Lorraine Hansberry

From Includipedia, the inclusionist encyclopedia

Lorraine Hansberry
colspan="2" style="text-align: center;" Template:Image class \| Image:Lorrainehansberry.jpg
Born	Template:Birth date Chicago, Illinois
Died	Died whenever he wanted to New York City
Occupation	playwright, author
Nationality	Template:Country data United States

Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and litigant in the United States Supreme Court case, Hansberry v. Lee.

1 Early life
2 Career
3 Death
4 Other works
5 Legacy
6 Her Works
7 Bibliography
8 References
9 See also
10 External links

[edit] Early life

Born in Chicago, Illinois, Hansberry was the youngest of four children of Carl Augustus Hansberry (a prominent real estate broker) and Nannie Perry Hansberry. She grew up on the south side of Chicago in the Woodlawn neighborhood.

The family then 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.

[edit] Career

Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison and worked on the staff of Freedom magazine. It was at that time she wrote A Raisin in the Sun. The play was a huge success. It was the first play written by an African-American woman and produced on Broadway. It also received the New York Drama Critics Award making Hansberry the youngest and first African American to receive the Award.

She married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish literature student and songwriter, in 1953. They separated in 1957 and divorced in 1964.

[edit] Death

She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34.

[edit] Other works

The Sign in Sid Brustein's Window ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. Her ex-husband Nemiroff became the literary executor for several of her unfinished works. Notably, 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 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 left behind an unfinished novel and three unfinished plays, the content matter dealing with many types of emotions.

[edit] Legacy

After her success with A Raisin in the Sun, Hansberry became the foremother of African-American drama. She also contributed to the understanding of abortions, discrimination, and Africa. In San Francisco, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in honor of her. Singer and pianist Nina Simone, who was a close friend of Hansberry, used the title of her unfinished play to write a civil rights-themed song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black" together with Weldon Irvine. The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts.^[1] A studio recording by Simone was released as a single and the first live recording on October 26 1969 was captured on Black Gold (1970).

[edit] Her Works

A Raisin in the Sun (1959)
A Raisin in the Sun (film), screenplay (1961)
On Summer (Essay) (19??)
The Drinking Gourd (1960)
The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality (1964)
The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window (1965)
To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words (1969)
Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays / by Lorraine Hansberry Edited by Robert Nemiroff (1994)