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The birth of Lorraine Hansberry
The granddaughter of a freed enslaved person, and the youngest by seven years of four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois.
https://www.biography.com/writer/lorraine-hansberry -
Family relocated
In 1938, Hansberry's family moved to a white neighborhood and was violently attacked by neighbors. They refused to move until a court ordered them to do so, and the case made it to the Supreme Court as Hansberry v. Lee, ruling restrictive covenants illegal.
https://www.biography.com/writer/lorraine-hansberry -
Hansberry Vs. Lee
Carl Hansberry purchased a home in Washington Park Subdivision in Chicago, Illinois. After living there for a time, he was sued by James Lee and told he needed to leave his home because there was a restrictive covenant on the land that said only whites could live in the subdivision. When Hansberry tried to argue that the restrictive covenants were unconstitutionally discriminatory, the trial court held that res judicata. https://study.com/academy/lesson/hansberry-v-lee-summary-history-facts.html -
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Attended Englewood High School
Lorraine graduated from Englewood High School in Chicago. Hansberry was interested in writing from an early age and while in high school was drawn especially to the theatre.
https://www.chipublib.org/lorraine-hansberry-biography/ -
The Cold War begins
Between 1946 and 1991 the United States, the Soviet Union, and their allies were locked in a long, tense conflict known as the Cold War. Though the parties were technically at peace, the period was characterized by an aggressive arms race, proxy wars, and ideological bids for world dominance.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/article/cold-war -
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University of Wisconsin
She attended the University of Wisconsin in 1948–50 and then briefly the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Roosevelt University (Chicago). While at school, she changed her major from painting to writing, and after two years decided to drop out and move to New York City. -
Civil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a struggle for social justice that took place mainly during the 1950s and 1960s for Black Americans to gain equal rights under the law in the United States. The Civil War had officially abolished slavery, but it didn’t end discrimination against Black people. Lorraine became active in the civil rights movement in 1963.
https://www.history.com/topics/black-history/civil-rights-movement -
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The New School in NYC
In New York, Hansberry attended the New School for Social Research and then worked for Paul Robeson’s progressive Black newspaper, Freedom, as a writer and associate editor from 1950 to 1953. She also worked part-time as a waitress and cashier, and wrote in her spare time. By 1956, Hansberry quit her jobs and committed her time to writing.
https://www.biography.com/writer/lorraine-hansberry#:~:text=In%20New%20York%2C%20Hansberry%20attended,wrote%20in%20her%20spare%20time. -
Lorraine's Husband
During a protest against racial discrimination at New York University, she met Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish writer who shared her political views. They married on June 20, 1953 at the Hansberrys’ home in Chicago. In 1964 they separated but still continued to work together. They didn't have any children.
https://www.chipublib.org/lorraine-hansberry-biography/ -
A Raisin in the Sun
Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a play about a struggling Black family in Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun. The play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, and was a great success. It was the first play produced on Broadway by an African American woman, and Hansberry was the first Black playwright and at 29, the youngest American to win a New York Critics’ Circle award. -
The Drama Desk Award
Lorraine was the first Black American to win the Drama Desk Award for her play A Raisin in the Sun. -
New York Drama Critic's Circle Award
Lorraine was the first Black playwright and youngest American to receive the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best American Play (1959)
https://www.womenofthehall.org/inductee/lorraine-hansberry/ -
Gay rights in NYC
The 1960s and preceding decades were not welcoming times for LGBT Americans. However, these regulations were overturned in 1966 thanks to activists. Lorraine also advocated for gay rights. In 1957, she joined the Daughters of Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine about feminism and homophobia. Her lesbian identity was exposed in the articles, but she wrote under her initials, L.H., for fear of discrimination.
https://www.history.com/topics/gay-rights/the-stonewall-riots -
Who influenced Lorraine?
Hansberry was inspired by the South Side’s vibrant cultural scene—which included writers Richard Wright and Gwendolyn Brooks—as well as its political activism. Hansberry’s political mentors were W.E.B. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. Her family's history also influenced her play A Raisin in the Sun.
https://www.playbill.com/article/how-lorraine-hansberry-turned-her-familys-story-into-a-raisin-in-the-sun#:~:text=Hansberry%20was%20inspired%20by%20the,was%E2%80%94and%20just%20how%20radical. -
Health issue
Hansberry was 32 when first stricken with pancreatic cancer and she was in and out of hospitals for the remainder of her life.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/how-lorraine-hansberry-defined-what-it-meant-to-be-young-gifted-and-black#:~:text=Hansberry%20was%2032%20when%20first,12%2C%201965. -
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
Hansberry’s second Broadway play, published in 1965, is the probing, hilarious and provocative story of Sidney, a disenchanted Greenwich Village intellectual, his wife Iris, an aspiring actress. Set against the shenanigans of a stormy political campaign, the play follows its characters in their unorthodox quests for meaningful lives in an age of corruption, alienation and cynicism.
https://www.breakingcharacter.com/home/2021/7/26/lorraine-hansberry-in-five-plays -
Lorraine's death
In 1964, the same year The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opened, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She died on January 12, 1965. After her death, Nemiroff adapted a collection of her writing and interviews in To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which opened off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre and ran for eight months. -
Lorraine's Funeral
Over 600 people attended her funeral; Paul Robeson, Nina Simone, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, and MLK were among her mourners. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote: “Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn.” King anticipated Hansberry’s lasting literary and political legacy—one we, those “generations yet unborn,” inherit today.https://issuu.com/yalerep/docs/19-20-willpower-final-issuu/s/10282408 -
To Be Young, Gifted and Black
A long-running success of the 1968/69 off-Broadway season, this play brings together carefully curated elements from Hansberry’s personal life – including letters, diaries, poems and personal reminiscences – to tell us the story of one of America’s greatest playwrights. Fast-paced, powerful, touching and hilarious, this kaleidoscope of constantly shifting scenes, mood and images recreates the world of a great American woman and artist, Lorraine Hansberry. -
Les Blancs
Well-known for being Hansberry’s final and most important play, published in 1970. Tshembe Matoseh, the English educated son of a chief, has come home to bury his father. He finds his teenage brother a near alcoholic and his older brother a priest and traitor to his people. Forswearing politics and wanting only to return to his wife and child in England, Tshembe is drawn into the conflict symbolized by a woman dancer, the powerful Spirit of Africa who pursues him. -
Award for A Raisin in the Sun
A Raisin in the Sun is considered one of the hallmarks of the American stage and has continued to find new audiences throughout the decades, including Emmy-nominated television productions from both 1989 and 2008. The play has earned accolades from Broadway as well, winning Tony Awards in 2004 and 2014, including Best Revival of a Play.
https://www.biography.com/writer/lorraine-hansberry