This question is totally subjective and, therefore, can be argued either way. However, I am inclined to argue against taking the money from Lindner.
For those who say that the Youngers should have taken the money, the judgment would be a matter of practicality. Lindner makes it clear that blacks are not wanted in Clybourne Park:
What do you think you are going to gain by moving into a neighborhood where you just aren't wanted...people can get awful worked up when they feel that their whole way of life and everything they've ever worked for is threatened.
As a result, the community prepared "to buy the house from [the Youngers] at a financial gain to [the] family." The expectation is that they will buy a house in a neighborhood that is predominately black, or one that is more accommodating to integration (the latter was uncommon in Chicago at this time).
By choosing to take the money, the Youngers would have moved into a neighborhood where they would have been welcomed by their neighbors and not subjected to harassment or coldness. They would have been in a position in which they could have actively belonged to and contributed to a community.
However, they also would have been submitting to de facto segregation, and to the white supremacist's tendency to tell black people where they can and cannot go. Moreover, redlining was a common practice in Chicago at the time. Redlining was the practice of raising house prices and mortgage rates in certain areas based on the racial or ethnic make-up of those communities. Banks and realtors frequently profited off of redlining. In this system, blacks would pay much higher mortgages than whites for similar homes. In many instances, people would spend their lifetimes paying off the mortgage for a house that had been overvalued to the banks' advantage. The Youngers would have been victims of this practice.
One could also argue in favor of taking the money by saying that the Youngers would have earned a profit from the sale of the house in Clybourne Park. If there is an opportunity to earn money, why not leap at the chance? For some people, this might not be a problem. However, the Youngers, like most of us, have pride. The money is tainted because the family is being paid to stay away; they are being characterized as undesirables. To accept the money would be to accept this characterization of themselves. Moreover, due to mortgage rates which were inflated by redlining, the profit would have eventually been absorbed by mortgage payments.
Hansberry makes the buying of a house central to her story because home ownership is an implicit part of the American Dream. However, by pointing out that many whites have their "dream" disrupted when blacks move into their neighborhoods, Hansberry indirectly critiques what the American Dream is predicated on: the subordination of black people. This indicates that the dream is only available to some.
By not taking the money, the Youngers assert that they are as entitled to aspirations, such as home ownership, as white people are. They are as entitled to move wherever they please, as white people are. They are entitled to feel that they are as worthy of citizenship and a sense of belonging as anyone else. Taking the money would undermine these principles in favor of temporary capital gain, which is not the message Hansberry wanted to send in her play. Even Walter, who is arguably the most covetous character in the play, does not care so much about the possession of money itself as he does about what money can afford for him and his family: respect and access.
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