Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930–January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and painter. Her drama A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first drama written by a black woman to show on Broadway. In 2004, A Raisin in the Sun received a Broadway revival earning Tony Awards for Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald. Hansberry grew up on the South Side of Chicago, in the neighborhood of Woodlawn.

Contents

1 Biography of Lorraine Hansberry 1.1 Bibliography 2 Her Legacy 3 Her Works 4 External links

Biography of Lorraine Hansberry

This is a biography of Lorraine Hansberry, where her famous A Raisin in the Sun play made her the first female Black person to be successful in Broadway. Her play won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award and became a classic. Sadly she died too soon before accomplishing all her dreams. Yet her legacy has taught us about discrimination, abortion, and Africa. Her unfinished work "Les Blancs" showed how much she supported African liberation and the country itself.

Hansberry, born on 1930 in Chicago, her father was a broker and her parents were Republicans who were politically active. She was the last-born child of Carl and Nannie Perry Hansberry. Upon her birth certificates, Hansberry's parent's crossed out Negro to Black to bequeath the Afrocentric ideology to her. Hansberry's book is based on her life, like when the Youngers tried to buy a house in a white neighborhood, it was based on the time when Hansberry's family bought a house in a white neighborhood and were visited by a mob at night.

Lorraine was considered rich in Chicago and was never comfortable with who she was. She put keys around her neck to feel like the poor black children on the streets. Hansberry never lived like the Younger family; she lived in a middle class home. Yet she knew all too well of how poor black families lived in Chicago.

Hansberry's parents always fought to end segregation, so they took her to a public school instead of a private one. Her dad established one of the first black savings banks in the city of Chicago. Hansberry's father, whom name was Carl, fought in the Supreme Court to purchase a home in an area where whites lived. Many times Hansberry's family had a brush with death when racist mobs tried to hurt and maybe but definitely tried to kill her family.

Later in her life, Hansberry married in 1953; she married a Jewish-Lit student named Robert Nemiroff. She was at the University of Wisconsin were she stayed for four years when she became more interested in art (Hansberry at first wanted to stay at the University for two years.) Hansberry's drawings were considered worthy just like her writing. Hansberry worked as staff in the magazine called Freedom.

Hansberry and Nemiroff separated in 1957, and Hansberry subsequently came out as lesbian.

Hansberry's play's cause and effect begins with the action of Big Walter whom the audience never sees. All of the reason and actions that Hansberry did on "The Raisin in the Sun" was because of her father's death when she was thirty-one. Then in the end, Hansberry became famous and persuaded herself to become a humanitarian, but she died of cancer on Jan. 12, 1965. She left an autobiography and three plays unfinished.

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

Her 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. In San Francisco, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in honor of her great contribution.

Her Works

• A Raisin in the Sun (1957)
• A Raisin in the Sun, screenplay (1960)
• The Drinking Gourd (1960)
• The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964)
• The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1964)
• To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1970)

External links

• Biography (http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/corhans.htm)
• PAL: Perspectives in American Literature (http://www.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/Chap8/hansberry.html)
• Voices from the Gap: Women Writer of Color - Lorraine Hansberry (http://voices.cla.umn.edu/newsite/authors/HANSBERRYlorraine.htm)