Maybe the dream breaks up like a raisin, damaged and old, but the essence of it is still intact. ... The poem suggests the inevitability of violence if racial cruelty is allowed to continue and A Raisin in the Sun first appears at the dawn of the Civil Rights movement of the 1960's. ... Something that makes Hughes" poem so poetic is his reference to the play A Raisin in the Sun, by Lorraine Hansberry. ... Hughes also asks the question: "Does it dry up Like a raisin in the sun?" ...