Black people's quest for home ownership in A Raisin in the Sun and in AmericaIn the famous "kitchen debate" of 1959 with Russian Prime Minister Nikita Khrushchev, Richard Nixon asserted the American dream of homeownership was accessible to all Americans, regardless of class, race, or any other social constraints. For Nixon, this statement was proof of American domination over Russia, of the superiority of democracy over communism. Nixon, however, greatly exaggerated the possibility of homeownership; owning a home in the suburbs was not an option for all Americans, especially African Americans. Government subsidies, so important in making housing affordable, were not provided to blacks. Additionally, suburban communities across the country sought to maintain segregation in their neighborhoods by prohibiting blacks from purchasing homes through "restrictive covenants." William Levitt, whose Levittown communities symbolized postwar prosperity and the American dream, would not sell homes to blacks until the government asked him to integrate in the late 1950s. And the Black families who later managed to obtain housing in the suburbs faced constant threats and violence from their white neighbors who feared, among other problems, that their property values ​​would decline and their communities would deteriorate. . In her 1958 play A Raisin in the Sun, Lorraine Hansberry addressed these questions before they had fully exploded into the American consciousness. His play reveals the fears and constraints that prevented many black people from achieving the American dream in the 1950s. The overarching theme of A Raisin in the Sun is the quest for homeownership. The play is about a black family living on the south side of Chicago - a poor African American...... middle of paper...... 58.Jackson, Kenneth. The crabgrass frontier: the suburbs of the United States. New York. Oxford University Press, 1985. Lemann, Nicholas. The Promised Land. New York. Vintage Books, 1991. Marling, Karal Ann. As seen on TV. Cambridge. Harvard University Press, 1994. May, Elaine Tyler. Back home. New York. Basic Books, 1988. Patterson, James T. Great Expectations: The United States, 1945-1974. New York. Oxford University Press, 1996. Riesman, David. The lonely crowd. New Haven. Yale University Press, 1961.Rose, Jerry D. The Lonely Crowd: A Critical Commentary. New York. American RD Corporation, 1965. Rosenberg, Rosalind. Lives Divided: American Women in the Twentieth Century. New York. Hill and Wang, 1992.Segrue, Thomas J. The origins of the urban crisis. Princeton, New Jersey. Princeton University Press, 1996.