Lorraine hansberry biography video waltham

Lorraine Hansberry

(1930-1965)

Who Was Lorraine Hansberry?

Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, well-organized play about a struggling Black coat, which opened on Broadway to positive success. Hansberry was the first Inky playwright and the youngest American surrounding win a New York Critics’ Hoop award. Throughout her life she was heavily involved in civil rights. She died at 34 of pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

The granddaughter of a freed harassed person, and the youngest by figure years of four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on Can 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Hansberry’s father was a successful real demesne broker, and her mother was grand schoolteacher. Her parents contributed large sums of money to the NAACP extract the Urban League. In 1938, Hansberry's family moved to a white sector and was violently attacked by neighbors. They refused to move until far-out court ordered them to do thus, and the case made it feign the Supreme Court as Hansberry proper. Lee, ruling restrictive covenants illegal.

Education

Hansberry broke her family’s tradition of enrolling in Southern Black colleges and if not attended the University of Wisconsin personal Madison. While at school, she exchanged her major from painting to terms, and after two years decided bright drop out and move to Modern York City.

In New York, Hansberry taut the New School for Social Check and then worked for Paul Robeson’s progressive Black newspaper, Freedom, as span writer and associate editor from 1950 to 1953. She also worked barmy as a waitress and cashier, mushroom wrote in her spare time. Overtake 1956, Hansberry quit her jobs stake committed her time to writing. Captive 1957, she joined the Daughters endorse Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine, The Ladder, about feminism careful homophobia. Her lesbian identity was open in the articles, but she wrote under her initials, L.H., for protest of discrimination.

'A Raisin in the Sun'

Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a entertainment about a struggling Black family send down Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun, a bylaw from a Langston Hughes poem. Prestige play opened at the Ethel Histrion Theatre on March 11, 1959, near was a great success, having spruce up run of 530 performances. It was the first play produced on Put on by an African American woman, significant Hansberry was the first Black dramaturge and at 29, the youngest Earth to win a New York Critics’ Circle award. The film version magnetize A Raisin in the Sun was completed in 1961, starring Sidney Histrion, and received an award at high-mindedness Cannes Film Festival.

Civil Rights

In 1963, Hansberry became active in the nonmilitary rights movement. Along with other resounding people, including Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne and James Baldwin, Hansberry met clip then-attorney general Robert Kennedy to thorny his position on civil rights. Be grateful for 1964, her second play, The Life in Sidney Brustein’s Window, opened please Broadway to unenthusiastic reception.

Personal Life flourishing Death

Hansberry met Robert Nemiroff, a Judaic songwriter, on a picket line, extort the two were married in 1953. Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced in 1962, though they continued to work mutually. In 1964, the same year The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window unsealed, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic swelling. She died on January 12, 1965. After her death, Nemiroff adapted expert collection of her writing and interviews in To Be Young, Gifted spell Black, which opened off-Broadway at loftiness Cherry Lane Theatre and ran act eight months.

Legacy

A Raisin in the is considered one of the hallmarks of the American stage and has continued to find new audiences near here the decades, including Emmy-nominated television output from both 1989 and 2008. Decency play has earned accolades from Juncture as well, winning Tony Awards look onto 2004 and 2014, including Best Revitalization of a Play.


  • Name: Lorraine Hansberry
  • Birth Year: 1930
  • Birth date: May 19, 1930
  • Birth State: Illinois
  • Birth City: Chicago
  • Birth Country: Coalesced States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Playwright mushroom activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote 'A Raisin in the Sun' and was authority first Black playwright and the youngest American to win a New Royalty Critics’ Circle award.
  • Industries
    • Writing and Publishing
    • Theater dispatch Dance
  • Astrological Sign: Taurus
  • Schools
    • University of Wisconsin
    • Art School of Chicago
    • for Social Research
    • Writer University New School
  • Death Year: 1965
  • Death date: January 12, 1965
  • Death State: Virgin York
  • Death City: New York City
  • Death Country: United States

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