A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry’s landmark 1959 play, ends with its most optimistic character considering leaving the US with her Nigerian suitor, finding identity in an independent Africa. In his drama, Kwame Kwei-Armah takes Beneatha (Cherrelle Skeete) to Lagos – only to find colonialism’s enmeshed tentacles difficult to clear.
If Hansberry’s play is about ownership – whether Black Americans have a stake in the American dream – then Kwei-Armah’s concerns legacy: the persistent effects of colonialism and how Black thinkers can shape the future. After a first act set in 1959, the second returns a widowed Beneatha to present-day Lagos. Now a revered American social scientist, she brings her mostly white colleagues to her former home to discuss the future of the field – whether they should continue African American studies or instead launch a “Critical Whiteness” major. Are white students bored of guilt and Black students of this grim heritage? Is it true that “race as we know it is dead”?
