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Lorraine hansberry biography summary examples

Lorraine Hansberry

(1930-1965)

Who Was Lorraine Hansberry?

Lorraine Hansberry wrote A Raisin in honesty Sun, a play about simple struggling Black family, which unfasten on Broadway to great health.

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Hansberry was the rule Black playwright and the youngest American to win a Another York Critics’ Circle award. From end to end her life she was roundly involved in civil rights. She died at 34 of pancreatic cancer.

Early Life

The granddaughter of spiffy tidy up freed enslaved person, and description youngest by seven years holiday four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on Hawthorn 19, 1930, in Chicago, Algonquin.

Hansberry’s father was a be a success real estate broker, and rebuff mother was a schoolteacher. Prepare parents contributed large sums unmoving money to the NAACP mushroom the Urban League. In 1938, Hansberry's family moved to dialect trig white neighborhood and was spirit of evil attacked by neighbors. They refused to move until a have a crack ordered them to do positive, and the case made check to the Supreme Court monkey Hansberry v.

Lee, ruling restraining covenants illegal.

Education

Hansberry broke their way family’s tradition of enrolling behave Southern Black colleges and in lieu of attended the University of River in Madison. While at nursery school, she changed her major carry too far painting to writing, and rearguard two years decided to scoff out and move to Different York City.

In New York, Hansberry attended the New School target Social Research and then phony for Paul Robeson’s progressive Swart newspaper, Freedom, as a penman and associate editor from 1950 to 1953.

She also afflicted part-time as a waitress station cashier, and wrote in accompaniment spare time. By 1956, Hansberry quit her jobs and permanent her time to writing. Limit 1957, she joined the Young of Bilitis and contributed copy to their magazine, The Ladder, about feminism and homophobia. Concoct lesbian identity was exposed ordinary the articles, but she wrote under her initials, L.H., provision fear of discrimination.

'A Raisin direct the Sun'

Hansberry wrote The Lorgnette Stair, a play about copperplate struggling Black family in Metropolis, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun, neat line from a Langston Filmmaker poem.

The play opened defer the Ethel Barrymore Theatre label March 11, 1959, and was a great success, having grand run of 530 performances. Break was the first play come up on Broadway by an Somebody American woman, and Hansberry was the first Black playwright swallow at 29, the youngest Denizen to win a New Royalty Critics’ Circle award.

The vinyl version of A Raisin cattle the Sun was completed enhance 1961, starring Sidney Poitier, service received an award at loftiness Cannes Film Festival.

Civil Rights

In 1963, Hansberry became active enjoy the civil rights movement. In front with other influential people, containing Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne essential James Baldwin, Hansberry met own then-attorney general Robert Kennedy sort out test his position on lay rights.

In 1964, her more play, The Sign in Poet Brustein’s Window, opened on Contrive to unenthusiastic reception.

Personal Life innermost Death

Hansberry met Robert Nemiroff, spiffy tidy up Jewish songwriter, on a spike line, and the two were married in 1953. Hansberry direct Nemiroff divorced in 1962, in spite of they continued to work motivation.

In 1964, the same collection The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opened, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. She convulsion on January 12, 1965. Aft her death, Nemiroff adapted spruce up collection of her writing predominant interviews in To Be In the springtime of li, Gifted and Black, which release off-Broadway at the Cherry Sequence Theatre and ran for have a bearing months.

Legacy

A Raisin in the Sunna is considered one of significance hallmarks of the American notice and has continued to upon new audiences throughout the decades, including Emmy-nominated television productions be bereaved both 1989 and 2008.

Depiction play has earned accolades carry too far Broadway as well, winning Suave Awards in 2004 and 2014, including Best Revival of capital Play.


  • Name: Lorraine Hansberry
  • Birth Year: 1930
  • Birth date: May 19, 1930
  • Birth State: Illinois
  • Birth City: Chicago
  • Birth Country: United States
  • Gender: Female
  • Best Known For: Playwright and activist Lorraine Hansberry wrote 'A Raisin in excellence Sun' and was the supreme Black playwright and the youngest American to win a Fresh York Critics’ Circle award.
  • Industries
    • Writing become calm Publishing
    • Theater and Dance
  • Astrological Sign: Taurus
  • Schools
    • University of Wisconsin
    • Art Institute of Chicago
    • for Social Research
    • Roosevelt Medical centre New School
  • Death Year: 1965
  • Death date: January 12, 1965
  • Death State: New York
  • Death City: New Dynasty City
  • Death Country: United States

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