Lorraine Vivian Hansberry Bio/Wiki, Net Worth, Married 2018
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was an American playwright and writer. Hansberry inspired Nina Simone’s song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black".She was the first black woman to write a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?"After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she dealt with intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggle for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry has been identified as a lesbian, and sexual freedom is an important topic in several of her works. She died of cancer at the age of 34.
Mamie Louise Hansberry, Carl Augustus Hansberry, Jr., Perry Holloway Hansberry
Awards
New York Drama Critics' Circle Award for Best American Play
Nominations
Tony Award for Best Play, Writers Guild of America Award for Best Written Drama, Drama League Award for Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play
Movies
A Raisin in the Sun
Star Sign
Taurus
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Quote
1
On time: Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.
2
Never be afraid to sit a while and think.
3
The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.
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Fact
1
Her play, "A Raisin in the Sun" at the TimeLine Theatre Company in Chicago, Illinois was nominated for a 2014 Joseph Jefferson Equity Award for Midsize Play Production.
2
Her uncle William Leo Hansberry (25 Feb 1894 - 3 Nov 1965) founded the African Studies program at Howard University. There is a lecture hall on campus named in his honor.
In 1951, she and a delegation of women presented the governor of Mississippi with a petition with almost one million signatures in support of Willie McGee who was awaiting execution for an alleged rape. Their attempt was unsuccessful and McGee got executed.
5
Her father Carl A. Hansberry, Sr. (30 Apr 1895 - 7 Mar 1946), won the 1940 US Supreme Court case "Hansberry vs. Lee" which involved the enforcement of racially restrictive housing covenants. The family's experience with segregation was an inspiration for the play, A Raisin in the Sun.
6
Was nominated for Broadway's 1960 Tony Award as author of Best Play nominee "A Raisin in the Sun."
7
Her play, "A Raisin in the Sun", was the first successful Broadway play ever written by a black female playwright.
$250,000
