Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis, two of our most beloved performers, have long been known as brilliant actors and staunch activists for African-American human rights and social justice. But to their children, they were simply Mom and Dad. Their daughters, Nora Davis Day and Hasna Muhammad, spoke with EBONY about what it was like growing up in their household.
Nora Davis Day
I grew up in what I call the “bean days,” when we didn’t always have meat for dinner, so it was ordinary and extraordinary. If you open the door, here comes [the author] John O. Killens or Sidney Poitier or Harry Belafonte. But to us they were visitors, uncles and aunts.
A Raisin in the Sun is a play by Lorraine Hansberry that debuted on Broadway in 1959. The title comes from the poem “Harlem” (also known as “A Dream Deferred”) by Langston Hughes. The story tells of a black family’s experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood as they attempt to “better” themselves with an insurance payout following the death of the father. The New York Drama Critics’ Circle named it the best play of 1959. (Wikipedia).