Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born May 19, 1930 in Chicago. Hansberry’s parents were prominent in black cultural and political circles and were intellectuals and activists. Her father, an active member of the Republican Party, won an anti-segregation case before the Illinois Supreme Court. Young Lorraine was heavily influenced by her parents activism and their teachings, along with events in her life, would serve as the background for Lorraine’s award-winning play A Raisin in the Sun.

The depth of the Hanberry’s activism went as far as to send Lorraine to public schools rather than private institutions as a protest against segregation laws. Lorraine studied at the University of Wisconsin and while there joined the Young Progressives of America and the Labor Youth League. She also studied at Roosevelt University, attended the New School for Social Research, and studied African Culture and History with W.E.B. DuBois at the Jefferson School for Social Sciences in New York

After attending a school performance of a play by the Irish playwright, Sean O’Casey, Hansberry dropped out at Wisconsin and moved to New York to pursue her dream of becoming a writer. While attending classes at the New School for Social Research she worked as an associate editor of Paul Robeson’s Freedom, a progressive black newspaper and worked for liberal causes.

Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a white, Jewish literature student and songwriter, in 1953. Nemiroff’s earlier success as a songwriter allowed Hansberry to devote herself entirely to her writing.

In 1959, A Raisin the Sun opened in New York at the Ethel Barrymoore Theatre. Hansberry’s play was the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. The play ran for over 500 performances with Sidney Poitier in the lead role of Walter Lee, a black chauffer in the 1950’s. The premise of the play is based on people defending their own and other’s dignity.

A Raisin in the Sun (from Amazon.com): The play is a "living-room" drama, set in southside Chicago. Walter Lee, a black chauffeur, dreams of a better life. "I want so many things that they are driving me kind of crazy..." he says. He hopes to use his father's life insurance money, $10,000 to open a liquor store. Beneatha, his sister, wants to go to medical school. Their mother, Lena Younger, rejects the liquor business. She wants to save money for Beneatha's college education and uses some of it to secure a proper house for the family. Rest of the money she gives to Walter, entrusting him to deposit half of it in the bank for Beneatha's education and his business. Walter sinks rest of the money into his business scheme, only to have it stolen by a con artist. Mr. Lindner, a representative of the all-white neighborhood, tries to buy them out. In despair Walter contacts Lindner, and almost begs to buy them out. Mama tells him: "Have you cried for that boy today? I don't mean for yourself and for the family 'cause we lost the money. I mean for him: what he been through and what it done to him. Child, when do you think is the time to love somebody the most? When they done good and made things easy for everybody? Well then, you ain't through learning - because that ain't the time at all." Walter regains his pride and integrity and decides that the family will take the house after all. He refuses the payoff of the white citizens', anticipating the uncompromising policies of the civil rights movement of the 1960s.

The only other Broadway edition since the original, concluded July 11, 2004 and starred Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Sanna Lathan, and Audra McDonald.

Lorraine Hansberry died of cancer at the age of 34 on Jan. 12, 1965. Her premature death cut short a promising career. After her death, a collection of her writings, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black, was published by her ex-husband Nemiroff in 1969.

Information obtained from:

www.kirjasto.sci.fi
www.scils.rutgers.edu