A Raisin in the Sun is the first play by a black woman to be produced in a Broadway theater. First performed in 1959, before the civil rights and women's movements came to the fore, it raises issues of segregation, family strife, and relationships between men and women that are both representative of the time and timeless in their universality. This interdisciplinary collection of commentary and forty-five primary documents will enrich the reader's understanding of the historical and social context of the play. A wide variety of primary materials sheds light on integration and segregation in the 1950s and 1960s; relationships between African Americans and Africans; relationships between men and women within African American culture; Chicago as a literary setting for the play; and contemporary race relations in the 1990s. Documents include first-person accounts, magazine articles and editorials espousing opposing arguments, excerpts from the works of Toni Morrison, W.E.B. DuBois, Marcus Garvey, bell hooks, Malcolm X, and Richard Wright, and a selection of pertinent government documents and eye-opening statistics. Many of the documents are available in no other printed form. Each chapter concludes with study questions and topics for research papers and class discussion, as well as lists of further reading for examining the themes and issues raised by the play. The casebook begins with a literary analysis of the play, its themes and dramatic structure. Two chapters on the historical context provide commentary and documents on the history of segregation and integration in the United States, focusing on segregation in employment and education as well as in housing, and relationships betweenAfrican Americans and Africans and the back to Africa movement. A chapter situates the play within the context of the literature of Chicago, including articles about race problems, as well as excerpts from Upton Sinclair's The Jungle, Richard Wright's Native Son, Carl Sandburg's poem "Chicago," and other pieces. The topic of the relationship between African American men and women is explored in a variety of articles on the African American family, black fatherhood, black masculinity, and the problems of African American women. A chapter on contemporary race relations examines the current situation and includes first-person accounts by two African American teenagers, current employment statistics for African Americans, and articles on current problems facing them. Each document is preceded by an explanatory introduction, and each chapter concludes with study questions and topics for research papers and class discussion, as well as lists of further reading for examining the themes and issues raised by the play.

This meticulously annotated edition of Nella Larsen's novel Passing contextualizes the novel's many historical and cultural references and introduces readers to a central theme: crossing the color line in the hopes of living a more privileged life. Nella Larsen's Passing is widely regarded as a classic novel of African American literature—a groundbreaking work in which the author keenly depicted an under-acknowledged element of early 20th-century American life: crossing the "color line" in the hopes of living a more privileged life. Now, readers can appreciate the full text of Larsen's masterpiece, accompanied throughout by invaluable annotations that transform this classic into a fascinating historical documentation of American life and society during the Harlem Renaissance. This meticulously annotated edition draws on the wealth of race scholarship that has been produced during the last generation to contextualize the novel's many historical and cultural references. It includes introductory essays focusing on Nella Larsen's life and its influence on her novel, and on events in American history and culture that appear in the novel. The book concludes with a comprehensive list of resources for further research.