I was in the 7th grade at Boston Latin School and my big brother Dave and his friends were picked to be in a Black History showcase. In it, the showcase ended with the acting out of the famous Lorraine Hansberry play. The sad part is while my mother and sister both had the book I’d never even attempted to read it. I remember catching pieces of the movie with Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee in it occasionally on TV but I never once sat down & watched it. Just thinking back, I’m still sort of ashamed of a young Steve Adams for that.

Maybe it’s all for the best considering that a young me wouldn’t have fully comprehended what the play/film was actually trying to say or the concepts and family dynamics it portrayed would’ve sailed above my head back then. It would be about 4 years later in the 9th grade (No. You all read that right. I was only two grades ahead four full calendar years later) when I finally read the play and saw the film version and I got it. I really got it. The thing that really amazed me about the film was that it was 30 years old at the time but that same struggle between the generations in Black families still existed and played out much the same way even in the early 90’s.

My older brother David was in college and he’d often have clashes with my mother much in the same manner that Walter Lee Younger had with his in the pages of “Raisin In The Sun”. My mother was a Baby Boomer, born in 1943. She was from the the deep South, Alabama to be exact. She followed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and was card carrying member of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).

She had her children in Boston, the home of Malcolm X and Louis Farrakhan between the late 60’s and late 70’s. We grew up in one of the fistfight capitals of these United States. Needless to say we didn’t share the same views as our mother. Not in the least.

There always comes a time when the eldest son wants to take his place as the leader of the family. He wants to do what it takes to make his family proud of him and be a success. Sadly enough, it’s often as much for him to show appreciation to his mother for all her back breaking labor throughout her life but so he can finally look himself in the mirror and respect himself as a man. It slowly eats away at him that he hasn’t been able to “make it” or provide his family and/or mother all the things they so richly deserve. This is something I call Walter Lee Younger Syndrome.

A testament to the timelessness of “A Raisin In The Sun” is that 50 years after this film first premiered it resonates with people the exact same way with no need for updating. The same issues with Black identity, familial dynamics, the lasting psychological effects of racism on people and the need for a man to finally become a man in the face of his own waning confidence in himself. The very same money argument Walter Lee Younger had with his mother has been had for the past 50 years with countless Black mothers and their sons.

The generation gap, the changing world, growing up in a city versus your parents growing up in the country or small towns are among the many obstacles families face. Add to that having some of your opportunities or access be denied to you merely because of your background or the color of your skin? Over time that’s going to create a powder keg.

Another important part of this dynamic is the Black male/female relationship that’s explored in this film. Walter Lee’s interaction with his mother, wife and sister all affect him in different an distinct ways. He feels like all three women don’t understand him and are helping to keep him back much in the way the establishment is.

His mother is the head of the household, which in his mind means that she is preventing him from having any real say or authority in the family since he has no real power out in the world. His wife not only doesn’t understand his need to fulfill his dreams but she is dismissive of his ambitions thus he sees that as a lack of support.

Furthermore, by her not building him up he feels like he isn’t even the head of his own family unit. In regards to his younger sister, who Walter sees as a “New Negro” and an educated, liberated woman he resents her for her education and her insistence on pursuing her own dreams because they run counter to his.

Not only can her pursuit of her own dreams directly affect his, but if she attains her dreams with the support and backing of his mother and wife that would do further damage to Walter Lee’s already fragile psyche. Furthermore, he’s being compared to his father who by all accounts was a great man. Walter Lee not only wants to make something of himself for his family (his son especially), but so his father’s hope for his son to have a better life than he did won’t be in vain since his passing.

All those things and far more have made new audiences fall in love with the complex drama and even though it was set in a very different world 50 years ago, the more things seem to change the more they stay the same. I’ve experienced many of the same things Walter Lee has. I’ve made many of the choices I’ve made because I didn’t want to end up in his same predicament just to end up in one somewhat similar.

My mother had her 68th birthday a few months back and the only thing I could give her was a card and to say “Happy Birthday” to her. Something I put off doing for as long as possible because doing so reminded me that I had nothing else to give her for all those years of hard work and sacrifice for her children.

I was supposed to be the one who made something of myself and set the world on it’s ear. I was regarded the “smart one” in a family where my older sister and brother each scored so high on the SAT’s that they earned scholarships to college. I’m 36 now, a year older than Walter Lee was. That hasn’t happened yet. Oh, but I have plans. Big plans!

I remember times when we were children and we were on welfare. My mother was jobless at one point and we sometimes went long stretches without electricity and years without luxuries like hot water. Yet and she still managed to raise four children that all went to advanced classes and attended Boston Latin School. She managed to get us all into college and none of us ever did any time or because drug abusers. Intravenous or otherwise. Considering where I grew up my mother deserves a medal for that alone.

I used to do homework by candlelight in the 6th grade because the space heater was plugged into the hall outlet so we wouldn’t freeze in the wintertime. My mother sometimes got us all up & ready for school with no working alarm clock. Here I am close to 25 years later with no way to show her my appreciation for it. That eats me up inside as much if not more than the fact I still ain’t shit yet. I am Walter Lee Younger. I am bitter that I can’t reach the stars although I can see them off in the distance.

I’ve held onto my dreams and fought for them for my entire life. Even while those that pose as dreamkillers would try to take them from me and cast doubt in my heart. It’s these same dreams that not only give me hope for the future but simultaneously bring me internal anguish and turmoil with each passing year that they go unreached and unfulfilled. I often need to step back and remind myself that it’s all well and good to protect my dreams from those that hope to kill them, I need to keep my dreams from potentially killing me as well.

Good night, Prometheus! © George Murchison

One.