“What happens to a dream deferred? / Does it dry up / like a raisin in the sun?” - Langston Hughes

The Younger family on Chicago’s South Side is holding tight to visions of a brighter future. When a life insurance check arrives, suddenly possibility comes with a price. As each family member reaches for a different dream, they must confront what a better life really means – and what America is willing to share.

Both tender and electrifying, A Raisin in the Sun celebrates Black joy, resilience and family while facing the brutal realities of segregation and discrimination. A landmark of American theater, it made history as the first Broadway play written by an African American woman (Lorraine Hansberry), the first Broadway play directed by an African American man (Lloyd Richards), and the first commercially produced Broadway drama to center Black life. TDPS Assistant Professor KenYatta Rogers (director of Stick Fly, Men on Boats, Metamorphoses and Home) directs this enduring American classic.

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From October 22-25th, 2026 the international Universities Studying Slavery (USS) consortium will host its fall conference in College Park on the campus of the University of Maryland. The conference is organized by The 1856 Project, whose members include historians, archivists, librarians, and community members. This project interprets the history of slavery at UMD and the larger African American experience at the university and in the state of Maryland.  

Learn more here.