Lorraine Hansberry
Lorraine Hansberry grew up in a Chicago household peopled by poets and politicians
each of whom adhered to the radical principles of Pan-Africanism. Born in 1930, when
the Harlem Renaissance was in full flower, Hansberry heard the music, poems and
philosophy of black consciousness throughout her youth. Her most famous work, the
1959 Broadway play, A Raisin in the Sun, offers a clear expression of the progressive
politics and themes of social justice so dear to her family’s ethos.
Lorraine Hansberry was profoundly affected by the politics of integration, both as a child
moving into a white neighborhood and as a daughter watching and listening as her
parents struggled for racial justice.
Hansberry’s family battled racism long before the Civil Rights Movement. Her father,
Augustus, was a real estate broker who fought racial segregation in housing. When he
moved the family to a white neighborhood, the ensuing struggle, which at times turned
threatening, went all the way to the 1940 Supreme Court in the case known as Hansberry
v. Lee. The case brought the idea of restrictive covenants, a set of regulations agreed upon
by land owners, to the public consciousness. Although the Supreme Court’s decision did
not forbid such covenants, it nonetheless prepared a slowly changing public for the end of
state supported segregation in housing.
In 1948, a few years after the Hansberry family’s battle for the right to move into a white
neighborhood, the Supreme Court once again addressed the issue of restrictive covenants
in a case known as Shelly v. Kramer. The court found that restrictive covenants were
unconstitutional thus ending a practice that had effectively supported segregated housing
across the country.
Hansberry grew up with intellectual stimulation as well as political activism. Her uncle,
William Leo Hansberry, served as a professor of African history at Howard University.
An intense interest in Africa, evident in all of her writing, can be traced to the powerful
presence of Hansberry’s uncle in her formative years. References to African geography
and culture permeate her writing and offer testimony to her family’s influence. Hansberry
herself was a social activist and met her husband, a white intellectual, on a picket line
protesting the exclusion of black athletes from college sports.
After studying art at the University of Wisconsin-Madison for two years, Hansberry left
school and began working for Paul Robeson’s Freedom, a black newspaper noted for its
radical thought and its support for Civil Rights causes. In these years Hansberry studied
writing at New York’s New School for Social Research as well as African History under
W.E.B. Dubois. She met, among many other black writers, Langston Hughes whose
famous poem, Harlem, also called A Dream Deferred, suggested the title of the play.
A Raisin in the Sun became a huge success on Broadway and made Hansberry into a
famous playwright virtually overnight. Before it reached Broadway, Raisin had played in
several other cities. Audiences and critics loved the play and early fears about having a
For Use Only by Subscribers of TeachWithMovies.com
© 2009 by TeachWithMovies.com, Inc.
Page 1
black-themed play with a full cast of black actors were quickly dispelled. It ran for 530
performances on Broadway. Hansberry was given the Drama Critics’ Award for Best
Play of the Year, becoming the first black playwright to win this prestigious award. She
was the fifth woman to be so honored and at 29 years old, the youngest playwright in the
history of the awards.
Hansberry died in l965 of cancer. She had been living in Greenwich Village in New York
City where she was working on the production of a play entitled The Sign in Sidney
Brustein’s Window.
Hansberry left the public with a clear account of her values and the many lessons she
learned growing up during a period of fundamental change in American culture. A Raisin
in the Sun describes Pan-Africanism, racism, sexism, the problems associated with
poverty as well as an honest account of many of the family problems faced by black
Americans before the advances in race relations that resulted from the Civil Rights
Movement.
Mary Red Clay and James Frieden – January 2009
For Use Only by Subscribers of TeachWithMovies.com
© 2009 by TeachWithMovies.com, Inc.
Page 2