When Lorraine Hansberry was writing “A Raisin in the Sun,”
she could not have anticipated the FBI's interest in her work. J. Edgar Hoover
was obsessed with communism. The notion that "subversive" ideas could
invade and warp the minds of Americans was one of his greatest fears. Any
prominent person or group that could be described as "left leaning"
was investigated. At the height of McCarthyism, the FBI administered its own
program to ferret out black communists in the Arts. Agents were dispatched to
read literary works before they were published. Lorraine Hansberry's play was
of particular interest to the FBI. In The American Reader, Professor William Maxwell
reveals the agency's fear of black communism and its attempts to censor black
artistic expression.
http://theamericanreader.com/total-literary-awareness-how-the-fbi-pre-read-african-american-writing/The Guardian followed up with Maxwell about how he uncovered the depth of the FBI's surveillance and his new book on the subject, “FB Eyes: How J. Edgar Hoover’s Ghostreaders Framed African American Literature.”
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