remain as they were.
Hansberry’s family story proceeds the modern era civil rights movement which is typically understood to spring from the work of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in pursuit of achieving equal rights under the law for African Americans. King’s call for peaceful protests, combined with the advent of television, broadcasts the struggle for equality into the homes of people internationally. The footage of those contrasting images, white violence and African American non-violence, was one way the art of television itself was able to escalate social change in a movement. 16
Another way to bring about change is protest literature. In striving to make these significant changes, protest literature has been crafted to enact the social revolution needed to enact equality. Hansberry’s work has been described as a form of protest literature.17 A crucial component of this type of writing is presence of a strong, authentic voice. In her play “A Raisin in the Sun,” Hansberry was, at times, accused of pushing a middle class narrative. 18 Alternate scholarship suggests that the Younger family’s desire to achieve home ownership is a way of attacking segregation. 19
The Spiral Group
“…What is most important now, and what has great portent for the future, is that Negro artists, of divergent backgrounds and interests, have come together on terms of mutual respect. It is to their credit that they were able to fashion art works lit by beauty, and of such diversity.” 20
The Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s sought to achieve several goals. One of those goals was the right for African Americans to vote. Another goal was to achieve a better life through equal job opportunities. The third major goal was desegregation of systems such as schools.21 People took different views on the fight for Civil Rights leading to the creation of different groups that discussed significant issues related to social justice for African Americans. One such group was the Spiral Group.
The Spiral Group was an artist collective who worked to mix activism and art. Among the group members, there was not a common artistic sensibility, but most of them were experimental in their art work.22 Their connection came from their mutual desire to see change. The founding members of Spiral were Romare Bearden, Charles Alston, Hale Woodruff, and Norman Lewis all believed in the power of art to create change. These artists joined together in August, 1963, when they became involved in the March on Washington. The group initially formed to help connect people with rides to and from Washington, D.C. The common civic engagement led to conversations about their personal role in bringing about change as artists. This was the impetus for a much larger, and ongoing, discussion of the role of black artists in social change especially given how the art world was a traditionally white space. 23
Each artist approached this social struggle in a different way just as they each approached art differently. The name of the group reflected these many different styles of the various artist as spiral approaches all directions and continues to move forward.24 For example, Lewis felt there was power in abstraction, while Bearden wanted to do more with figurative and collage. Despite their differences, Lewis and Bearden worked together within the space of the Spiral group. Formed on July 5, 1963, Spiral met weekly in a Christopher Street art space in New York City to discuss art, black identity, and social justice.
The group’s only public display was the “First Group Showing: Works in Black and White” from May 14 to June 24 1965 at the space on Christopher Street. The show was a success, but, by the fall, the group had disbanded.25 Despite the very short time they were together, the Spiral Group’s art remains its legacy and provides a source of relevant conversation for today.
Artists and their work
These are a lists of artists who belonged to the Spiral group as well as some art works that I would use with the students. Some of the work chosen from each artist represents the time period that they were writing in before, during, or after they joined the Spiral Group. The work is meant to represent a wide range so that students can access a variety of artistic styles. 26
1) Romare Beardon: Strange Land (1959), Untitled – Jungle Scene (c. 1975), Conversation (1979), High Surf Orient Bay, St. Martin (1980) and New Moon II (1981).
2) Norm Lewis: Street Musicians (1948) and Reflections (1954)
3) Emma Amos: Inside and Outside (1966) Baby (1966)
4) Hale Aspacio Woodruff: Portal 2 (1968), The Travelers (1935), and Untitled (1968).
5) Merton Simpson: Confrontation (1957/1965)
Film Scholarship
In examining the adaptation of Lorraine Hansberry’s work, scholars have considered the impact that racism had on translating the work from a play to a screenplay. Originally, Hansberry wrote a very different treatment for the 1961 film production that included a series of additional scenes that took the characters beyond the apartment and out into the world around them. This was in response to criticism she received that the characters appeared too middle class. As a result, scenes were penned allowing the audience the opportunity to follow the characters into their professional lives which enhanced the relationships between the characters and the people and culture in Chicago. In his review, professor Zachary Ingle sees the cut material as not contributing to character development or plot. On the other hand, director Spike Lee notes that the changes were a result of stifling the voice of an African American writer. Ultimately, it is left to the individual to make a critical decision, but considering the production from a racial view is important to teaching this unit. 27
It is also important to consider capitalism in terms of both film messaging as well as film production and film archivism. Thulani Davis in his article “The Problem of Online Film History” strikes upon the note there is a danger by presenting material that is strictly available via the Internet. By approaching media solely through this method, people are limited in the scope of content, particularly in regards to African American media. In presenting and cultivating material for students, it is important to consider sources that might broaden the range of experiences for students. In limiting the scope of material, personal knowledge becomes limited and alternate voices get lost in the struggle.28 These are all things to be considered when pulling additional material for this unit.