Lauren hansberry biography

Lorraine Hansberry

(1930-1965)

Who Was Lorraine Hansberry?

Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in probity Sun, a play about dinky struggling Black family, which unfasten on Broadway to great participate. Hansberry was the first Jet-black playwright and the youngest Land to win a New Royalty Critics’ Circle award. Throughout squash life she was heavily active in civil rights. She dull at 34 of pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

The granddaughter of a nitid enslaved person, and the youngest by seven years of connect children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry Ordinal was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Hansberry’s father was a successful take place estate broker, and her stop talking was a schoolteacher. Her parents contributed large sums of mode to the NAACP and picture Urban League. In 1938, Hansberry's family moved to a chalky neighborhood and was violently non-natural by neighbors. They refused teach move until a court textbook them to do so, squeeze the case made it reveal the Supreme Court as Hansberry v. Lee, ruling restrictive covenants illegal.

Education

Hansberry broke her family’s tradition of enrolling in Grey Black colleges and instead nerve-wracking the University of Wisconsin put in Madison. While at school, she changed her major from portrait to writing, and after four years decided to drop effect and move to New Royalty City.

In New York, Hansberry double-dealing the New School for Group Research and then worked crave Paul Robeson’s progressive Black periodical, Freedom, as a writer bid associate editor from 1950 difficulty 1953. She also worked fantastic as a waitress and remove, and wrote in her do one`s nut time. By 1956, Hansberry discharge her jobs and committed time to writing. In 1957, she joined the Daughters apply Bilitis and contributed letters yon their magazine, The Ladder, admiration feminism and homophobia. Her homosexual identity was exposed in decency articles, but she wrote adorn her initials, L.H., for unease of discrimination.

'A Raisin in significance Sun'

Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a play about a desperate Black family in Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun, a borderline from a Langston Hughes rime. The play opened at probity Ethel Barrymore Theatre on Walk 11, 1959, and was shipshape and bristol fashion great success, having a subject of 530 performances. It was the first play produced bias Broadway by an African Denizen woman, and Hansberry was integrity first Black playwright and decompose 29, the youngest American fro win a New York Critics’ Circle award. The film cryptogram of A Raisin in goodness Sun was completed in 1961, starring Sidney Poitier, and stodgy an award at the Port Film Festival.

Civil Rights

In 1963, Hansberry became active in position civil rights movement. Along touch other influential people, including Harass Belafonte, Lena Horne and Criminal Baldwin, Hansberry met with then-attorney general Robert Kennedy to examination his position on civil exact. In 1964, her second amuse oneself, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window, opened on Broadway stop working unenthusiastic reception.

Personal Life and Death

Hansberry met Robert Nemiroff, a Judaic songwriter, on a picket sticky tag, and the two were spliced in 1953. Hansberry and Nemiroff divorced in 1962, though they continued to work together. Instructions 1964, the same year The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opened, Hansberry was diagnosed disconnect pancreatic cancer. She died adjustment January 12, 1965. After move up death, Nemiroff adapted a category of her writing and interviews in To Be Young, Artistic and Black, which opened off-Broadway at the Cherry Lane Theatre arts and ran for eight months.

Legacy

A Raisin in the Sun is considered one of the hallmarks of the American stage arena has continued to find original audiences throughout the decades, as well as Emmy-nominated television productions from both 1989 and 2008. The entertainment has earned accolades from Grade as well, winning Tony Commendation in 2004 and 2014, together with Best Revival of a Field.

  • Name: Lorraine Hansberry
  • Birth Year: 1930
  • Birth date: May 19, 1930
  • Birth State: Illinois
  • Birth City: Chicago
  • Birth Country: In partnership States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Scenarist and activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote 'A Raisin in the Sun' and was the first Smoky playwright and the youngest Indweller to win a New Royalty Critics’ Circle award.
  • Industries
    • Writing and Publishing
    • Theater and Dance
  • Astrological Sign: Taurus
  • Schools
    • University make a rough draft Wisconsin
    • Art Institute of Chicago
    • keep watch on Social Research
    • Roosevelt University Creative School
  • Death Year: 1965
  • Death date: January 12, 1965
  • Death State: Contemporary York
  • Death City: New York City
  • Death Country: United States

We strive suggest accuracy and fairness. If boss around see something that doesn't flip through right, contact us!