Set in a cramped apartment in poverty-striken Southside Chicago, Lorraine Hansberry, through slang, accounts the struggles of five black family members battling against racism to attain middle-class acceptance during 1959. After Walter Younger's business "partner" skipped town with a portion of the family's $10,000 inheritance money, the news is broken infront of his family that their hopes for the future have been stolen and their dreams for a better life were destroyed. Trying to get his family to forgive him, Walter refuses to sell-out his race to the prejudiced white Clybourne Park spokesman Karl Lindner, who offers to pay off the Youngers to stop them from moving in the neighborhood. Hansberry highlights the different values of a black and white culture by attempting to keep the Youngers from moving into the white community. The attributes of pride and prejudice are assigned to Walter and Karl, to show that society judges based on race.
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The play opens with Lena Younger awaiting the coming of a $10,000 insurance check from the death of her husband. Lena sees in this legacy the chance to escape the ghetto life of the Chicago Southside and decides to use part of the money as a down payment for a house in an all-white neighborhood. Her brilliant daughter Beneatha views the money as a chance to live out her dream and go to medical school. Her son Walter becomes obsessed with opeaning a liquer store, ever since he learns of the $10,000 insurance check. Desperate to become higher in society and believing the money will solve all of his economic and social problems, Walter has a plea that is difficult to ignore. Thirty-five year old Walter sees this as his last chance to carry out his dream business deal and invest with some friends in a liquor store. By doing this, it might help his money problems, and he thinks that will make him a worthier man. Walter promises that if he can just have the money, he can give back to the family all the blessings that their hard lives have rufused to give them them.