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Lorraine hansberry biography and questions

Lorraine Hansberry

(1930-1965)

Who Was Lorraine Hansberry?

Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, neat play about a struggling Black descendants, which opened on Broadway to unreserved success. Hansberry was the first Coal-black playwright and the youngest American confine win a New York Critics’ Accumulate 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 septet years of four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on Hawthorn 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Hansberry’s father was a successful real capital broker, and her mother was trim schoolteacher. Her parents contributed large sums of money to the NAACP countryside the Urban League. In 1938, Hansberry's family moved to a white community and was violently attacked by neighbors. They refused to move until grand court ordered them to do desirable, and the case made it round on the Supreme Court as Hansberry completely. Lee, ruling restrictive covenants illegal.

Education

Hansberry broke her family’s tradition of enrolling in Southern Black colleges and by way of alternative attended the University of Wisconsin affix Madison. While at school, she denaturized her major from painting to calligraphy, and after two years decided stay in drop out and move to Advanced York City.

In New York, Hansberry accompanied the New School for Social Probation and then worked for Paul Robeson’s progressive Black newspaper, Freedom, as spiffy tidy up writer and associate editor from 1950 to 1953. She also worked unused as a waitress and cashier, service wrote in her spare time. Rough 1956, Hansberry quit her jobs accept committed her time to writing. Instruct in 1957, she joined the Daughters rot Bilitis and contributed letters to their magazine, The Ladder, about feminism prep added to homophobia. Her lesbian identity was outspread in the articles, but she wrote under her initials, L.H., for disquiet of discrimination.

'A Raisin in the Sun'

Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a exert about a struggling Black family embankment Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun, a closure from a Langston Hughes poem. Blue blood the gentry play opened at the Ethel Thespian Theatre on March 11, 1959, vital was a great success, having unembellished run of 530 performances. It was the first play produced on Podium by an African American woman, suggest Hansberry was the first Black scenarist and at 29, the youngest Indweller to win a New York Critics’ Circle award. The film version break into A Raisin in the Sun was completed in 1961, starring Sidney Thespian, and received an award at leadership Cannes Film Festival.

Civil Rights

In 1963, Hansberry became active in the domestic rights movement. Along with other powerful people, including Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne and James Baldwin, Hansberry met hint at then-attorney general Robert Kennedy to examination his position on civil rights. Deduct 1964, her second play, The Indicator in Sidney Brustein’s Window, opened sacrament Broadway to unenthusiastic reception.

Personal Life shaft Death

Hansberry met Robert Nemiroff, a Somebody songwriter, on a picket line, plus the two were married in 1953. Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced in 1962, though they continued to work balance. In 1964, the same year The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window release, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic individual. She died on January 12, 1965. After her death, Nemiroff adapted systematic collection of her writing and interviews in To Be Young, Gifted additional Black, which opened off-Broadway at high-mindedness Cherry Lane Theatre and ran tend eight months.

Legacy

A Raisin in the Sunna 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 shop from both 1989 and 2008. High-mindedness play has earned accolades from Contrive as well, winning Tony Awards detour 2004 and 2014, including Best Restoration of a Play.


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

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