Act I: 1959
Grieving parents Bev and Russ are planning to sell their home in the white middle-class Chicago neighborhood of Clybourne Park. They receive a visit from their local clergyman, as well as a neighbor and his deaf, pregnant wife; the neighbor informs them that the family buying the house is black, and pleads with the couple to back out of the deal, for fear that area property values will fall if black residents move in. It becomes apparent that the black family moving in are the Youngers, the protagonists of A Raisin in the Sun , and the neighbor, Karl, is Karl Lindner, the minor character from that play who attempts to bribe the Youngers into abandoning their plans to move into the neighborhood. As arguments ensue about the potential problems of integrating the neighborhood, both couples awkwardly call on Russ and Bev's black housekeeper and her husband to express their opposing views. Russ finally snaps and throws everyone out of the house, saying he no longer cares about his neighbors after their callousness and cruelty to his son Kenneth when he returned home from the Korean War . Kenneth later committed suicide on the upper floor of their home.
Act II: 2009
Set in the same home as Act I, the same actors reappear playing different characters. In the intervening fifty years, Clybourne Park has become an all-black neighborhood, which is now gentrifying . A white couple seeking to buy and replace the house are being forced to negotiate with local housing regulations with a black couple representing a neighborhood organization. The white couple's lawyer, the daughter of the neighbor and his deaf wife, mentions that her family moved out of the neighborhood around the time of her birth; the black wife is a relative of the family who bought the home from Bev and Russ. The discussion of housing codes soon degenerates into one of racial issues, revealing resentments from both parties. While this is happening, a workman finds an old trunk that Russ has buried in the back yard, with some of the things of their son, including his final letter.
In a short coda, we see Bev back in 1959, catching her son awake late at night (and probably writing his suicide note), she says, naively, "I really believe things are about to change for the better."
