lorraine hansberry facts

Lorraine Hansberry is best known as the playwright of A Raisin In The Sun, the groundbreaking play about a working class African-American family on the South Side of Chicago that illustrates how the American Dream is limited for Black Americans.The play is widely hailed as one of the greatest-ever achievements in theater. In 1973, a musical based on A Raisin in the Sun, entitled Raisin, opened on Broadway, with music by Judd Woldin, lyrics by Robert Brittan, and a book by Nemiroff and Charlotte Zaltzberg. In fact, she was an active participant in the civil rights movement and used her talents as a writer and playwright to shed light on issues of race, gender and class in America. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. The late artist also has a school, Lorraine Hansberry Academy, in the Bronx named after her as well as an elementary school in Queen, New York, titled in her honor. 236 pp. In 1969 a selection of her writings, adapted by Robert Nemiroff (to whom Hansberry was married from 1953 to 1964), was produced on Broadway as To Be Young, Gifted, and Black and was published in book form in 1970. In 2013, Hansberry was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, in recognition of her contributions to American culture and civil rights activism. Her own familys landmark court case against discriminatory real estate covenants in Chicago would serve as inspiration for her seminal Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun. . She used her writing to redefine difference. Hansberry kept a low profile of her identity as a lesbian. Some books that he created include Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger (1995), Sideways . Lorraine Hansberry Elementary School was located in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. The group told Kennedy that the federal government was not doing enough to protect the civil rights of African Americans, but the attorney general didnt agree. 5 Things You Didnt Know, Godzilla is Officially on Twitter and Instagram Now, 10 Things You Didnt Know about Lovell Adams-Gray, Why General Grievous Should Get His Own Solo Movie, 10 Things You Didnt Know about Greg Lawson, Pearl Jam Gearing up For Big Tour and Announces New Album, 10 Things You Didnt Know about Tom Llamas, A Janet Jackson Biopic Might Be in the Works, 10 Things You Didnt Know about James Monroe Iglehart, 10 Things You Didnt Know About James Arthur, Marvels Touching Stan Lee Tribute on the One Year Anniversary of His Death, Five Things You Didnt Know about Michelle Dockery, The Reason Why Curly was Replaced by Shemp in the Three Stooges, Five Things You Didnt Know about Elise LeGrow, Five Things you Didnt Know about Seeta Indrani. In 1951, Hansberry joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom, edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. She is remembered for her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened on Broadway in 1959, just six years before her death - and sometimes for her memoir, which was the inspiration for Nina Simone . Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright, writer and activist who lived from 1930 to 1965. Biography & MemoirDisability In 2014, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust published a wealth of never-before-seen letters, writings, and journal entries, her heart and her mind put down on paper. Perry pored over these pages, and four years later wrote Looking for Lorraine. Her father was brave and daring enough to move his family into an all white neighborhood during tumultuous times. Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine died at a young age of 34 from cancer. Thanks for reading! Many icons of the early African American Civil Rights Movement, e.g., Langston Hughes, visited the Hansberry home Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library. The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. Lorraine Hansberry became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and joined people like Lena Horne and James Baldwin to test Robert Kennedys position on civil rights. She worked on Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party presidential campaign in 1948, despite her mother's disapproval. Fact 1: The one fact you might already know! The title of the song refers to the title of Hansberry's autobiography, which Hansberry first coined when speaking to the winners of a creative writing conference on May 1, 1964: "Though it is a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic to be young, gifted and black." In addition to her activism around civil rights, Hansberry was also a feminist and an advocate for womens rights. Discover Walks contributors speak from all corners of the world - from Prague to Bangkok, Barcelona to Nairobi. Her father, Carl Hansberry, was a successful real estate broker and a prominent figure in the African American community, who fought against racial segregation and discrimination. Required fields are marked *. Goodbye, Mr. Attorney General, she said, and turned and walked out of the room. Since that time, other artists including Aretha Franklin have covered the song, whichbegins: To be young, gifted and black . When Irvine read the lyrics after it was finished, he thought, "I didn't write this. The major theme throughout playwright Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is how racism impacts daily life for this multi-generational family, not only in relations between black and. Raisin, her best-known work, would eventually become a highly lauded film starring Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Claudia McNeil, and Diana Sands. It was the first play written by an African American woman to appear on Broadway. Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart has had a vigorously successful run. That was what formed their bond at the time when Lorraine was developing her own Black, feminist, and queer politics. In 1944, she graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary. Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. Here are nine radical and radiant facts from Looking for Lorraine to introduce you to one of the most gifted, charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists. Fact 5: Indeed, Lorraine was an outspoken political activist from a young age. In 2017, Hansberry was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. Lorraine was inspired by her father and the play that she wrote may have been a little ahead of its time, but it won top prize from the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle, which was no small feat. Lorraine Hansberry, (born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.died January 12, 1965, New York, New York), American playwright whose A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first drama by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Written and completed in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. Not only did Hansberry address social and racial issues in her novels and plays, but she also wrote articles true to her voice and beliefs for a progressive Black journal, James Baldwin was her close friend and confidant. . In doing so, he blocked access to all materials related to Hansberry's lesbianism, meaning that no scholars or biographers had access for more than 50 years. Top 10 Things to do Around the Eiffel Tower, 10 Things to Do in Paris on Christmas Day (2022), 10 Things to Do in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Being nothing short of brilliant in her approach, Hansberry wielded the full power of the pen in the punchy writing style that was and still is hard to ignore. Important Feminists you should know. B. This page was last modified on 24 February 2023, at 15:15. The FBI began surveillance of Hansberry when she prepared to go to the Montevideo peace conference. Hansberry inspired the Nina Simone song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", whose title-line came from Hansberry's autobiographical play. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (2004, Mass Market, Reprint) $0.99 + $5.65 shipping. On September 18, 2018, the biography Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, written by scholar Imani Perry, was published by Beacon Press. To celebrate the newspaper's first birthday, Hansberry wrote the script for a rally at Rockland Palace, a then-famous Harlem hall, on "the history of the Negro newspaper in America and its fighting role in the struggle for a people's freedom, from 1827 to the birth of FREEDOM." It is a play that tells the truth about people, Negroes [in the parlance of the time], and life. Hansberrys work as a writer and activist was groundbreaking in its exploration of the experiences of African American women. Hansberry often explained these global struggles in terms of female participants. Hansberry and Simone had been friends and shared a bond over their interests in social justice and radical politics. Due to racial differences, Lorraine and her family faced racism when she was just eight. Someday perhaps I might hold out my secret in my hand and sing about it to the scornful but if not I would more than survive (86). Hansberry was associated with very important people. Lorraine Hansberry wrote the plays A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window(1964). . I found myself wishing I could have been Lorraines friend, or at the very least, a fly on the wall during some of her passionate discussions about politics, race, literature and art with friends and colleagues. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) wrote A Raisin in the Sun using inspiration from her years growing up in the segregated South Side of Chicago. Lincoln University's first-year female dormitory is named Lorraine Hansberry Hall. Pointing to these letters as evidence, some gay and lesbian writers credited Hansberry as having been involved in the homophile movement or as having been an activist for gay rights. Author Lorraine Hansberry. The Hansberry Project is rooted in the convictions that black artists should be at the center of the artistic process, that the community deserves excellence in its art, and that theatre's fundamental function is to put people in a relationship with one another. On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway and changed the face of American theater forever. Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. Carl Hansberry's brother, William Leo Hansberry, founded the African Civilization section of the History Department at Howard University. She was passionate about the causes and people that she stood in support of. . Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. Posthumously, "A Raisin . The result is an essay that, nearly two decades later, surpasses any document on Lorraine, old or new, in its exploration of her intimate life. Fact 8: Though she married a man, Lorraine identified as a lesbian. She was raised in a strong family, the youngest of three children born to Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry. The play was also nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play, and it has since become a classic of American theatre. In 1959, Hansberry commented that women who are "twice oppressed" may become "twice militant". In 2013, Hansberry was also inducted into the Legacy Walk, making her the first Chicago-native to receive the honour, along with a position in the American Theatre Hall of Fame in the same year. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. In 1958 she raised funds to produce her play A Raisin in the Sun, which opened in March 1959 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, meeting with great success. Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, a successful real-estate broker and Nannie Louise (born Perry), a driving school teacher and ward committeewoman. Book Details. The Hansberrys were a proud middle class family, who valued social and political involvement. American Society Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry's landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed . Lorraine Hansberry (19301965) was a playwright, writer, and activist. She was also an active participant in the civil rights movement, and her writings and speeches inspired many people to take action against racial inequality and injustice. Her cousin is the flutist, percussionist, and composer Aldridge Hansberry. The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts. Gift of Kayla Deigh Owens, Playbill used by permission. Best known for her plays, Hansberry was the first black woman to write a Broadway drama; A Raisin in the . While working as a part-time waitress and cashier, Hansberry worked as the writer and associate editor of the black newspaper, Freedom, from 1950 to 1953 under Paul Robeson. Norma Brickner is a Journalism and Digital Media major at SUNY-New Paltz. In 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people. When she was only 29 years old, Hansberry became the youngest American and the first African-American playwright to win the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Omissions? Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright whoseA Raisin in the Sun(1959) was the firstdramaby anAfrican American woman to be produced on Broadway. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. She was the daughter of a real estate entrepreneur, Carl Hansberry, and schoolteacher, Nannie Hansberry, as well as the niece of Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor Leo Hansberry. Who are young, gifted and black She was also the youngest playwright and the first Black winner of the prestigious Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play. . The play was a critical and commercial success. . In 1964, Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced but continued to work together. in order to avoid discrimination. Lorraine Hansberry became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and joined people like Lena Horne and James Baldwin to test Robert Kennedy's position on civil rights. Hansberry, an outspoken Communist, was committed to racial equity and participated in civil rights demonstrations. Conversations with Lorraine Hansberry - Mollie Godfrey 2021-01-15 $26.95. She was the youngest of Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry's four children. In response to the independence of Ghana, led by Kwame Nkrumah, Hansberry wrote: "The promise of the future of Ghana is that of all the colored peoples of the world; it is the promise of freedom. At the same time, she said, "some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men.". Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. Leo Hansberry was a prominent figure in the Pan-Africanist movement, and he founded the African Civilization section at Howard University, where he was a professor of African history. A Raisin in the Sun - Mass Market Paperback By Lorraine Hansberry - VERY GOOD. He looked insulted--seemed to feel that he had been wasting his time . Here are five important facts about her that you most likely didnt know. Lorraine Hansberry was a history-making playwright and author who became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. It went on to inspire generations of playwrights and performers. The song has also famously been recorded by artists including Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. . . Young, gifted and black We must begin to tell our young Theres a world waiting for you This is a quest that's just begun. The 29-year-old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Her most famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, is an exploration of the challenges faced by a black family in Chicago as they struggle to achieve the American Dream in the face of systemic racism and poverty. On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist. On June 9, 2022, the Lilly Awards Foundation unveiled a statue of Hansberry in Times Square. The group of 1960's would-be idealists, iconoclasts and intellectuals who hang out in the Greenwich Village apartment of Sidney and Iris Brustein (Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan) include a painter, Who Was Lorraine Hansberry? Then, she smiled. She holds academic degrees which are: AA social Science Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a play about a struggling Black family in Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun. Hansberry was the godmother to Nina Simone's daughter Lisa. The title of Hansberrys now-iconic play A Raisin In the Sun was inspired by Hughes poem Harlem. One could argue that the play illustrated the poems sentiment: Quotes from A Raisin in the Sun She was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. Hansberrys work and activism were instrumental in advancing the cause of civil rights in America, and she remains an important figure in the history of the movement. And thats a fact! Lorraines extraordinary life has often been reduced to this one fact in classroomsif she is taught at all. Hansberry resided in a third-floor apartment in this building from 1953 to 1960, the period in which she created her . Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She underwent two operations, on June 24 and August 2. Also in 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. A penetrating psychological study of the personalities and emotional conflicts within a working-class black family in Chicago, A Raisin in the Sun was directed by actor Lloyd Richards, the first African American to direct a play on Broadway since 1907. Hansberry received many awards for her work, including a New York Critics' Circle Award, an award at the Cannes Film Festival. A satire involving miscegenation, the $400,000 production was co-produced by her husband Robert Nemiroff. Hansberry's ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff, became the executor for several unfinished manuscripts. This script was called "superb" but also rejected. Du Bois, who served as one of her mentors. 519 (1934), had been similar to his situation. Please enable JavaScript if you would like to comment on this blog. Setting (time) Between 1945 and 1959 Setting (place) The South Side of Chicago Protagonist Walter Lee Younger Her friend Nina Simone said, we never talked about men or clothes or other such inconsequential things when we got together. Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright, writer and activist who lived from 1930 to 1965. Bella Sanchez is a recent graduate from Boston University, and the marketing intern for Beacon Press. Additionally, Hansberry was known to be a champion of civil rights and social justice, and she was involved in several LGBTQ+ organizations and causes during her lifetime. Lorraine Hansberry: Lorraine Hansberry was a gifted playwright and creator of the award-winning play A Raisin in the Sun. Fact 3: Lorraine was a talented visual artist. 1937 Carl moves his family to a home in the Woodlawn. . The granddaughter of a freed slave, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, to a successful real estate broker and a school teacher who resided in Chicago, Illinois. She was an anti-colonialist before independence had been won in Africa and the Caribbean.. However, the writer adopted the initials of L.H. She explored the issues of colonialism and imperialism through her own lens as well as the female perspective. 'The Black Revolution and the White Backlash . Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. also named Lorraine Hansberry the Godmother of her daughter, Lisa Simone. In the whole world you know Fact 9: This isnt a major life milestone of Lorraines, but its too fascinating not to include it!) Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Clybourne Park is a "spin-off" of Lorraine Hansberry's famous 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun, meaning that it centers around some of the play's peripheral events and characters.Specifically, the main characters of A Raisin in the Sun the Younger familywill eventually move into the house in which Clybourne Park is set. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was born on this day, May 19. between family and gender expectations and the way homophobia could crush intimacies in the most heartbreaking of ways even as romantic love made space for them (86). Hansberry's most famous work, "A Raisin In The Sun" remains one of the best known plays ever written by a Black female playwright. ", In a Town Hall debate on June 15, 1964, Hansberry criticized white liberals who could not accept civil disobedience, expressing a need to "encourage the white liberal to stop being a liberal and become an American radical." How could we improve it? Along these lines, she wrote a critical review of Richard Wright's The Outsider and went on to style her final play Les Blancs as a foil to Jean Genet's absurdist Les Ngres. Fifteen years before Lorraine was unsealed, Harris meticulously and accurately charted Hansberry's queer life; she did not rely on institutions, but New York City dykes. Taken from us far too soon. Download Our Free Black Liberation eBook Bundle! Lorraine Hansberry was the niece of Leo Hansberry, who was a Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor. . Carl died in 1946 when Lorraine was fifteen years old; "American racism helped kill him," she later said. Let us know if you have suggestions to improve this article (requires login). . Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" A selection of her writings was produced on Broadway asTo Be Young, Gifted, and Black(1969; book 1970). She expressed a desire for a future in which "Nobody fights. Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the late 1940s, but she left before completing her degree. An author, a playwright and an activist, Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. In 1999 Hansberry was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. An innovative network of theatres and community organisations, founded by the National Theatre in 2017 to grow nationwide engagement with theatre, expands. Publisher Random House. After Simone died on. He was known as a race man who sought to make the world a better place for African Americans. Hansberry was also a prominent civil rights activist, and her writing and activism helped to shape the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. In 1950, Hansberry decided to leave Madison and pursue her career as a writer in New York City, where she attended The New School. Hansberrys father died in 1946 when she was only fifteen years old. For local insights and insiders travel tips that you wont find anywhere else, search any keywords in the top right-hand toolbar on this page. I am in Houston and may go see Clybourne Park at the Midtown A&T Center before I leave town next week. Lorraine Hansberry's ex-husband and dear friend, the songwriter and poet Robert Nemiroff, became her literary executor after her death in 1965. In college, she took classes in stage design and sculpture, and turned her dorm room into an art studio. Before her marriage, she had written in her personal notebooks about her attraction to women. Later, an FBI reviewer of Raisin in the Sun highlighted its Pan-Africanist themes as "dangerous". Lorraines papers, including her letters and unpublished works, were private for years, with the public hearing only whispers or half-formed truths about some of the most significant aspects of Lorraines identity: her sexuality and her radical political leanings. The show ran for more than two years and won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. Also in 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. In 2013, more than twenty years after Nemiroff's death, the new executor released the restricted material to scholar Kevin J. Mumford. The Washington, D.C., office searched her passport files "in an effort to obtain all available background material on the subject, any derogatory information contained therein, and a photograph and complete description," while officers in Milwaukee and Chicago examined her life history. The production won Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play for Rashad and Best Featured Actress in a Play for McDonald, and received a nomination for Best Revival of a Play. Biography. In 2010, Hansberry was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. . However, Hansberry admired Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. A Raisin in the Sun Mass Market Paperbound Lorraine Hansberry. Risking public censure and process of being outed to the larger community, she joined the Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian organization, and submitted letters and short stories to queer publications Ladder and ONE. She was an American writer, who stood the literary world on its head with her prolific enigmatic and radical writing. He was one of the pioneers of African Studies in the United States and his work played an important role in challenging the prevailing Eurocentric views of African history and culture. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun exploded onto American theater scene on March 11, 1959, with such force that it garnered for the then-unknown black female playwright the Drama Circle Critics Award for 1958-59 in spite of such luminous competition as Tennessee Williams' Sweet Bird of Youth . Fact 7: Nina Simones song To Be Young, Gifted and Black was written in memory of her close friend Lorraine. She was particularly interested in the situation of Egypt, "the traditional Islamic 'cradle of civilization,' where women had led one of the most important fights anywhere for the equality of their sex.". Du Bois, whose office was in the same building, and other Black Pan-Africanists. How true, Clifford so sad that she left this world at age 34. Hansberrys next play, The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window, a drama of political questioning and affirmation set in Greenwich Village, New York City, where she had long made her home, had only a modest run on Broadway in 1964. Image by The Public Domain Review from Wikimedia. Theatre Nation Partnerships network extends to every region in England. In 1960, during Delta Sigma Theta's 26th national convention in Chicago, Hansberry was made an honorary member. Three years later, Hansberry devoted all her attention towards writing joining the Daughters of Bilitis the year after. The American dream means something different to each character in A Raisin in the Sun. All rights reserved, Playbill Inc. National Museum of African American History & Culture. In 2014, the play was revived on Broadway again in a production starring Denzel Washington, directed again by Kenny Leon; it won three Tony Awards, for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Direction of a Play. She even wrote anonymous letters to the publication alluding to her own lesbian relationships. At the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust, which represents and oversees the late writer's literary work, there's a guiding mantra: "Lorraine Is Of The Future." Rachel Brosnahan and Oscar .