Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry
File:Lorrainehansberry.jpg
Born	(1930-05-19)May 19, 1930 Chicago, Illinois, U.S.
Died	January 12, 1965(1965-01-12) (aged 34) New York, New York, U.S.
Occupation	playwright, author
Nationality	United States

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

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hansberry was the youngest of four children of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie 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 "hellishily hostile white neighborhood." This experience later inspired her to write her most famous work, A Raisin in the Sun.

Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked on the staff of Freedom magazine. 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.

She married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish literature student and songwriter, in 1953. They separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964.

Although Hansberry never openly declared her sexual identity, she wrote significant, pseudoanonymous letters to The Ladder, one of the first lesbian publications in the United States that was published by The Daughters of Bilitis.

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

Other works

The Sign in Sid Brustein's Window ran for 101 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, bam mam d 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 and many who followed felt a great debt to her vision. 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 Lorraine Hansberry. Singer and pianist Nina Simone, who was a close friend of Hansberry, used the title of her unfinished play to write a civil rights 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 was released as a single and the first live recording on October 26, 1969 was captured on Black Gold (1970). Simone introduces the song with a speech in which she tells how much she misses Hansberry, but also saying that she is still among us.

Her Works

• A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
• A Raisin in the Sun (film), screenplay (1961)
• On Summer (Essay) (----)
• 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)

Trivia

She is the niece of scholar and university professor William Leo Hansberry.

She is the first cousin of stage director and playwright Shaunielle Perry. Shaunielle and Lorraine were very close, Perry's eldest child was named after her.

Grand aunt of actress Taye Hansberry, granddaughter of her sister Mamie Hansberry.

Bibliography

• James, Rosetta. Cliff Notes on Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun. Lincoln, Nebraska: Cliff Notes Inc, 1992
• Lorraine Hansberry (1930 - 1965) ” http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/corhans.htm 2003

See also

• African American literature

External links

• Biography
• PAL: Perspectives in American Literature
• Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color - Lorraine Hansberry
• Lorraine Hansberry's Gravesite