Lorraine Hansberry

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Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and litigant in the United States Supreme Court case, Hansberry v. Lee.

Early life

Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, Hansberry was the youngest of four children of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nanny Perry Hansberry. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

The family then moved into an all-white neighborhood, where they faced racial discrimination. Hansberry attended a predominantly white public school while her parents fought against segregation. Hansberry's father engaged in a legal battle against a racially restrictive covenant that attempted to prohibit African-American families from buying homes in the area. The legal struggle over their move led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). Though victors in the Supreme Court, Hansberry's family was subjected to what Hansberry would later describe as a "hellishly hostile white neighborhood." This experience later inspired her to write her most famous work, A Raisin in the Sun.

Career

Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison, but found it to be non-inspiring and left in 1950 to pursue her career as a writer in New York City. She worked on the staff of a Negro newspaper called Freedom. It was at that time she wrote A Raisin in the Sun. The play was a huge success. It was the first play written by an African-American woman and produced on Broadway. It also received the New York Drama Critics Award making Hansberry the youngest and first African American to receive the Award.

Death

She died on January 12, 1965, of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34.

Other works

The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window ran for 99 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. Her ex-husband Nemiroff became the literary executor for several of her unfinished works. Notably, he adapted many of her writings into the play, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was the longest-running Off-Broadway play of the 1968-1969 season. It appeared in book form the following year under the title, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words.

She left behind an unfinished novel and three unfinished plays, the content matter dealing with many types of emotions.

Legacy

After her success with A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry became the foremother of African-American drama. She also contributed to the understanding of abortions, discrimination, and Africa. In San Francisco, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in honor of her. Singer and pianist Nina Simone, who was a close friend of Hansberry, used the title of her unfinished play to write a civil rights-themed song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" together with Weldon Irvine. The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts. A studio recording by Simone was released as a single and the first live recording on October 26 1969 was captured on Black Gold (1970).

Her Works

A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
A Raisin in the Sun (film), screenplay (1961)
2nd A Raisin in the Sun (film), screenplay (2008)
On Summer (Essay) (19??)
The Drinking Gourd (1960)
The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964)
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965)
To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969)
Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays / by Lorraine Hansberry Edited by Robert Nemiroff (1994)

Quick Biography

1.Born: May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois
2.Mar 11, 1959-The Lorraine Hansberry drama "A Raisin in the Sun" opened at New York City’s Ethel Barrymore Theater.
3.1930-1965-Lorraine Hansberry, American author-dramatist: "I think that the glorious thing about the human race is that it does change the world -- constantly. The world or 'life' may seem to more often overwhelm the human being, but it is the human being's capacity for struggling against being overwhelmed which is remarkable and exhilarating."
4.Died: January 12, 1965
5.1940-legal struggle over their move led to the landmark Supreme Court case of Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32.
6.To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was the longest-running Off-Broadway play of the 1968-1969 season
7.1950 she went to New York City where she studied at the New School
8.1951 joined the staff of Freedom, a radical African-American journal
9.1952 There she wrote articles and became associate editor
10.1953 met Robert Nemiroff, whom she married
11.1957 She and Nemiroff separated
12.1964 divorced Nemiroff
13.August 1957, she wrote two letters to the fledgling lesbian periodical, The Ladder, in which she supported the emerging American lesbian liberation movement. She endorsed women's need for their own publications and praised The Ladder.

Bibliography

James, Rosetta. Cliff Notes on Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Lincoln, Nebraska: Cliff Notes Inc., 1992

Toussaint"--This fragment from a work in progress, unfinished at the time of Ms. Hansberry's untimely death, deals with a Haitian plantation owner and his wife whose lives are soon to change drastically as a result of the revolution of Toussaint L'Ouverture. (From the Samuel French, Inc. catalogue of plays

References

1. The Internet Broadway Database
2. GLAAD: Creating Role Models
3. Hansberry, Lorraine
4. The Nina Simone Web: To Be Young, Gifted And Black (1969)

External links

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Last updated on Wednesday March 12, 2008 at 11:39:30 PDT (GMT -0700)
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