lorraine hansberry facts

Comments (0). Here are five important facts about her that you most likely didnt know. Important Feminists you should know. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hansberry in the biographical dictionary 100 Greatest African Americans. Hansberrys uncle, William Leo Hansberry, founded the Howard University African Civilization section of the history department, her cousin Shauneille Perry is an actress and playwright, and her younger relatives, Taye Hansberry is an actress and Aldridge Hansberry is a composer and flutist. This gave her a platform for sharing her views. Discover Walks contributors speak from all corners of the world - from Prague to Bangkok, Barcelona to Nairobi. She came from a well-established family where both her parents had successful careers.. They write new content and verify and edit content received from contributors. The award is given for excellence in the field of theatre, with categories including Best Play, Best Musical, Best Foreign Play, and Best Revival. A Raisin in the Sun Mass Market Paperbound Lorraine Hansberry. Lorraine Hansberry was the niece of Leo Hansberry, who was a Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor. These were important voices for the movement to bring equality for all people as a basic right of all within the United States. In 1969 a selection of her writings, adapted by Robert Nemiroff (to whom Hansberry was married from 1953 to 1964), was produced on Broadway as To Be Young, Gifted, and Black and was published in book form in 1970. Suggested Posts. "An Interview with Lorraine . She was best known for her play A Raisin in the Sun, which highlighted the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. 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. She attended the University of Wisconsin in 194850 and then briefly the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Roosevelt University (Chicago). Setting (time) Between 1945 and 1959 Setting (place) The South Side of Chicago Protagonist Walter Lee Younger Her father, Carl Hansberry was an activist who fought against racial discrimination in housing. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. Lorraine Hansberry was a history-making playwright and author who became the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. 519 (1934), had been similar to his situation. . Her cousin is the flutist, percussionist, and composer Aldridge Hansberry. Neither of the surgeries was successful in removing the cancer. Copyright 2016 FamousAfricanAmericans.org, Museum Dedicated to African American History and Culture is Set to Open in 2016, Scholarships for African Americans Black Scholarships, Top 10 Most Famous Black Actors of All Time. The statue will be sent on a tour of major US cities. 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. Leo Hansberry was a prominent figure in the Pan-Africanist movement, and he founded the African Civilization section at Howard University, where he was a professor of African history. Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it has since closed. Carl died in 1946 when Lorraine was fifteen years old; "American racism helped kill him," she later said. Due to racial differences, Lorraine and her family faced racism when she was just eight. The title of the song comes from a speech she gave to young people. At the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust, which represents and oversees the late writer's literary work, there's a guiding mantra: "Lorraine Is Of The Future." Rachel Brosnahan and Oscar . Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. Beacon Press. A satire involving miscegenation, the $400,000 production was co-produced by her husband Robert Nemiroff. Born on the 19 th of May in 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, Lorraine Hansberry was a bright daughter of Carl Augustus Hansberry, a political activist, while her mother, Nannie Louise, was a schoolteacher. In 1957, around the time she separated from Nemiroff, Hansberry contacted the Daughters of Bilitis, the San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization, contributing two letters to their magazine, The Ladder, both of which were published under her initials, first "L.H.N." This page was last modified on 24 February 2023, at 15:15. Lorraine believed that the artists voice in whatever medium was to be as an agent for social change. Later, an FBI reviewer of Raisin in the Sun highlighted its Pan-Africanist themes as "dangerous". 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. Race & Ethnicity in America When Lorraine was seven years old, the family bought a house in a mostly white neighborhood. also named Lorraine Hansberry the Godmother of her daughter, Lisa Simone. She was the daughter of a real estate entrepreneur, Carl Hansberry, and schoolteacher, Nannie Hansberry, as well as the niece of Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor Leo Hansberry. . Then, she smiled. There are several pieces of evidence that suggest Hansberrys same-sex attraction. Follow her on Twitter at@emilykpowers. She also had several close relationships with women throughout her life, including a long-term relationship with a woman named Una Mulzac. An innovative network of theatres and community organisations, founded by the National Theatre in 2017 to grow nationwide engagement with theatre, expands. 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. Best known for her plays, Hansberry was the first black woman to write a Broadway drama; A Raisin in the . In 1961, Hansberry was set to replace Vinnette Carroll as the director of the musical Kicks and Co, after its try-out at Chicago's McCormick Place. In the same year, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer which took her life at a mere age of 34. While many of her other writings were published in her lifetime essays, articles, and the text for the SNCC book The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality the only other play given a contemporary production was The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. She holds academic degrees which are: AA social Science While every effort has been made to follow citation style rules, there may be some discrepancies. An author, a playwright and an activist, Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Your email address will not be published. Fact 5: Indeed, Lorraine was an outspoken political activist from a young age. Du Bois, the Civil Rights activist, author, sociologist, and historian, and Paul Robeson, the musician and actor, were friends of the Hansberry family. Hansberry, sadly passed away when she was in her 30s, but she left her mark on the world, and those who know its value are keeping it alive as a relevant piece of history that deserves a second look. Despite not finishing college, Hansberry went on to achieve great success as a playwright and activist. 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. She was the youngest of Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry's four children. Required fields are marked *. 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. 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. However, in 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her contributions to the arts and the civil rights movement. It was, in fact, a requirement for human decency (150). 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. Happy travels! 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. Lorraine's uncle, William Leo Hansberry, taught African history at Howard University. The Hansberry Project is rooted in the convictions that black artists should be at the center of the artistic process, that the community deserves excellence in its art, and that theatre's fundamental function is to put people in a relationship with one another. 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. Lorraines goal was to change society for the better. W.E.B. 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. Lorraine Hansberrys father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was involved in the Supreme Court case. Among the likes: her homosexuality, Eartha Kitt, and that first drink of Scotch. In 1950, Hansberry decided to leave Madison and pursue her career as a writer in New York City, where she attended The New School. 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. Carl Hansberry was also a supporter of the Urban League and NAACP in Chicago. Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930 at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago. He then spent several years travelling and studying in Africa, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Lorraine Hansberry, child of a cultured, middle-class black family but early exposed to the poverty and discrimination suffered by most blacks in America, fought passionately against racism in her writings and throughout her life. This article is about the top 10 interesting facts about Lorraine Hansberry. In 2008, the production was adapted for television with the same cast, winning two NAACP Image Awards. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. 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.. It went on to inspire generations of playwrights and performers. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. When Irvine read the lyrics after it was finished, he thought, "I didn't write this. Book Details. Fact 2: Lorraine was raised in the South Side of Chicago. Activism Literature & the Arts At the newspaper, she worked as a "subscription clerk, receptionist, typist, and editorial assistant" besides writing news articles and editorials. Here are nine radical and radiant facts from Looking for Lorraine to introduce you to one of the most gifted, charismatic, yet least understood, Black artists. Colleagues of hers included famous actor Sydney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. Open your heart to what I mean Someday perhaps I might hold out my secret in my hand and sing about it to the scornful but if not I would more than survive (86). Hansberrys contributions to American theatre and literature have had a lasting impact, and her work continues to be studied and performed today. Image by Unknown Author from Wikimedia. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. Lorraine's father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a real-estate speculator and a proud race man. Mumford stated that Hansberry's lesbianism caused her to feel isolated while A Raisin in the Sun catapulted her to fame; still, while "her impulse to cover evidence of her lesbian desires sprang from other anxieties of respectability and conventions of marriage, Hansberry was well on her way to coming out." 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. In 1963, Hansberry participated in a meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, set up by James Baldwin. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Hansberry joined CORE in the late 1950s and became involved in various civil rights campaigns, including the fight against housing discrimination in Chicago. . She was also the youngest playwright and the first Black winner of the prestigious Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play. 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 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. She was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice. Her father founded Lake Street Bank, one of the first banks for blacks in Chicago, and ran a successful real estate business. Top 10 Things to do Around the Eiffel Tower, 10 Things to Do in Paris on Christmas Day (2022), 10 Things to Do in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. She even wrote anonymous letters to the publication alluding to her own lesbian relationships. Kicks. The granddaughter of a freed slave, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, to a successful real estate broker and a school teacher who resided in Chicago, Illinois. Feminism & Gender Additionally, Hansberry was known to be a champion of civil rights and social justice, and she was involved in several LGBTQ+ organizations and causes during her lifetime. It is the opening scene . Paul Robeson and SNCC organizer James Forman gave eulogies. The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. In 1952, Hansberry attended a peace conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, in place of Robeson, who had been denied travel rights by the State Department. It was always, Marx, Lenin and revolutionreal girls talk.. In her award-winning Hansberry biography Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, Imani Perry writes that in his "gorgeous" images, "Attie captured her intellectual confidence, armour, and remarkable beauty.". B. According to Kevin J. Mumford, however, beyond reading homophile magazines and corresponding with their creators, "no evidence has surfaced" to support claims that Hansberry was directly involved in the movement for gay and lesbian civil equality. Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965, aged 34. In 2014, the play was revived on Broadway again in a production starring Denzel Washington, directed again by Kenny Leon; it won three Tony Awards, for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Direction of a Play. 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. He was known as a race man who sought to make the world a better place for African Americans. She spoke out against discrimination and prejudice in all forms, including homophobia and transphobia. Gift of Kayla Deigh Owens, Playbill used by permission. This made her the first Chicago native to be honored along the North Halsted corridor. Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" Queer Perspectives . In 2014, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust published a wealth of never-before-seen letters, writings, and journal entries, her heart and her mind put down on paper. Perry pored over these pages, and four years later wrote Looking for Lorraine. When the play opens, the Youngers are about to receive an insurance check for $10,000. . Lorraine herself became involved in the civil rights movement at a young age, participating in protests and joining organizations like the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC). 236 pp. Fact 7: Nina Simones song To Be Young, Gifted and Black was written in memory of her close friend Lorraine. Who are young, gifted and black . The African-American historian and scholar who is best known for his research on African history and culture. . . . Full title A Raisin in the Sun. The NYDCC was founded in 1935, and its first awards were given in 1936. Hansberry and Nemiroff moved to Greenwich Village, the setting of her second Broadway play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window. She was a member of the National Organization for Women and wrote about womens issues in her personal journals and in her writing. It was at one of these demonstrations that Hansberry met her husband and closest friend, Robert Nemiroff. Hansberry inspired the Nina Simone song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", whose title-line came from Hansberry's autobiographical play. 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! In 2010, Hansberry was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930-January 12, 1965) was a playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist. The granddaughter of a freed enslaved person, and the youngest by seven years of four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. She was born to Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nonnie Louise. However, many scholars and historians believe that she may have been a closeted lesbian. . Not only did she have a play, but her drama, A. Hansberry was the youngest American, fifth woman and first black to win the award. However, Hansberry admired Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. We may all come from different walks of life but we have one common passion - learning through travel. Simone wrote the song with the poet Weldon Irvine and told him that she wanted lyrics that would "make black children all over the world feel good about themselves forever." With the help of the NAACP, he eventually won the right to stay, but never recovered from the emotional stress of their legal battles ("Lorraine Hansberry";Hansberry 21). At Freedom, she worked with W. E. B. While working as a part-time waitress and cashier, Hansberry worked as the writer and associate editor of the black newspaper, Freedom, from 1950 to 1953 under Paul Robeson. She was later quoted as saying that American racism helped kill him.. Learn about her personal life,. Oh, what a lovely precious dream Tone Realistic. The production also led Hansberry to become the first black playwright and the youngest American to win a New York Critics Circle Award. Also in 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Discuss these differences and how they conflict with one another. Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library. [1] She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. When Nemiroff donated Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library, he "separated out the lesbian-themed correspondence, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and full runs of the homophile magazines and restricted them from access to researchers." She is a graduate of Le Moyne College. He added minor changes to complete the play Les Blancs, which Julius Lester termed her best work, and 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 196869 season. The song has also famously been recorded by artists including Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. Discover the life of Lorraine Hansberry, who reported on civil rights for Paul Robeson's newspaper Freedom and later penned "A Raisin in the Sun". Hansberry received many awards for her work, including a New York Critics' Circle Award, an award at the Cannes Film Festival. . Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. Her parents both engaged in the fight against racial discrimination and segregration. In 1969, Nina Simone first released a song about Hansberry called "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." Lorraine Hansberry was a U.S. writer in the mid-1900s. The curtain rises on a dim, drab room. Perry explains that though the term radical has negative associations, for Lorraine, American radicalism was both a passion and a commitment. Fact 6: In 1963, she met with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in New York City days after the protests and unrest in Birmingham Alabama (along with her close friend James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Clarence Jones and Jerome Smith, among others). A Raisin in the Sun, her most famous work, debuted on Broadway in 1959 and was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright, writer and activist who lived from 1930 to 1965. At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. The 29-year-old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for Best Play. 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. She held out some hope for male allies of women, writing in an unpublished essay: "If by some miracle women should not ever utter a single protest against their condition there would still exist among men those who could not endure in peace until her liberation had been achieved.". She extended her hand. Holiday House, 1998. The Lorraine Hansberry residence, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2021, is nationally significant for its association with the pioneering Black lesbian playwright, writer, and activist, Lorraine Hansberry. In 1964, Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced but continued to work together. 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. In college, she took classes in stage design and sculpture, and turned her dorm room into an art studio. 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. At first Sideways Stories from Wayside School was not a popular book in US. Hansberry was associated with very important people. . . It was a critical time in the history of the civil rights movement. A Raisin in the Sun marked the turning point for black artists in professional theater. Carl Hansberry's brother, William Leo Hansberry, founded the African Civilization section of the History Department at Howard University. The granddaughter of a freed slave, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, to a successful real estate broker and a school teacher who resided in Chicago, Illinois. She spent the summer of 1949 in Mexico, studying painting at the University of Guadalajara. There's something of an inside joke tucked into Lorraine Hansberry's rarely-produced second Broadway play, which director Anne Kauffman has brought to life in a starry revival at BAM. Tell us what's wrong with this post? In 2004, A Raisin in the Sun was revived on Broadway in a production starring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald, and directed by Kenny Leon. Hansberrys work broke barriers and paved the way for more diverse voices to be heard on the Broadway stage. Previously, she worked as an intern at the UN Refugee Agency and Harvard Common Press. Norma Brickner is a Journalism and Digital Media major at SUNY-New Paltz. Many icons of the early African American Civil Rights Movement, e.g., Langston Hughes, visited the Hansberry home Articles from Britannica Encyclopedias for elementary and high school students. How could we improve it? Taken from us far too soon. $5.42. 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. Fact 9: This isnt a major life milestone of Lorraines, but its too fascinating not to include it!) Science & Medicine The restrictive covenant was ruled contestable, though not inherently invalid; these covenants were eventually ruled unconstitutional in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948). 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. She wrote about her experiences as a lesbian in her unpublished journals and letters. Free shipping. Conversations with Lorraine Hansberry - Mollie Godfrey 2021-01-15 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". 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. 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. Hansberrys father died in 1946 when she was only fifteen years old. She became close friends with James Baldwin and Nina Simone. Both Hansberry's were active in the Chicago Republican Party. . The major theme throughout playwright Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is how racism impacts daily life for this multi-generational family, not only in relations between black and.