Lorraine Hansberry
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| Born: | May 19, 1930 Chicago, Illinois, USA |
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| Died: | January 12 1965 (aged 34) New York, New York, USA |
| Occupation(s): | playwright, author |
| Nationality: |  United States
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Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was the first American playwright to create a realistic portrayal of African American urban family life. She ushered in a new era in theatre history by becoming the first African American writer and the youngest playwright to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for her play A Raisin in the Sun (1959). Speaking of her watershed work, fellow writer James Baldwin said, "I had never in my life seen so many black people in the theater. And the reason was that never before, in the entire history of the American theater, had so much of the truth of black people's lives been seen on the stage." [1]
Due to her untimely death at age 34, most of her body of work was left unfinished; and some of it was published posthumously. Near the end of her life she gave a talk to United Negro College Fund contest winners describing them, "To be young, gifted and Black," a phrase that so aptly defines herself as well.[2]
Biography
Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hansberry was the youngest child of real estate broker Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nannie Perry Hansberry. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood.
When she was eight, the family 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.
Lorraine reflects upon the litigation in her book To Be Young Gifted and Black:
25 years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nations ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy with disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house… My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white supremacy in America including being spat at, cursed and pummeled in the daily trek to and from school. And I also remember my desperate and courageous mother, patrolling our household all night with a loaded German [L]uger [pistol], doggedly guarding her four children, while my father fought the respectable part of the battle in the Washington court."
Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin for two years and worked on the staff of Freedom magazine. She became increasingly involved in radical political causes and met her husband, Robert Nemiroff while picketing in New York City. In 1953, the night before their wedding they attended a protest on behalf of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who were scheduled to be executed as communist spies.
They separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964; however Hansberry made Nimeroff her literary executor. He consolidated 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, To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words.
She died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965 at the age of 34. Over 600 people attended her funeral in Harlem. Dr. Martin Luther King in his condolence letter said, "Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn." [3]
A Raisin In The Sun
Hansberry's 1959 play A Raisin in the Sun, earned her the distinction of being the first African American woman to write a play produced on Broadway. The play, the first featuring an all-black cast, brought her overnight success. Two years later she wrote the screenplay for the film version starring Sydney Poitier. Frank Rich of the New York Times compared the play to other American classics such as Arthur Miller's Death of a Salesman.
Synopsis of play here
Her only other second full length play, The Sign in Sydney Brustein's Window did not experience the critical or commercial success of Raisin; however, many critics say that it demonstrated the depth and complexity that distinguished Hansberry's growth as a writer. It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. The play is about......
and incorporates her own experiences working for politically left causes while living in Greenwhich Village........
Legacy
After the success of Raisin in the Sun Lorraine Hansberry was known as important forerunner in African American drama and literature. Many artists 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 her honor.
Singer and pianist Nina Simone, who was a close friend of Hansberry's, used the title of her unfinished play to write, together with Weldon Irvine, the hit song "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black." It was performed for the first time live by Nina Simone on Black Gold, (1970). Later it was adopted as the official Civil Rights anthem.
In 2004, A Raisin in the Sun was staged as a Broadway revival earning Tony Awards for Phylicia Rashad and Audra McDonald.
Works
- (---) On Summer (Essay)
- (1959) A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
- (1960) The Drinking Gourd (1960)
- (1961) A Raisin in the Sun, screenplay (1961)
- (1964) The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964)
- (1965) The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965)
- (1970) To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words(1970)
- (1994) Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays/by Lorraine Hansberry
Trivia
She is the first cousin of stage director and playwright Shaunielle Perry.
ReferencesISBN links support NWE through referral fees
- 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
- "Lorraine Hansberry." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 6, Gale Research, 1994 Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale.
- "Lorraine (Vivian) Hansberry" International Dictionary of Theatre, Volume 2: Playwrights. St. James Press, 1993. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
- "Lorraine Vivian Hansberry." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale 2007.
- "Lorraine Hansberry." Contemporary Heroes and Heroines. Book III. Edited by Terrie Rooney. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale. 2007.
Notes
- ↑ *"Lorraine Hansberry." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 6, Gale Research, 1994 Reporduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale.
- ↑ *"Lorraine Vivian Hansberry." Encyclopedia of World Biography, 2nd ed. 17 Vols. Gale Research, 1998. Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale 2007.
- ↑ "Lorraine Hansberry." Contemporary Black Biography, Volume 6, Gale Research, 1994 Reproduced in Biography Resource Center. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Thomson Gale.
^ http://www.boscarol.com/nina/html/where/tobeyounggifted.html
External links
Biography PAL: Perspectives in American Literature Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color - Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Hansberry's Gravesite Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lorraine_Hansberry"
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