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She was both a civil rights activist and a feminist deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the United States and her writing often dealt with issues of race and inequality. Dana Hanson-Firestone has extensive professional writing experience including technical and report writing, informational articles, persuasive articles, contrast and comparison, grant applications, and advertisement. Du Bois, the Civil Rights activist, author, sociologist, and historian, and Paul Robeson, the musician and actor, were friends of the Hansberry family. [1] She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Hansberry was interested in writing from an early age and while in high school was drawn especially to the theatre. It was, in fact, a requirement for human decency (150). Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. 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. Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree. Lorraine died at age thirty-four from pancreatic cancer. And thats a fact! . Image by Eden, Janine and Jim from Wikimedia. 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. This week, Basic Black discusses legendary playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who wrote 'A Raisin in the Sun.' Panelists: Lisa Simmons, director of the Roxbury I. AboutPressCopyrightContact. . Lorraine Hansberry was one of the most brilliant minds to pass through the American theater, a model of that virtually extinct species known as the artist-activist . The play was also nominated for four Tony Awards, including Best Play, and it has since become a classic of American theatre. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1930. She became close friends with James Baldwin and Nina Simone. 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. In fact, she is considered to be one of the greatest female, and African-American playwrights in all of the history of Broadway. . Her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, continues to be her most influential piece and has managed to find new audiences through the decades, wining Tony Awards in 2004 and 2014 and also the title of Best Revival of a Play. Carl Hansberry was also a supporter of the Urban League and NAACP in Chicago. The play has also been adapted into a film and has become a classic of American literature and theatre. The play was the first one to be produced on Broadway by an African-American woman and won an award at the Cannes Film Festival when its motion picture came out. Lorraine Hansberry, likely at a welcoming event for the African-American Students Foundation in 1959. 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. Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry's landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed . It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award, and the film version of 1961 received a special award at the Cannes festival. Neither of the surgeries was successful in removing the cancer. Lorraine Hansberry, a celebrated African American playwright and writer, was not openly gay during her lifetime. Her father, Carl Hansberry was an activist who fought against racial discrimination in housing. 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. I saw it on Broadway, its an excellent play and homage to Lorraine Hansberry! 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. James Baldwin wrote the introduction to Hansberrys biography, Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life. Date of first publication 1959. | In 1959 her play A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway, an important theater district in New York City. Posted at 04:07 PM in Beacon Staff, Biography and Memoir, Emily Powers, Imani Perry, Literature and the Arts, Looking for Lorraine, Queer Perspectives, Race and Ethnicity in America | Permalink Lorraine Hansberry was the niece of Leo Hansberry, who was a Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor. The Hansberry family had many friends and relatives that were involved in the arts. Hansberry joined CORE in the late 1950s and became involved in various civil rights campaigns, including the fight against housing discrimination in Chicago. This is her earliest remaining theatrical work. Hansberry's most famous work, "A Raisin In The Sun" remains one of the best known plays ever written by a Black female playwright. As well as being a political activists, Lorraine Hansberry was also a brilliant writer. After Simone died on. . Genre Realist drama. 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). She later joined Englewood High School. A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, a Black family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. Hansberry wrote her first play, The Crystal Stair, during the same period, based on a struggling family in Chicago. 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. Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Lorraine Hansberry wrote the plays A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window(1964). Hansberry's classmate Bob Teague remembered her as "the only girl I knew who could whip together a fresh picket sign with her own hands, at a moment's notice, for any cause or occasion". When she was young, her family famously fought against racial segregation, attempting to buy a home that was covered by a racially restrictive covenantultimately leading to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. Fact 8: Though she married a man, Lorraine identified as a lesbian. 1. In the book, readers get bits and pieces of Perry, too, as she describes her journey with Lorraine, detailing her thoughts as both an admirer, and a biographer. Since that time, other artists including Aretha Franklin have covered the song, whichbegins: To be young, gifted and black Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. Her experiences with discrimination and activism served as inspiration for her most famous work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, . Fact 5: Indeed, Lorraine was an outspoken political activist from a young age. She was also a lesbian who kept her sexual preference as classified information, not able to come out during the tumultuous era in which basic human rights were denied on a regular basis, for certain groups of people in society. Learn more about Lorraine Hansberry This experience is reflected in Raisin in how unwelcoming the white community was to the Younger family in Clybourne Park. Fact 2: Lorraine was raised in the South Side of Chicago. She was the president of her colleges chapter of Young Progressives of America, she and worked on progressive candidate Henry Wallaces presidential campaign. The FBI began surveillance of Hansberry when she prepared to go to the Montevideo peace conference. The song has also famously been recorded by artists including Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. Lorraine Hansberry's ex-husband and dear friend, the songwriter and poet Robert Nemiroff, became her literary executor after her death in 1965. 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. 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. Lorraines goal was to change society for the better. ", 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." She was an American writer, who stood the literary world on its head with her prolific enigmatic and radical writing. Colleagues of hers included famous actor Sydney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. 190-71 111th Ave , Saint Albans, NY 11412 is a single-family home listed for-sale at $799,000. 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, Freedom, concerning governmental issues. . In 1951, Hansberry joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom, edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. In the same year, her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window, was released on Broadway but was unable to become a major hit. This article is about the top 10 interesting facts about Lorraine Hansberry. 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 the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. 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. Hansberry's evolving politics were groundbreaking, and many questions remain about how they impacted her workboth plays she wrote after Raisin included gay charactersand how her ideas . Before her marriage, she had written in her personal notebooks about her attraction to women. . 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. . Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library. 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." According to Baldwin, Hansberry stated: "I am not worried about black men--who have done splendidly, it seems to me, all things considered.But I am very worriedabout the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman's neck in Birmingham. The play was a critical and commercial success. Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. Posthumously, "A Raisin . They must harass, debate, petition, give money to court struggles, sit-in, lie-down, strike, boycott, sing hymns, pray on stepsand shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities. In January 2018, the PBS series American Masters released a new documentary, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, directed by Tracy Heather Strain. However, Hansberry admired Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex.