Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry photo

Lorraine HansberryLorraine 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. Read our review of the Broadway revival of A Raisin in the Sun which featured Sean “Diddy” Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Audra McDonald, Sanaa Lathan and Bill Nunn.

Top Image from Vintage Black Glamour (Rocket 88, February 18, 2015)

Hansberry’s uncle is acclaimed historian and anthropologist, William Leo Hansberry, who is widely considered “The Father of African Studies.”

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4 Books by Lorraine Hansberry