Dates: May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965
Occupation: playwright
Playwright Lorraine Hansberry’s ability to capture human injustice and pain in her work catapulted her to instant stardom. While her life was short, her play A Raisin in the Sun still lives on as a wonderful story about dreams deferred, family unity, and the agony of poverty and racism that black families commonly faced during the 1950s.
Hansberry Witnesses Her Father’s Activism
Lorraine Hansberry was born into a middle-class Chicago family on May 19, 1930. Her parents, Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl A. Hansberry, were active proponents of civil rights. As a child, Hansberry witnessed her father’s participation in challenging segregation through his work with the NAACP and the Urban League. His attempt to break down the barriers of racism continued in the political arena when he ran for Congress.One of her father’s most aggressive actions occurred when he moved the family into a white neighborhood in Chicago. As a result, the family’s home was vandalized and on one occasion Hansberry was injured. Her father, determined to fight residential segregation, brought legal action with the help of the NAACP. Although he won the case, residential segregation continued in Chicago.
Hansberry's Early Writing Career
After high school, Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin for two years. She left early to pursue a career as associate editor in the New York City based newspaper, Freedom. It was a radical black paper founded by Paul Robeson. In 1953, she married Jewish writer Robert Nemiroff and resigned from her position at the newspaper.
Hansberry Receives Praise for A Raisin in the Sun
Hansberry began pursuing a career in writing. Influenced by her father’s dedication to civil rights, Hansberry wrote the play A Raisin in the Sun (1959), which opened to glowing reviews in New York. Raisin was about a black family in Chicago who struggle against racism and try to achieve their dream of having a better life. Somewhat modeled after her own family’s experience with residential segregation, the family in Raisin also attempts to move into an all-white neighborhood.The play won the New York Drama Critics Circle Best Play of the Year Award, making her the first African American to win the award. For the film version of the play, she won the Screen Writer’s Guild Award and an award from the Cannes Film Festival.
Hansberry Battles Cancer
In 1963, the same year that she was diagnosed with cancer, Hansberry’s play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, about Jews after World War II, opened in the theater. One year later, Hansberry’s marriage ended in divorce. For the next two years, Hansberry battled cancer with chemotherapy and radiation, while at the same time continuing to write. On January 12, 1965, Hansberry died.After her death, Hansberry’s incomplete work was published. Her ex-husband, the executor of her estate, created To Be Young, Gifted and Black from her unfinished plays, poems, and writings. He also published her last three plays in Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays.
