/MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Type /Page /Type /Page >> >> Carter, "Commitment amid Complexity" (1980), p. 47. >> /Resources 361 0 R Page Count 384 Genre Bios & Memoirs On Sale The Double Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Out Magazine, September 1999) | by Sarah Fonseca | Medium 500 Apologies, but something went wrong on our end. Hansberry's full-page report detailed the graphic and, inevitably, frustrating encounter between officials of the Justice Department and women like Amy Mallard, the widow of a World War II veteran who had been shot to death for attempting to vote in Georgia.". /Contents 249 0 R /Annots 509 0 R /Contents 411 0 R [18] The following year, she collaborated with the already produced playwright Alice Childress, who also wrote for Freedom, on a pageant for its Negro History Festival, with Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Douglas Turner Ward, and John O. Killens. /Width 298 [6] The latter's legal efforts to force the Hansberry family out culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). /Type /Page "No sooner had she joined Freedom, which had been founded by Paul Robeson as part of his tightening embrace of the Communist Party line in the increasingly frigid Cold War than she was serving as a participant-correspondent: she accompanied the 'Sojourners for Truth and Justice,' a group of 132 black women from 15 states which was convened in September 1951, in Washington by the long-time activist Mary Church Terrell 'to demand that the Federal Government protect the lives and liberties' of black Americans. endobj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] endobj /Parent 1 0 R /Resources 195 0 R To celebrate the newspaper's first birthday, Hansberry wrote the script for a rally at Rockland Palace, a then-famous Harlem hall,[17] on "the history of the Negro newspaper in America and its fighting role in the struggle for a people's freedom, from 1827 to the birth of FREEDOM." /Resources 481 0 R /Type /Page << Lorraine Vivian Hansberry is born in Chicago on May 19, the daughter of a prominent real estate broker and the niece of a Howard University professor of African history. /Type /Page /Contents 252 0 R /Resources 304 0 R Her father was a real estate broker, and her mother a schoolteacher Her parents publicly fought discrimination against Black people. /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] >> /Resources 310 0 R 94 0 obj /Count 156 /Type /Page Someone hurled a brick through the window, narrowly missing Lorraine's head. /Parent 1 0 R [40], Hansberry agreed to speak to the winners of a creative writing conference on May 1, 1964: "Though it is a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so, doubly dynamic to be young, gifted and black."[46]. >> endobj Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. Clear rating. Best Play Prize Won By a Negro Girl, 28, The New York Herald Tribune declared. /Type /Page /Contents 426 0 R >> %&'()*456789:CDEFGHIJSTUVWXYZcdefghijstuvwxyz /Annots 563 0 R endobj 116 0 obj /Type /Page A Raisin in the Sun: The Unfilmed Original Screenplay. endobj Rejecting the limits placed on her race and her gender, she employed her writing and her life as a social activist to expand the meaning of what it meant to be a black woman. /Parent 1 0 R << 66 0 obj endobj /Annots 359 0 R Hansberry's uncle, William Leo Hansberry, was a distinguished professor of African history at Howard University and had made a name for himself as a specialist in African antiquity. /Annots 431 0 R Watch the 2022 One Book, One Chicago keynote, Are you enjoying this season's One Book, One, Has this season of One Book, One Chicago and the, A Raisin in the Sun: One Book, One Chicago Spring 2003, Historical Context of A Raisin in the Sun, Background and Criticism of A Raisin in the Sun, Express Yourself: Creativity-Sparking Books, Wilkerson, Margaret B. << /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R 11 0 obj /Contents 294 0 R endobj stream /Annots 572 0 R Lincoln University's first-year female dormitory is named Lorraine Hansberry Hall. endobj /Resources 634 0 R /Type /Page /Im7 163 0 R /Annots 347 0 R << /Annots 416 0 R The success of the hit pop song "Cindy, Oh Cindy", co-authored by Nemiroff, enabled Hansberry to start writing full-time. In 1937, Hansberry's parents challenged Chicago's restrictive housing covenants by moving into an all-white neighborhood. To be young, gifted, and black. /Resources 244 0 R /Annots 551 0 R 135 0 obj Anyone can read what you share. endobj /Type /Page << Her uncle was William Leo Hansberry, a scholar of African studies at Howard University in Washington, D.C. /Contents 489 0 R A satire involving miscegenation, the $400,000 production was co-produced by her husband Robert Nemiroff. 159 0 obj /Type /Page /Type /Page endobj endobj >> endobj 150 0 obj Anderson, "Freedom Family" (2008), p. 265. << >> /Type /Page /Type /Page << 50 0 obj Commissioned by NBC in 1960 to create a television program about slavery, Hansberry wrote The Drinking Gourd. /Annots 275 0 R /Resources 186 0 R /Type /Page << endobj The Radiant & Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry The Rev. /Parent 1 0 R /Type /Page /Type /Page [63] The single reached the top 10 of the R&B charts. /Resources 514 0 R /Parent 1 0 R /PCSp 162 0 R /Annots 221 0 R Though A Raisin in the Sun i s the crown . endobj The Hansberrys moved into the house on Rhodes Avenue in May 1937. /Resources 601 0 R /Annots 233 0 R /Parent 1 0 R After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she worked with other intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. endobj /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] In 1964, "The Movement: Documentary of a Struggle for Equality" was published for SNCC (StudentNonviolent Coordinating Committee) with text by Hansberry. endobj /Resources 274 0 R >> The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, she later wrote, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely., Hansberry died in 1965, at 34, of cancer. 15 0 obj /Type /Page Carter, "Commitment amid Complexity" (1980), p. 45. /Contents 414 0 R /Annots 320 0 R In 1960, during Delta Sigma Theta's 26th national convention in Chicago, Hansberry was made an honorary member. << /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R /Parent 1 0 R << After studying painting in Chicago and Mexico, Hansberry moved to New York in 1950 to begin her career as a writer. /Annots 329 0 R << /Resources 235 0 R /Resources 220 0 R endobj >> [39] He added minor changes to complete the play Les Blancs, which Julius Lester termed her best work, and 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 196869 season. /Annots 323 0 R Her father founded Lake Street Bank, one of the first banks for blacks in Chicago, and ran a successful real estate business. >> /Parent 1 0 R /Type /Page Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist. /Annots 187 0 R 149 0 obj Another brother refused his draft call, objecting to segregation and discrimination in the military. Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it has since closed. /Resources 442 0 R Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry Hardcover - April 20, 2021 by Soyica Diggs Colbert (Author) 49 ratings See all formats and editions Kindle $12.82 Read with Our Free App Audiobook $0.00 Free with your Audible trial Hardcover $13.49 24 Used from $2.91 11 New from $12.31 Paperback $18.00 2 Used from $24.36 17 New from $12.94 Audio CD The Glister - John Burnside 2010-02-09 << rumination on Hansberry's death, Ossie Davis (who succeeded Sidney Poitier in the role of Walter Lee) put it this way: The play deserved all thisthe playwright deserved all this, and more. endobj endobj [3][29] In 1957, around the time she separated from Nemiroff, Hansberry contacted the Daughters of Bilitis, the San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization, contributing two letters to their magazine, The Ladder, both of which were published under her initials, first "L.H.N. /Annots 518 0 R >> >> /Parent 1 0 R endobj 100 0 obj endobj /Annots 236 0 R /Contents 279 0 R >> /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] [35][27], Written and completed in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. The fascinating facts about Lorraine Hansberry following illustrate her development as a Black woman, activist, and writer. NEW YORK - April 1959: Writer and playwright Lorraine Hansberry poses for a portrait in her apartment at 337 Bleecker Street (where she had written the first-ever Broadway play by an African . /Type /Page /Annots 449 0 R /Contents 621 0 R /Contents 393 0 R /Parent 1 0 R /Annots 515 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] >> >> /Annots 332 0 R [39], When Nemiroff donated Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library, he "separated out the lesbian-themed correspondence, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and full runs of the homophile magazines and restricted them from access to researchers." [8] She spent the summer of 1949 in Mexico, studying painting at the University of Guadalajara. [1] She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. A small interlude. /Resources 391 0 R /Contents 312 0 R /Resources 574 0 R 117 0 obj << Lorraine Hansberry speech, "The Nation Needs Your Gifts", given to Reader's Digest/United Negro College Fund creative writing contest winners, NYC, May 1, 1964. endobj Based on Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun. >> << /Contents 585 0 R ThoughtCo, Jan. 2, 2021, thoughtco.com/lorraine-hansberry-biography-3528287. endobj endobj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Type /Page /Parent 1 0 R endobj /Resources 628 0 R Anderson, "Freedom Family" (2008), p. 267. << 162 0 obj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] [40] Also in 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 102 0 obj She excelled in the humanities, but struggled with the required science courses. /Annots 287 0 R Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 1963 and she died two years later on January 12, 1965, at age 34. Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart is the first-ever feature documentary about Lorraine Hansberry, the visionary playwright who authored the groundbreaking A Raisin in the Sun.An overnight sensation, the play transformed the American theater and has long been considered a classic, yet the remarkable story of the playwright faded from view. The result was the opening of 30 blocks of South Side Chicago to African Americans. 128 0 obj /Contents 363 0 R [2] Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. Lewis, Jone Johnson. /Contents 429 0 R 83 0 obj /Type /Page Lorraine Hansberry Biography Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. /Contents 181 0 R "[59], Hansberry's funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. >> /Contents 246 0 R [12] Although the couple separated in 1957 and divorced in 1962, their professional relationship lasted until Hansberry's death. /Annots 602 0 R << 7 0 obj /Contents 261 0 R She is a former faculty member of the Humanist Institute. /Resources 445 0 R endobj /Type /Page Biography. << 107 0 obj 19 May 1930;d. 12 January 1965), writer, activist. /Resources 640 0 R 2 0 obj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Resources 571 0 R /Parent 1 0 R 122 0 obj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Contents 528 0 R /Resources 550 0 R /Resources 436 0 R /Contents 360 0 R Lorraine Hansberry, (born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.died January 12, 1965, New York, New York), American playwright whose A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first drama by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. She wrote for Paul Robesons Freedom, a progressive publication, which put her in contact with other literary and political mentors such as W.E.B. endobj endobj Both Hansberrys were active in the Chicago Republican Party. /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] Dubois, Paul Robeson, and Jesse Owens. << << endobj /Resources 619 0 R If J. Edgar Hoover's FBI had ever edited an anthology of African American writing, Lorraine Hansberry's often-revived play A Raisin in the Sun (1959) might have been its central text.FBI officials monitored the progress of Raisin even before it premiered on Broadway, and sent an especially literate undercover agent to a Philadelphia try-out at the Walnut Theatre. The acceptance of our present condition is the only form of extremism which discredits us before our children. This belief, Colbert argues, was her inheritance. /Type /Page endobj She died on January 12, 1965 in New York City, New York, USA. /Type /Page >> 87 0 obj Nannie, Lorraine's mother, stood watch with a gun. /Contents 354 0 R Imagine another opening scene. << Thus, Hansberry became deeply familiar with pan-African ideas and the international contours of black liberation at an early age (8).". endobj /Parent 1 0 R /Resources 565 0 R << /Resources 553 0 R Dr. J. Carl Gregg 2 February 2020 frederickuu.org For this rst Sunday of Black History Month, I would like to invite us to focus on the fascinating life of Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965 at the far too young age of thirty-four. /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Annots 386 0 R "It was 1950, exactly mid-century, and Lorraine was in the mood to change direction. endobj /Resources 331 0 R /Resources 529 0 R /Type /Page Open your heart to what I mean. /Annots 524 0 R /Type /Page << /Type /Page 89 0 obj /Parent 1 0 R endstream [ /Pattern /DeviceRGB ] /Contents 185 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Resources 388 0 R endobj Paper presented at the annual meeting of the International Communication Association, Marriott Hotel, San Diego, CA, May 27, 2003, "Lorraine Hansberry's Letters Reveal the Playwright's Private Struggle", "The Rockland Palace Dance Hall, Harlem NY 1920", Total Literary Awareness: How the FBI Pre-Read African American Writing, "Pasadena hosts Lorraine Hansberry classic, 'A Raisin in the Sun', "Robert Nemiroff, 61, Champion of Lorraine Hansberry's Works", "Opening the Restricted Box: Lorraine Hansberry's Lesbian Writing", "The Women Who Shaped the Past 100 Years of American Literature", "Internet Broadway Database: The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window Production Credits", "National Register of Historic Places Registration: Asbury United Methodist Church and Bethel Chapel and Cemetery", New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, "The Nina Simone Database, 'To Be Young, Gifted and Black' (1969)", "Boystown unveils new Legacy Walk LGBT history plaques", "Cherry Jones, Ellen Burstyn, Cameron Mackintosh, and More Inducted into Broadway's Theater Hall of Fame", "Ten women added to National Women's Hall of Fame in Seneca", "Statue of Lorraine Hansberry Will Be Unveiled in Times Square in June Prior to Touring the Country", Black Internationalist Feminism: Women Writers of the Black Left, 19551995, The Black Revolution and the White Backlash, Voices from the Gaps: Women Writers of Color Lorraine Hansberry, Twice Militant: Lorraine Hansberry's Letters to "The Ladder", Materials about Lorraine Hansberry in the Richard Hoffman - Lorraine Hansberry collection, Special Collections, University of Delaware Library, Ad Hoc Committee of Proud Black Lesbians and Gays, Good Shepherd Parish Metropolitan Community Church, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Lorraine_Hansberry&oldid=1142359789, African-American dramatists and playwrights, American women dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century American dramatists and playwrights, 20th-century African-American women writers, African-American history of Westchester County, New York, Activists for African-American civil rights, American civil rights activists (civil rights movement), Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0. endobj Carter, "Commitment amid Complexity" (1980), p. 43. >> /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R 5 0 obj << /Annots 395 0 R >> /Contents 543 0 R stream /Annots 245 0 R << /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] Through a series of close readings, Colbert examines how her writing, published and unpublished, offers a road map to negotiate Black suffering in the past and present.. These years taught Hansberry the necessity of fighting on all fronts. /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Resources 472 0 R 28 0 obj /Contents 612 0 R Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. /Annots 461 0 R In 2014, the play was revived on Broadway again in a production starring Denzel Washington, directed again by Kenny Leon; it won three Tony Awards, for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Direction of a Play. /Annots 443 0 R [16], Hansberry often explained these global struggles in terms of female participants. Date: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 Tags: activist, Les Blancs ("The Whites") is an English-language play by American playwright Lorraine Hansberry.It debuted on Broadway on November 15, 1970 and ran until December 19, 1970. /Type /Pages 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. /Parent 1 0 R Anderson, "Freedom Family" (2008), p. 260. To quote Simone de Beauvoir, an important influence, Hansberry could not think in terms of joy or despair but in terms of freedom. And she could not think of freedom as a destination but as a practice, full of intervals, regressions. endobj >> << endobj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] [60], Hansberry's ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff, became the executor for several unfinished manuscripts. \\@!fqYZfd 5"s=s\&r Q /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] You can find out more about our use, change your default settings, and withdraw your consent at any time with effect for the future by visiting Cookies Settings, which can also be found in the footer of the site. /Annots 458 0 R "[53], Hansberry was a critic of existentialism, which she considered too distant from the world's economic and geopolitical realities. Lorraine Hansberry (May 19, 1930January 12, 1965) was a playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist. << >> >> /Parent 1 0 R Sign In. by. She is desperate for her lover (I consumed her whole) stuck in the hospital, she is hungry to return to her play. /Type /Page /Contents 630 0 R /Resources 478 0 R >> Wilkins, Fanon Che, "Beyond Bandung: The Critical Nationalism of Lorraine Hansberry, 1950 1965". Hansberry was the godmother to Nina Simone's daughter Lisa. /Parent 1 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] endobj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Annots 608 0 R /Resources 613 0 R /Resources 451 0 R << /Resources 355 0 R 47 0 obj 19 0 obj /Type /Page /Contents 408 0 R The Youngers are a poor African-American family living on the South Side of Chicago. Studies of Hansberry excavate her behind-the-scenes activism. /Resources 217 0 R /Resources 595 0 R /Type /Page [40] She was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, among the four Tony Awards that the play was nominated for in 1960. 29 0 obj [33][34] According to Kevin J. Mumford, however, beyond reading homophile magazines and corresponding with their creators, "no evidence has surfaced" to support claims that Hansberry was directly involved in the movement for gay and lesbian civil equality. /Annots 548 0 R /Parent 1 0 R endobj Founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006, The Hansberry Project of Seattle, Washington was created as an African-American theatre lab, led by African-American artists and was designed to provide the community with consistent access to the African-American artistic voice. HANSBERRY, Lorraine. There has been Imani Perrys 2018 book Looking for Lorraine and Tracy Heather Strains 2017 documentary Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart. The pre-eminent Hansberry scholar Margaret B. Wilkerson has a book in the works. /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] << >> /Type /Page endobj I'm going to read an excerpt from my manuscript (the biography of Hansberry that I am writing) which lays out some of the historical context of the period and then begins discussing her involvement in the Left circles of New York City. /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] >> She enrolled in the University of Wisconsin but left before completing her degree. /Contents 534 0 R 90 0 obj endobj /Annots 596 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] (The notes, however, are splendid fluent, rich and full of a feeling of discovery; here she permits herself to speak more freely.) Higashida, Cheryl, "To Be (come) Young, Gay, and Black: Lorraine Hansberry's Existentialist Routes to Anticolonialism", This page was last edited on 2 March 2023, at 00:02. /Type /Page endobj /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] >> /Type /Page /Resources 433 0 R 53 0 obj 40 0 obj /Resources 253 0 R >> >> /Resources 161 0 R [1] She was the first African-American female author to have a play p. 134 0 obj /Parent 1 0 R << There are strong influences from her own family on the characters as well. endobj Here is Hansberry resurrected from the archives, from her scripts, scraps and drafts. /XObject << /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] She was a "movement baby," Colbert writes. << Living on the Lower East Side, Lorraine was free to explore the life of . Hansberry's formative years were spent in the social and political milieu of the black middle class: a comfortable material existence coupled with a real commitment to . /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] Conversations with Lorraine Hansberry - Mollie Godfrey 2021-01-15 She also used members of her family as inspiration for her characters. /Parent 1 0 R /Annots 293 0 R /Contents 603 0 R [73], On September 18, 2018, the biography Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, written by scholar Imani Perry, was published by Beacon Press. /Contents 567 0 R /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Annots 410 0 R << /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Contents 633 0 R Moving with her husband to Croton-on-Hudson, Lorraine Hansberry continued not only her writing but also her involvement with civil rights and other political protests. /Type /Page 110 0 obj endobj >> endobj /Type /Page /MediaBox [ 0 0 252 331 ] /Parent 1 0 R Carter, "Commitment amid Complexity" (1980), p. 46. 45 0 obj >> >> . /Contents 390 0 R >> She soon joined the first lesbian civil rights organization in the U.S., Daughters of Bilitis, contributing letters about women's and gay rights to their magazine,The Ladder. /Resources 496 0 R Born in 1930, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was the youngest of Carl and Nannie Hansberry's four children. /Resources 322 0 R Carter, "Commitment amid Complexity" (1980), p. 40. /Annots 401 0 R >> endobj /Contents 318 0 R << /Annots 629 0 R << Beyond question! 79 0 obj Their goal is to create a space where the entire community can be enriched by the voices of professional black artists, reflecting autonomous concerns, investigations, dreams, and artistic expression.
