Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun, is one of my favorite plays. I’ve read it several times and have seen two revivals of the 1959 production on Broadway. Though the title derives from a Langston Hughes poem, Hansberry’s father’s court battle against housing segregation inspired the story.
On October 25th, 1940, the US Supreme Court heard oral arguments in Hansberry v. Lee. The case dealt with a restrictive housing covenant that barred African Americans from purchasing homes in the Woodlawn neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago. In a previous case, the Illinois Supreme Court had stated that changes in societal conditions were not enough to invalidate a housing covenant and upheld the restrictions. But in 1940, Carl Hansberry purchased a home in the Woodlawn neighborhood. Another member of the covenant, Mrs. Anna Lee, sued to stop the sale arguing that according to Illinois precedent, the original owner did not have the right to break the covenant. However, Hansberry argued that the covenant could only be enforced if 95 percent of the owners had signed it, and only 54 percent had done so.
The Illinois Supreme Court argued that it had already decided this question a few years earlier and upheld the covenant. However, on November 12th, the US Supreme Court declared that the Due Process clause of the 14thAmendment prohibits a judgement in a class action suit from binding an individual whose interests were not adequately represented in the original class action. While this case did not officially declare racially restrictive covenants unconstitutional, it did pave the way for the 1948 case, Shelley v. Kraemer, that did.
