Hansberry, Lorraine: 1930-1965
Information about Lorraine Hansberry
- General Information
- Facts
- Chronology
- About "Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry", by Soyica Colbert, dean of Georgetown College, with a contribution by Lorraine Hansberry. WNYC Radio, New York; May 29, 2021
- Brief biography read by Christine Fischer. Can be used as listening comprehension exercise.
- TranscriptLorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago. Her father bought a house in the South Side of Chicago, incurring the wrath of some of their white neighbors.
She attended the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she became politically active with the Communist Party USA.
In 1950 Hansberry decided to leave Madison and persue her career as a writer in New York City. And a year later she joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom. On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher.
Written and completed in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun opened on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The 29-year old author became the youngest American playwright and only the fifth woman to receive the New York Drama Critic Circle Award for best play.
Hansberry died on January 12, 1965, aged 34.
- Transcript
- Biography
- Articles
- How Lorraine Hansberry used her fame after the success of her play, "A Raisin in the Sun," to push for racial progress. WNYC Radio, New York; May 27, 2021
- How Lorraine Hansberry defined what it meant to be ‘young, gifted and black’: "The phrase comes from a speech Hansberry made to winners of a writing contest in 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." PBS; May 17, 2019
- Hansberry's Move to New York in Search of a Career as a Writer. WNYC Radio, New York; May 25, 2021: "Soyica Diggs Colbert, author of Radical Vision:
A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry narrates Hansberry's life at the intersection of art and politics, arguing that for her the theater operated as a rehearsal room for her political and intellectual work."
- Imani Perry describes the intimate friendships that Lorraine Hansberry had with James Baldwin and Nina Simone. Princeton University; May 12, 1959
- Documentary
- Sidney Poitier shares his thoughts on African American writer and playwright Lorraine Hansberry, who utilized her writing to help the civil rights movement
- Discussion oft Lorraine Hansberry. GBH News
- How Lorraine Hansberry used her fame after the success of her play, "A Raisin in the Sun," to push for racial progress. WNYC Radio, New York; May 27, 2021