Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was born in Chicago as the daughter of a prominent real-estate broker and the niece of a Harvard University professor of African history. Her parents were intellectuals and activists, and her father won an antisegregation case before the Illinois Supreme Court, upon which the events in A Raisin in the Sun was loosely based. She studied at the University of Wisconsin for two years, and in 1950 she moved to New York, where she started her career as a writer.   - (Mrs. Robert Nemiroff)

American playwright and painter, whose A RAISIN IN THE SUN (1959) was the first drama by a black woman to be produced on Broadway.

Raisin in the Sun Click to order via Amazon ISBN: 0679755330 Pub. Date: November 1994 Format: Mass Market Paperback, 151pp Publisher: Knopf Publishing Group Read a Review of the DVD Movie From the Publisher When it was first produced in 1959, A Raisin in the Sun was awarded the New York Drama Critics Circle Award for that season and hailed as a watershed in American drama. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of black life. "A play that changed American theater forever."'The New York Times. Sacred Fire A Raisin in the Sun, written by the then twenty-nine-year-old Hansberry, was the "movin' on up" morality play of the 1960s. Martin had mesmerized millions, and integration was seen as the stairway to heaven. Raisin had something for everyone, and for this reason it was the recipient of the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle Award. The place: a tenement flat in Southside, Chicago. The time: post'World War II. Lena Younger, the strong-willed matriarch, is the glue that holds together the Younger family. Walter Lee is her married, thirty-something son who, along with his wife and sister, lives in his mother's apartment. He is short on meeting responsibilities but long on dreams. Beneatha (that's right, Beneatha) is Waiter's sister'an upwardly mobile college student who plans to attend medical school. Mama Lena is due a check from her late husband's insurance, and Waiter Lee is ready to invest it in a liquor store. The money represents his opportunity to assert his manhood. It will bring the jump start he needs to set his life right. Beneatha tells him that it's "mama's money to do with as she pleases," and that she doesn't really expect any for her schooling. However, Mama wants to use her new money for a new beginning'in a new house, in a new neighborhood (white). Walter cries, and Mama relents. She refrains from paying cash for the house and places a deposit instead, giving Waiter the difference to share equally between his investment and Beneatha's college fund. Walter squanders the entire amount. Meanwhile, Mama receives a call from the neighborhood "welcome committee" hoping to dissuade the family from moving in. While roundly criticized for being politically accommodating to whites, Raisin accurately reflected the aspirations of a newly nascent black middle class.

To Be Young, Gifted, and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words Click to order via Amazon Author:  Lorraine Hansberry, with James A. Baldwin Publisher:  NAL/Dutton Date Published:  September 1970 Format:  Trade Paper Created from Hansberry's plays, poems and writings, these vignettes feature monologues supported by gospel singing and related instrumental music. 2 cassettes.

The Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays Click to order via Amazon Author:  Lorraine Hansberry, Robert Nemiroff (Editor) Publisher:  Vin Bks Date Published:  November 1994 Format:  Trade Paper Here are Lorraine Hansberry's last three plays--Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, and What Use Are Flowers?--representing the capstone of her achievement. Includes a new preface by Jewell Gresham Nemiroff and a revised introduction by Margaret B. Wilkerson.

 

The African American Audio Experience
Click to order via Amazon

Format: Compact Disc - Abridged, 5 CDs
ISBN: 006053527X
Pub. Date: January 2003
Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

The leading voices of African-American letters come together in this essential collection of poems, prose and theater performance.

One of the most significant occurrences in America during the 20th century was the rise of African-American writers to the forefront of literature. Documenting their views on American culture and its tragic and glorious history, African-American writers' contributions reflected their struggle for equality and paved the way into a brighter future for their country. This collection includes selections of some of the best of those works, with an original introduction by Nikki Giovanni:

Black Boy by Richard Wright. A classic of American autobiography, this subtly crafted narrative chronicles one man's coming of age in the Jim Crow South. Performed by Brock Peters.

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry. An emotionally lacerating landmark of American theater, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is presented here with a full cast performance starring Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.

Excerpts from The Nikki Giovanni Poetry Collection. A collection of poems from one of the most commanding voices to grace America's political and poetic landscape. Read by the author.

Excerpts from the "Tall Tales" Chapter of Every Tounge Got to Confess by Zora Neale Hurston. Collected in the 1920s, these stories pay tribute to the richness of Black vernacular and reflect -- with wit, wisdom, compassion, and style -- the sorrows and joys of the African-American heritage. Performed by Ruby Dee and Ossie Davis.

Excerpts from Langston Hughes Reads. A Rare and exceptional recording on one of the greatest American poets of the 20th century.

Three poems by Gwendolyn Brooks. "We Real Cool," "Malcolm X," and "The Sermon on the Warpland." Performed by Ruby Dee.

 

 

 

Related Links

Women of Color
http://www.scils.rutgers.edu/~cybers/han.html

Voices in the Gap
http://www-engl.cla.umn.edu/lkd/vfg/Authors/LorraineHansberry
"Hansberry's work was a preview of the African-American spirit that engulfed the nation in the historic changes of the Civil Rights Movement. Her writing foresaw feminism, the Gay Liberation Movement and the demise of colonialism. She was a spearhead of the future, a woman who refused to be confined by the categories of race and gender. "

Vintage Books Teacher's Guide
http://www.villard.com/acmart/raisintg.html
"The 1959 Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun was a watershed in theatrical history. At a time when there was perceived to be no black Broadway audience, no commercial viability for a serious black play, and no significant "crossover" white audience for a play about African Americans, the underdog Raisin achieved the impossible: an all-out commercial and critical success. Indeed, its theretofore unknown 29-year-old playwright won the Best Play of the Year Award from the New York Drama Critics, the first black author and only the fifth woman to do so."

 

http://www.ewing.k12.nj.us/ehs/tech/May%20Stuff/Modern/Hansberry/Hansbe.html

 

Metzger,Linda, ed. "Lorraine Hansberry." Black Writers. Detroit: Gale Researchers Inc. 1991. p.146