-
Date of Birth
Lorraine Hansberry was born at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on May 19, 1930. She was the youngest of Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry's four children: Mamie Louise Hansberry, Carl Augustus Hansberry, Jr., and Perry Holloway Hansberry. -
Chicago
Hansberry's parents challenged Chicago's restrictive housing by moving into an all-white neighborhood. Their new white neighbors did not welcome the move and a mob gathered around the house, one of them threw a brick through the window, barely missing eight-year-old Hansberry's head. -
Elementary Education
Hansberry graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary in January, 1944. While many middle-class black families sent their children to private schools, the Hansberry’s sent Lorraine to the South Side public school, Betsy Ross Elementary, in solidarity with the poor and working-class black community. -
Her Fathers death
Mr. Hansberry was born on April 30, 1895 in the United States and passed away from a cerebral hemorrhage on March 7, 1946, at the age of 50, while visiting Mexico. He'd planned to move the family there. Her father's death touched her deeply; she often said that it was perhaps her father's constant baffle with the forces of racism that hastened his early death. -
World events and politics
Hansberry worked on the 1948 presidential campaign for the Progressive Party. She covered the case of an African American man executed after an all-white jury deliberated his case for three minutes. After 1963, Hansberry joined the Civil Rights Movement, participating in a meeting with the U.S. Attorney General Robert Kennedy questioning the administration's commitment to racial equality. -
High School Education
Lorraine graduated from Englewood High School in Chicago, where she first became interested in theater -
University of Wisconsin
She enrolled in the University of Wisconsin but left before completing her degree. Lorraine Hansberry was learning a lot. But she struggled academically and was placed on probation. She continued to encounter racism throughout her two years on campus. After studying painting in Chicago and Mexico, Hansberry moved to New York in 1950 to begin her career as a writer. -
Marriage
During a protest against racial discrimination at New York University, she met Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish writer. They married on June 20, 1953 at the Hansberrys' home in Chicago. -
A Raisin in the Sun Award
Lorraine Hansberry was the first African-American playwright, and the youngest of any color, to win the New York Drama Critics Award for her drama, A Raisin in the Sun, which opened on Broadway in 1959.https://www.kennedy-center.org/education/opportunities-for-artists/pre-professional-artist-training/kcactf/playwriting/award-categories/lorrainehansberry/#:~:text=Lorraine%20Hansberry%20was%20the%20first,opened%20on%20Broadway%20in%201959. -
A Raisin in the Sun / Debut
A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by an African American to be produced on Broadway and the first to be directed by an African American in over half a century. The story is about a black family's experiences in south Chicago, as they attempt to improve their financial circumstances following the death of the father, and deals with matters of housing discrimination/racism. -
Pancreatic Cancer
Early in April 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. -
More than a playwright / Interesting Fact
Not only is Hansberry a playwright but she's also a writer. "The Movement" by Lorraine Hansberry. -
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window
This play is the second play by playwright Lorraine Hansberry, it focuses on events that occur after Sidney hangs a political sign urging the end to bossism in the window of his Greenwich Village apartment. -
Death
On January 12, 1965, Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. -
Les Blancs
It debuted on Broadway on November 15, 1970 and ran until December 19, 1970. Les Blancs is widely considered to be Hansberry's last and perhaps most important work, Les Blancs explores issues of coloniality, black nationalism, and imperialism in a fictional African country that stands in for Black freedom struggles across the diaspora. -
To be young gifted and black
To Be Young, Gifted, and Black was an Off Broadway play about playwright Lorraine Hansberry, adapted from her published and unpublished works by her ex-husband and collaborator, Robert Nemiroff, after her premature death. https://www.nypl.org/events/exhibitions/galleries/fortitude/item/5502#:~:text=To%20Be%20Young%2C%20Gifted%2C%20and%20Black%20was%20an%20Off%20Broadway,Nemiroff%2C%20after%20her%20premature%20death. -
Coming out
Hansberry didn't officially come out until nearly a half-century after her death. Her unsealed diaries and other writings revealed that she was a lesbian. She had written a list in her personal notebooks of likes and dislikes, she placed “my homosexuality” under both categories. By 1957, she and Nemiroff were quietly separated though still close friends, and Hansberry began discreetly dating women. https://www.queerportraits.com/bio/hansberry -
Interesting facts
The first Black woman to have a play staged on Broadway.
Her father was a plaintiff in a Supreme Court housing case.
Nina Simone dedicated a song to her.
Hansberry was an advocate for gay rights.
She addressed social issues in her writings.
https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/8-fascinating-facts-about-lorraine-hansberry/ -
Quotes
“All which I feel I must write has become obsessive. So many truths seem to be rushing at me as the result of things felt and seen and lived through. Oh, what I think I must tell this world.” - L.H
She believed that words could change society. -
Influences
Lorraine Hansberry was inspired by the Langston Hughes poem “Harlem,” taking a line from the poem for the title of her play.
Lorraine Hansberry drew inspiration from personal experience. She also used members of her family as inspiration for her characters. -
-
Sources
https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/lorraine-hansberry#:~:text=She%20worked%20on%20the%201948,university%20before%20completing%20her%20degree.
https://www.cliffsnotes.com/literature/r/a-raisin-in-the-sun/lorraine-hansberry-biography#:~:text=Her%20father's%20death%20at%20the,that%20hastened%20his%20early%20death.
https://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/lorraine-hansberry-quotes/14401/#:~:text=1)%20%E2%80%9CAll%20which%20I%20feel,I%20must%20tell%20this%20world.%E2%80%9D