Hansberry was born into a Black family and grew up when the civil rights movement could use all the voices it could get. Her cousin is the flutist, percussionist, and composer Aldridge Hansberry. 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. God wrote it through me." Born on the 19 th of May in 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, Lorraine Hansberry was a bright daughter of Carl Augustus Hansberry, a political activist, while her mother, Nannie Louise, was a schoolteacher. The 15th was also Dr. King's birthday. She holds academic degrees which are: AA social Science In the whole world you know 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 an avid civil rights activist because she understood clearly, that people need a champion in this life. In April 1960, she wrote a fascinating list of what she liked and hated. 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. Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. The New York Drama Critics Circle Award (NYDCC) is an annual award given by an organization composed of theatre critics who review plays and musicals in New York City. Posthumously, "A Raisin . She was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice. 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. She was the president of her colleges chapter of Young Progressives of America, she and worked on progressive candidate Henry Wallaces presidential campaign. . Theatre Nation Partnerships network extends to every region in England. He gathered her unpublished writings and first adapted them into a stage play, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which ran off Broadway from 1968 to 1969. A Raisin in the Sun - Wikipedia The latter's legal efforts to force the Hansberry family out culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). September 27, 2022. She continued to write plays, short stories, and articles in addition to delivering speeches regarding race relations in the United States. Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a play about a struggling Black family in Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun. Lorraine Hansberry was a history-making playwright and author who became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 19, 1930. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. 13 Fascinating Facts About Nina Simone | Mental Floss She spent the summer of 1949 in Mexico, studying painting at the University of Guadalajara. She even wrote anonymous letters to the publication alluding to her own lesbian relationships. In 1959, Hansberry made history as the first African American woman to have a show produced on BroadwayA Raisin in the Sun. She expressed a desire for a future in which "Nobody fights. ft. home is a 3 bed, 2.0 bath property. Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright whoseA Raisin in the Sun(1959) was the firstdramaby anAfrican American woman to be produced on Broadway. She herself, knew what it was to be discriminated against.. It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. A Raisin in the Sun Mass Market Paperbound Lorraine Hansberry. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lorraine-Hansberry, BlackHistoryNow - Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Lorraine Hansberry - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Lorraine Hansberry - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Lorraine Hansberry was a master scribe. 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. She became close friends with James Baldwin and Nina Simone. Lorraine Hansberry timeline | Timetoast timelines ", James Baldwin described Hansberry's 1963 meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, in which Hansberry asked for a "moral commitment" on civil rights from Kennedy. Her father founded Lake Street Bank, one of the first banks for blacks in Chicago, and ran a successful real estate business. Who are young, gifted and black She was the fourth child born to Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry in Chicago, IL. 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. 2. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the film version of 1961 received a special award at the Cannes festival. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre of San Francisco, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in her honor. Like Robeson and many black civil rights activists, Hansberry understood the struggle against white supremacy to be interlinked with the program of the Communist Party. Hansberry, an outspoken Communist, was committed to racial equity and participated in civil rights demonstrations. Lorraine Hansberry was 28 when she met James Baldwin, 34 at the time. Lorraine Hansberry Radical Playwright - Essence Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930 at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago. An innovative network of theatres and community organisations, founded by the National Theatre in 2017 to grow nationwide engagement with theatre, expands. The awards are considered one of the most prestigious in American theatre and winners are often considered to be among the best productions of the year. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Who Was Lorraine Hansberry? Emily Powersjoined Beacon in 2016 after three years at Cornell University Press. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) Hansberry was an activist and playwright best known for her groundbreaking play "A Raisin in the Sun," about a struggling Black family on Chicago's South Side. Top 10 Interesting Facts about Lorraine Hansberry Hansberry often explained these global struggles in terms of female participants. Lorraine herself became involved in the civil rights movement at a young age, participating in protests and joining organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). Hansberry, sadly passed away when she was in her 30s, but she left her mark on the world, and those who know its value are keeping it alive as a relevant piece of history that deserves a second look. Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. Louis Sachar Facts 8: Sideways Stories from Wayside School. At first Sideways Stories from Wayside School was not a popular book in US. In 1951, Hansberry joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom, edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. Lorraine Hansberry Biography | Chicago Public Library Here are five important facts about her that you most likely didnt know. If the name Lorraine Hansberry doesnt ring a bell, we have some interesting information that may just give you an aha moment. When the play opens, the Youngers are about to receive an insurance check for $10,000. Lorraine Hansberry: Lorraine Hansberry was a gifted playwright and creator of the award-winning play A Raisin in the Sun. 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. There is a school in the Bronx called Lorraine Hansberry Academy, and an elementary school in St. Albans, Queens, New York, named after Hansberry as well. The following year, she collaborated with the already produced playwright Alice Childress, who also wrote for Freedom, on a pageant for its Negro History Festival, with Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Douglas Turner Ward, and John O. Killens. Date of first publication 1959. In one of her stories, The Anticipation of Eve, Lorraine describes the moment the protagonist Rita is about to see her lover Eve with lush, tender language: I could think only of flowers growing lovely and wild somewhere by the highways, of every lovely melody I had ever heard. A Raisin in the Sun Study Guide | Literature Guide | LitCharts . . Her promising career was cut short by her early death from pancreatic cancer. Conversations with Lorraine Hansberry - Mollie Godfrey 2021-01-15 Lorraine Hansberry Biography, Life, Interesting Facts In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hansberry in the biographical dictionary 100 Greatest African Americans. In addition to her activism around civil rights, Hansberry was also a feminist and an advocate for womens rights. Read all About It. At the same time, she said, "some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men.". Lorraine Hansberry's ex-husband and dear friend, the songwriter and poet Robert Nemiroff, became her literary executor after her death in 1965. This penetrating psychological study of a working-class black family on the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s reflected Hansberry's own experiences of racial harassment after her prosperous family moved into a white neighbourhood. When Lorraine was seven years old, the family bought a house in a mostly white neighborhood. Fact 2: Lorraine was raised in the South Side of Chicago. Hansberry originally wanted to be an artist when she attended the University of Wisconsin, but soon changed her focus to study drama and stage design. When she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, she was only 34 years old. . In her early twenties, having just arrived in New York from the Midwest, she published poems in radical journals; worked as a journalist for Freedom, a black leftist newspaper published by the. document.getElementById( "ak_js_1" ).setAttribute( "value", ( new Date() ).getTime() ); Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life However, many scholars and historians believe that she may have been a closeted lesbian. . 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. We may all come from different walks of life but we have one common passion - learning through travel.