Du Bois , poet Langston Hughes, singer, actor, and political activist Paul Robeson, musician Duke Ellington, and Olympic gold medalist Jesse Owens. 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. At the same time, she said, "some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men.". Louis Gossett, Jr., credited her with being a bit ahead of here time, but nonetheless, an effective female activist. And thats a fact! Simone penned the song Young, Gifted and Black in tribute to her good friend, View objects relating to Lorraine Hansberry, Get the latest information about timed passes and tips for planning your visit, Search the collection and explore our exhibitions, centers, and digital initiatives, Online resources for educators, students, and families, Engage with us and support the Museum from wherever you are, Find our upcoming and past public and educational programs, Learn more about the Museum and view recent news. The 15th was also Dr. King's birthday. Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. Literature & the Arts Who Was Lorraine Hansberry? . The Hansberry family had many friends and relatives that were involved in the arts. Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, a successful real-estate broker and Nannie Louise (born Perry), a driving school teacher and ward committeewoman. Setting (time) Between 1945 and 1959 Setting (place) The South Side of Chicago Protagonist Walter Lee Younger In 1969, four years after Lorraine Hansberrys death, Nina Simone wrote a song titled Young, Gifted, and Black after being inspired by a talk that Hansberry delivered to college students. Hansberry's funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. In 1944, she graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary. It appeared in book form the following year under the title To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. Despite a warm reception in Chicago, the show never made it to Broadway. She holds academic degrees which are: AA social Science Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. Not only did she have a play, but her drama, A. You think you're accomplishing something in life until you realize that at age 29, playwright Lorraine Hansberry had a play produced on Broadway. She moved to Harlem in 1951 and became involved in activist struggles such as the fight against evictions. She continued to write plays, short stories, and articles in addition to delivering speeches regarding race relations in the United States. Near the end of her life, she declared herself "committed [to] this homosexuality thing" and vowing to "create my lifenot just accept it". . The presiding minister, Eugene Callender, recited a message from Baldwin, and also a message from the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. that read: "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." Celebrating 100 Years of Howard Zinn, Our Supremely Regressive Court of the Unsettled States: A Resisters Reading List, Free eBook Downloads of Resources for the Movement to End Gun Violence, Observation Post: Individual Liberty vs. Public SafetyOur Distorted Thinking About Gun Control, Black Women Physicians Stories Have Gone Untold for Far Too Long, Sister Rosetta Tharpes Ancestral Rocking and Rolling Aint Through Just Yet, The Rebellious Mrs. Rosa Parks Youll Meet in Peacocks Documentary, Beacon Behind the Books: Meet Matt Davis, Chief Financial Officer, with Clifford Manko. When she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, she was only 34 years old. Fact 9: This isnt a major life milestone of Lorraines, but its too fascinating not to include it!) The play was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun and was a great success at the Ethel Ballymore Theatre, having a total of 530 performances. In doing so, he blocked access to all materials related to Hansberry's lesbianism, meaning that no scholars or biographers had access for more than 50 years. And how amazing that she had already accomplished so much. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1930. Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison but left before completing her degree to pursue a career as a writer. James Baldwin believed "it is not at all farfetched to suspect that what she saw contributed to the strain which killed her, for the effort to which Lorraine was dedicated is more than enough to kill a man.". In April 1959, as a sign of her sudden fame just one month after A Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway, photographer David Attie did an extensive photo-shoot of Hansberry for Vogue magazine, in the apartment at 337 Bleecker Street where she had written Raisin, which produced many of the best-known images of her today. Tell us what's wrong with this post? On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist. 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. . Although the couple separated in 1957 and divorced in 1962, their professional relationship lasted until Hansberry's death. We would like, said Lorraine, from you, a moral commitment. He did not turn from her as he had turned away from Jerome. Theatre Nation Partnerships network extends to every region in England. Author Lorraine Hansberry. Imani Perrys Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry is a watershed biography of the award-winning playwright, activist, and artist Lorraine Hansberry. 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. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. The production also led Hansberry to become the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics Circle Award. Born in 1930, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was the youngest of Carl and Nannie Hansberry's four children. She was born to Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nonnie Louise. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. It was a critical time in the history of the civil rights movement. Faced . The play was a critical and commercial success. Hansberry wrote two screenplays of Raisin, both of which were rejected as controversial by Columbia Pictures. Lorraines mother, Nannie Hansberry, was also active in the struggle for civil rights. Written by Oscar Brown, Jr., the show featured an interracial cast including Lonnie Sattin, Nichelle Nichols, Vi Velasco, Al Freeman, Jr., Zabeth Wilde, and Burgess Meredith in the title role of Mr. Lorraine Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, on May 19, 1930. Louis Sachar. In 1959, Hansberry made history as the first African American woman to have a show produced on BroadwayA Raisin in the Sun. Taken from us far too soon. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born May 19, 1930 at the beginning of the Great Depression. [1] She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Omissions? A selection of her writings was produced on Broadway asTo Be Young, Gifted, and Black(1969; book 1970). Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, into a middle-class family on the south side of Chicago, Illinois. She worked on Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party presidential campaign in 1948, despite her mother's disapproval. Her father, Carl Hansberry was an activist who fought against racial discrimination in housing. Among the hates: being asked to speak, cramps, racism, her homosexuality, and silly men. This page was last modified on 24 February 2023, at 15:15. Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the late 1940s, but she left before completing her degree. In 1959 her play A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway, an important theater district in New York City. Fact 3: Lorraine was a talented visual artist. After two years, she left college for New York to serve as a writer and editor of Paul Robesons left-wing newspaper Freedom. She was later quoted as saying that American racism helped kill him.. In one of her stories, The Anticipation of Eve, Lorraine describes the moment the protagonist Rita is about to see her lover Eve with lush, tender language: I could think only of flowers growing lovely and wild somewhere by the highways, of every lovely melody I had ever heard. . Hansberry traveled to Georgia to cover the case of Willie McGee, and was inspired to write the poem "Lynchsong" about his case. In 2017, Hansberry was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. After moving to New York City, she held various minor jobs and studied at the New School for Social Research while refining her writing skills. Founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006, The Hansberry Project of Seattle, Washington was created as an African-American theatre lab, led by African-American artists and was designed to provide the community with consistent access to the African-American artistic voice. Language English. The thing I tried to show was the many gradations in even one Negro family, the clash of the old and the new, but most of all the unbelievable courage of the Negro people.. It was at one of these demonstrations that Hansberry met her husband and closest friend, Robert Nemiroff. She identified as a lesbian and thought about LGBT organizing before there was a gay rights movement. In 2013, more than twenty years after Nemiroff's death, the new executor released the restricted material to scholar Kevin J. Mumford. . Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Written when she was just twenty-eight, Lorraine Hansberry's landmark A Raisin in the Sun is listed . Read all About It. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hansberry in the biographical dictionary 100 Greatest African Americans. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Progressive Education Hansberry graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary in 1944 and from Englewood High School in 1948. On September 18, 2018, the biography Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, written by scholar Imani Perry, was published by Beacon Press. Hansberry was invited to meet Robert F. Kennedy (then U.S. Attorney General) in May, 1963 due to the work she had done as a Civil Rights activist, but declined the invitation. She was also an active participant in the civil rights movement, and her writings and speeches inspired many people to take action against racial inequality and injustice. In 1989, he became s a full writer. In 1958 she raised funds to produce her play A Raisin in the Sun, which opened in March 1959 at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Broadway, meeting with great success. Lorraine Hansberry is often viewed as a visionary because of her ability to predict many of the relevant issues to the African-American community today. Now More Than Ever, Nine Radical and Radiant Facts You Should Know About Lorraine Hansberry, When Colin Kaepernick Took the Risk to Take a Knee, Coming Home to the Motherland and Coming Out: A Cup Of Water Under My Bed Gets Translated to Spanish, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, Ring In the Zinntennial! Fast Facts: Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Hansberry was deeply influenced by her uncles activism and scholarship, and her work often reflected her own commitment to social justice and civil rights for African Americans. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. This penetrating psychological study of a working-class black family on the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s reflected Hansberry's own experiences of racial harassment after her prosperous family moved into a white neighbourhood. She wrote about her love for women and her struggles with her sexuality in personal papers published posthumously. She was passionate about the causes and people that she stood in support of. Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine died at a young age of 34 from cancer. Du Bois, the Civil Rights activist, author, sociologist, and historian, and Paul Robeson, the musician and actor, were friends of the Hansberry family. 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. Hansberry was a closeted lesbian. Though A Raisin in the Sun is the crown jewel in Hansberrys legacy, she was also known for the playsThe Sign in Sidney Brusteins Windowand Les Blancs. Image by The Public Domain Review from Wikimedia. Lorraine Hansberry Biography. 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. Some books that he created include Wayside School Gets A Little Stranger (1995), Sideways . $3.52. Terkel, Studs. . In 1960, during Delta Sigma Theta's 26th national convention in Chicago, Hansberry was made an honorary member. She used her writing to redefine difference. The sq. Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it has since closed. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930, the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, a prominent real estate broker, and his wife, Nannie Louise Hansberry, a schoolteacher and ward committeewoman. Pointing to these letters as evidence, some gay and lesbian writers credited Hansberry as having been involved in the homophile movement or as having been an activist for gay rights. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in a family that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. In 2013, Hansberry was also inducted into the Legacy Walk, making her the first Chicago-native to receive the honour, along with a position in the American Theatre Hall of Fame in the same year. Many icons of the early African American Civil Rights Movement, e.g., Langston Hughes, visited the Hansberry home In 1961, the play was made into a movie. . Beacon Press. Gift of Kayla Deigh Owens, Playbill used by permission. How could we improve it? Corrections? It is a play that tells the truth about people, Negroes [in the parlance of the time], and life. Holiday House, 1998. Later, Hansberry would maintain her own close bonds with Du Bois, Robeson, Langston Hughes, and James Baldwin. Her own familys landmark court case against discriminatory real estate covenants in Chicago would serve as inspiration for her seminal Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun. How would you rate this article? 1. In 2013, Nemiroff's daughter released the restricted materials to Kevin J. Mumford, who explored Hansberry's self-identification in subsequent work. Hansberry, an outspoken Communist, was committed to racial equity and participated in civil rights demonstrations. 1937 Carl moves his family to a home in the Woodlawn. Lorraine was taught: "Above all, there were two things which were never to be betrayed: the family and the race.". Lorraine Hansberry, likely at a welcoming event for the African-American Students Foundation in 1959. Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library. . Lorraine Hansberry was a U.S. writer in the mid-1900s. She was brought up alongside three siblings. These were important voices for the movement to bring equality for all people as a basic right of all within the United States. Her father, Carl Hansberry was an activist who fought against racial discrimination in housing. However, Karl Linder is the only character to appear in both . Written and completed in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. Hansberry may not have finished college, but she went on to make significant contributions to American culture and society through her art and activism. This article was most recently revised and updated by, https://www.britannica.com/biography/Lorraine-Hansberry, BlackHistoryNow - Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, Lorraine Hansberry - Children's Encyclopedia (Ages 8-11), Lorraine Hansberry - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up). Image by Friedman-Abeles from Wikimedia. Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930-January 12, 1965) was a playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist. After moving to New York City, she held various minor jobs and studied at theNew School for Social Researchwhile refining her writing skills. This experience is reflected in Raisin in how unwelcoming the white community was to the Younger family in Clybourne Park. also named Lorraine Hansberry the Godmother of her daughter, Lisa Simone. Hansberry kept a low profile of her identity as a lesbian. . In his remarks, President Obama noted that Lorraine Hansberry refused to be confined by any identity but her own, and helped blaze a trail for generations of Americans who have been inspired by her example.. Hansberry originally wanted to be an artist when she attended the University of Wisconsin, but soon changed her focus to study drama and stage design. Hansberry and Nemiroff moved to Greenwich Village, the setting of her second Broadway play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. Lorraine Hansberry became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and joined people like Lena Horne and James Baldwin to test Robert Kennedys position on civil rights. The fascinating facts about Lorraine Hansberry following illustrate her development as a Black woman, activist, and writer. 2. Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of four children. Lorraine was inspired by her father and the play that she wrote may have been a little ahead of its time, but it won top prize from the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle, which was no small feat. He even took his battle against racially restrictive housing covenants to the Supreme Court, winning a major victory in the landmark case Hansberry v. Lee. Lorraine Hansberry (1930 1965) was an American playwright and author best known for A Raisin in the Sun, a 1959 play influenced by her background and upbringing in Chicago. She expressed a desire for a future in which "Nobody fights. She was also the youngest playwright and the first Black winner of the prestigious Drama Critics Circle Awardfor Best Play. . Before her death, she built a circle of gay and lesbian friends, took several lovers, vacationed in Provincetown (where she enjoyed, in her words, "a gathering of the clan"), and subscribed to several homophile magazines. He then spent several years travelling and studying in Africa, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. He looked insulted--seemed to feel that he had been wasting his time . 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". She was the president of her colleges chapter of Young Progressives of America, she and worked on progressive candidate Henry Wallaces presidential campaign. James Baldwin wrote the introduction to Hansberrys biography, Literary Ladies Guide to the Writing Life. Download Our Free Black Liberation eBook Bundle! Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in a family that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. Du Bois and Paul Robeson. Lorraine Hansberry attended theUniversity of Wisconsinin 194850 and then briefly the School of theArt Institute of ChicagoandRoosevelt University(Chicago). Her friend Nina Simone said, we never talked about men or clothes or other such inconsequential things when we got together. Tone Realistic. Then, she smiled. While she struggled privately to maintain her health, Lorraine never quelled her radicalism and role in the liberation. It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. At Freedom, she worked with W. E. B. She was an anti-colonialist before independence had been won in Africa and the Caribbean.. Lorraine used the theater to share her views. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre of San Francisco, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in her honor. . How true, Clifford so sad that she left this world at age 34. Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. However, the writer adopted the initials of L.H. Thanks for reading! Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. At the newspaper, she worked as a "subscription clerk, receptionist, typist, and editorial assistant" besides writing news articles and editorials. To Be Young, Gifted and Black was a posthumously produced play and collection of writings that capped a brief and brilliant career. For local insights and insiders travel tips that you wont find anywhere else, search any keywords in the top right-hand toolbar on this page. She spent the summer of 1949 in Mexico, studying painting at the University of Guadalajara. Princeton Professor Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine, wrote that she was a feminist before the feminist movement. Hansberry was the godmother to Nina Simone's daughter Lisa. The title of the song refers to the title of Hansberry's autobiography, which Hansberry first coined when speaking to the winners of a creative writing conference on May 1, 1964: "Though it is a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic to be young, gifted and black." Thank you for this detailed and well-written article about an amazing young woman! Hansberry and Simone had been friends and shared a bond over their interests in social justice and radical politics. Born Lorraine Vivian Hansberry, May 19, 1930, in Chicago, IL; died of cancer, January 12, 1965; daughter of Carl Augustus (a real estate entrepreneur) and Nannie (Perry) Hansberry; married Robert Nemiroff, June 20, 1953 (divorced March 10, 1964). Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. MLS # 3441616 Biography. She was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice. Lorraines experiences growing up in this environment informed her writing, which often dealt with issues of race, class, and identity. Read more. Your email address will not be published. Lorraine Hansberry was 28 when she met James Baldwin, 34 at the time. 190-71 111th Ave , Saint Albans, NY 11412 is a single-family home listed for-sale at $799,000. Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. An innovative network of theatres and community organisations, founded by the National Theatre in 2017 to grow nationwide engagement with theatre, expands. Lorraine Hansberry is best known as the playwright of A Raisin In The Sun, the groundbreaking play about a working class African-American family on the South Side of Chicago that illustrates how the American Dream is limited for Black Americans.The play is widely hailed as one of the greatest-ever achievements in theater. According to historian Fanon Che Wilkins, "Hansberry believed that gaining civil rights in the United States and obtaining independence in colonial Africa were two sides of the same coin that presented similar challenges for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic." Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940), to which the playwright Lorraine Hansberry's father was a party, when he fought to have his day in court despite the fact that a previous class action about racially motivated restrictive covenants, Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill. App. Please enable JavaScript if you would like to comment on this blog. She was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honour in the United States, awarded by the President to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of the country, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavours. Her mother, Nannie Perry, was a schoolteacher active in the Republican Party. Lorraine Hansberry was born at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago on May 19, 1930. In 1959, Hansberry was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play for A Raisin in the Sun, making her the first black playwright and the youngest playwright to win the award at the time. ", 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." The song has also famously been recorded by artists including Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. Along these lines, she wrote a critical review of Richard Wright's The Outsider and went on to style her final play Les Blancs as a foil to Jean Genet's absurdist Les Ngres. Lorraine was graceful, poised, and elegant (journalists and critics always also seemed to mention her petite frame or collegiate style), but could be icy and confrontational when the situation demandedand sometimes it was demanded. The granddaughter of a slave and the niece of a prominent African-American professor, Hansberry grew up with a keen awareness of African-American history and the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Norma Brickner is a Journalism and Digital Media major at SUNY-New Paltz. Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright, writer and activist who lived from 1930 to 1965. Fact 2: Lorraine was raised in the South Side of Chicago. In 2013, Hansberry was posthumously awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom by President Barack Obama, in recognition of her contributions to American culture and civil rights activism. Lorraine Hansberry Speaks! 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.