Transcript Lorraine Hansberry and A Raisin in the Sun

Lorraine Hansberry
and her
A Raisin in the Sun
Lorraine
Hansberry
•Born May 19, 1930 in Chicago
•Grew up in Southside Chicago, youngest of 4
kids
•Mother and father were intellectuals/activists
•Hansberry vs. Lee—antisegregation case about
fair and equal housing, Hansberry won (basis
for parts of A Raisin in the Sun)
•Attended University of Wisconsin/Art
Institute of Chicago
•Moved to New York to pursue writing career
•Wrote the first drama written by an African
American woman and produced on Broadway,
age 29
•Briefly married to Robert Nemiroff
•Died at the age of 35, cancer
•To Be Young, Gifted, and Black published after
her death
A Raisin in the
Sun
•Hansberry raised money to
produce in 1959
•Won New York Drama Critics
Circle Award
•Set in Southside Chicago, post
WWII
•Younger family
Cover Art
Excerpts from To Be Young,
Gifted, and Black
“I was born on the Southside of Chicago. I was born black
and a female. I was born in a depression after one world
war, and came into adolescence during another. While I was
still in my teens the first atom bombs were dropped on
human beings at Nagasaki and Hiroshima, and by the time I
was twenty-three years old my government and that of the
Soviet Union had entered actively into the worst conflict of
nerves in human history: the Cold War.”
“I have given you this account so that
you know that what I write is not based
on the assumption of idyllic possibilities
or innocent assessments of the true
nature of life but, rather, my own
personal view that, posing one against
the other, I think that the human race
does command its own destiny, and
that that destiny can eventually
embrace the stars.”
South Side Chicago: 1950s
Lorraine Hansberry’s house in
South Side Chicago—as a child
she moved with her family into
an all-white neighborhood and
the prejudice she experienced
factors into elements of A Raisin
in the Sun
Sets and Characters
Nigerian Robes
OCOMOGOSIAY!