The following year, she collaborated with the already produced playwright Alice Childress, who also wrote for Freedom, on a pageant for its Negro History Festival, with Harry Belafonte, Sidney Poitier, Douglas Turner Ward, and John O. Killens. James Baldwin wrote the introduction to Hansberrys biography, To Be Young, Gifted, and Black with an endearing letter to Hansberry titled Sweet Lorraine.. Hansberry's most famous work, "A Raisin In The Sun" remains one of the best known plays ever written by a Black female playwright. Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, United States. However, in 2013, President Barack Obama posthumously awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom in recognition of her contributions to the arts and the civil rights movement. She attended the University of Wisconsin in 194850 and then briefly the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and Roosevelt University (Chicago). Her first play, A Raisin in the Sun, continues to be her most influential piece and has managed to find new audiences through the decades, wining Tony Awards in 2004 and 2014 and also the title of Best Revival of a Play. Religion She reached out to the world through her plays. Download Our Free Black Liberation eBook Bundle! Lorraine Hansberry, child of a cultured, middle-class black family but early exposed to the poverty and discrimination suffered by most blacks in America, fought passionately against racism in her writings and throughout her life. In 1969, four years after Lorraine Hansberrys death, Nina Simone wrote a song titled Young, Gifted, and Black after being inspired by a talk that Hansberry delivered to college students. . She moved to New York City and became involved in the arts scene, working as a writer and editor for various publications. The American dream means something different to each character in A Raisin in the Sun. Faced . . In 1961, the play was made into a movie. However, Hansberry admired Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex. It was the first play written by an African American woman to appear on Broadway. This gave her a platform for sharing her views. The African-American historian and scholar who is best known for his research on African history and culture. Celebrating 100 Years of Howard Zinn, Our Supremely Regressive Court of the Unsettled States: A Resisters Reading List, Free eBook Downloads of Resources for the Movement to End Gun Violence, Observation Post: Individual Liberty vs. Public SafetyOur Distorted Thinking About Gun Control, Black Women Physicians Stories Have Gone Untold for Far Too Long, Sister Rosetta Tharpes Ancestral Rocking and Rolling Aint Through Just Yet, The Rebellious Mrs. Rosa Parks Youll Meet in Peacocks Documentary, Beacon Behind the Books: Meet Matt Davis, Chief Financial Officer, with Clifford Manko. Hansberry was also a prominent civil rights activist, and her writing and activism helped to shape the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s. She was the daughter of a real estate entrepreneur, Carl Hansberry, and schoolteacher, Nannie Hansberry, as well as the niece of Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor Leo Hansberry. Commissioned by NBC in 1960 to create a television program about slavery, Hansberry wrote The Drinking Gourd. The show ran for more than two years and won two Tony Awards, including Best Musical. Image by Columbia Pictures from Wikimedia. In 1989, he became s a full writer. In 1938, the family moved to a white neighborhood and was violently attacked by its inhabitants but the former refused to vacate the area until . Both Hansberry's were active in the Chicago Republican Party. She was particularly interested in the situation of Egypt, "the traditional Islamic 'cradle of civilization,' where women had led one of the most important fights anywhere for the equality of their sex.". Simone penned the song Young, Gifted and Black in tribute to her good friend, View objects relating to Lorraine Hansberry, Get the latest information about timed passes and tips for planning your visit, Search the collection and explore our exhibitions, centers, and digital initiatives, Online resources for educators, students, and families, Engage with us and support the Museum from wherever you are, Find our upcoming and past public and educational programs, Learn more about the Museum and view recent news. Hansberry inspired the Nina Simone song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", whose title-line came from Hansberry's autobiographical play. Her promising career was cut short by her early death from pancreatic cancer. At first Sideways Stories from Wayside School was not a popular book in US. Beacon Press. Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. Lorraine Hansberry Elementary School was located in the Ninth Ward of New Orleans. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. She was the fourth child born to Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry in Chicago, IL. Discuss these differences and how they conflict with one another. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in a family that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. She was brought up alongside three siblings. The production won Tony Awards for Best Actress in a Play for Rashad and Best Featured Actress in a Play for McDonald, and received a nomination for Best Revival of a Play. The song has also famously been recorded by artists including Aretha Franklin and Donny Hathaway. Fact 6: In 1963, she met with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in New York City days after the protests and unrest in Birmingham Alabama (along with her close friend James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, Clarence Jones and Jerome Smith, among others). The Hansberry Project is rooted in the convictions that black artists should be at the center of the artistic process, that the community deserves excellence in its art, and that theatre's fundamental function is to put people in a relationship with one another. In his remarks, President Obama noted that Lorraine Hansberry refused to be confined by any identity but her own, and helped blaze a trail for generations of Americans who have been inspired by her example.. Follow her on Twitter at@emilykpowers. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940), to which the playwright Lorraine Hansberry's father was a party, when he fought to have his day in court despite the fact that a previous class action about racially motivated restrictive covenants, Burke v. Kleiman, 277 Ill. App. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? . However, many scholars and historians believe that she may have been a closeted lesbian. Taken from us far too soon. Hansberry's. This script was called "superb" but also rejected. . The local Chicago government was willing to eject the Hansberrys from their new home but Lorraine's father, Carl Hansberry, took their case to court. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. The Presidential Medal of Freedom is the highest civilian honour in the United States, awarded by the President to individuals who have made exceptional contributions to the security or national interests of the country, to world peace, or to cultural or other significant public or private endeavours. In 2008, the production was adapted for television with the same cast, winning two NAACP Image Awards. The curtain rises on a dim, drab room. On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway and changed the face of American theater forever. The granddaughter of a slave and the niece of a prominent African-American professor, Hansberry grew up with a keen awareness of African-American history and the ongoing struggle for civil rights. Hansberry was invited to meet Robert F. Kennedy (then U.S. Attorney General) in May, 1963 due to the work she had done as a Civil Rights activist, but declined the invitation. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. The sq. Neither of the surgeries was successful in removing the cancer. Hansberry was interested in writing from an early age and while in high school was drawn especially to the theatre. To those around them, the Hansberrys were inspirational both parents were college. After two years, she left college for New York to serve as a writer and editor of Paul Robesons left-wing newspaper Freedom. Bottom Row (left to right): T. S. Eliot; Lorraine Hansberry; Martin Buber; Otto Neurath. Fifteen years before Lorraine was unsealed, Harris meticulously and accurately charted Hansberry's queer life; she did not rely on institutions, but New York City dykes. She was later quoted as saying that American racism helped kill him.. Hansberrys next play, The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window, a drama of political questioning and affirmation set in Greenwich Village, New York City, where she had long made her home, had only a modest run on Broadway in 1964. Terkel, Studs. Lorraine Hansberry became involved in the Civil Rights Movement in 1963 and joined people like Lena Horne and James Baldwin to test Robert Kennedys position on civil rights. Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the late 1940s, but she left before completing her degree. She wrote about her experiences as a lesbian in her unpublished journals and letters. A satire involving miscegenation, the $400,000 production was co-produced by her husband Robert Nemiroff. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was born on this day, May 19. Important Feminists you should know. As well as being a political activists, Lorraine Hansberry was also a brilliant writer. She explored the issues of colonialism and imperialism through her own lens as well as the female perspective. . Date of first publication 1959. She was a member of the National Organization for Women and wrote about womens issues in her personal journals and in her writing. Lorraine Hansberry was an African-American playwright, writer and activist who lived from 1930 to 1965. The award-winning playwright whose 90th birthday would have been this week first captured the public eye during the civil rights movement. Politics & Current Events Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. Thanks for reading! Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. . Hansberry herself led an extraordinary life, which is profiled in the . Hansberry's funeral was held in Harlem on January 15, 1965. I could think only of beauty, isolated and misunderstood but beauty still . When she died of pancreatic cancer in 1965, she was only 34 years old. In 1938, the family moved to a white neighborhood and was violently attacked by its inhabitants but the former refused to vacate the area until ordered to do so by the Supreme Court where the case was addressed as Hansberry v. Lee. Carl Hansberry's brother, William Leo Hansberry, founded the African Civilization section of the History Department at Howard University. It was at one of these demonstrations that Hansberry met her husband and closest friend, Robert Nemiroff. W.E.B. Lorraine Hansberry, likely at a welcoming event for the African-American Students Foundation in 1959. A Raisin in the Sun, her most famous work, debuted on Broadway in 1959 and was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. The FBI began surveillance of Hansberry when she prepared to go to the Montevideo peace conference. Lorraine Hansberry was born on May 19, 1930 at Provident Hospital on the South Side of Chicago. She extended her hand. Hansberry received many awards for her work, including a New York Critics' Circle Award, an award at the Cannes Film Festival. Their goal is to create a space where the entire community can be enriched by the voices of professional black artists, reflecting autonomous concerns, investigations, dreams, and artistic expression. Princeton Professor Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine, wrote that she was a feminist before the feminist movement. To Be Young, Gifted and Black was a posthumously produced play and collection of writings that capped a brief and brilliant career. 'The Black Revolution and the White Backlash . This page was last modified on 24 February 2023, at 15:15. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1930. Emily Powersjoined Beacon in 2016 after three years at Cornell University Press. She continued to write plays, short stories, and articles in addition to delivering speeches regarding race relations in the United States. Oh, what a lovely precious dream If people know anything about Lorraine (Perry refers to her as Lorraine throughout the book, explaining why she does so), theyll recall she was the author of A Raisin in the Sun, an award-winning play about a family dealing with issues of race, class, education, and identity in Chicago. He then spent several years travelling and studying in Africa, including Ethiopia, Sudan and Egypt. Activism The title of the song comes from a speech she gave to young people. For their magazine, the Ladder, Hansberry contributed articles which talked of feminism and homophobia, revealing her homosexual nature. between family and gender expectations and the way homophobia could crush intimacies in the most heartbreaking of ways even as romantic love made space for them (86). In April 1960, she wrote a fascinating list of what she liked and hated. It ran for 101 performances on Broadway and closed the night she died. Lorraine Hansberry wrote the plays A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window(1964). Due to racial differences, Lorraine and her family faced racism when she was just eight. The play was the first one to be produced on Broadway by an African-American woman and won an award at the Cannes Film Festival when its motion picture came out. It was with those friends and Nemiroff that she kept a secret about the pancreatic cancer that would eventually take her life on January 12, 1965, at age 34. Fact 2: Lorraine was raised in the South Side of Chicago. A Raisin in the Sun portrays a few weeks in the life of the Youngers, a Black family living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1950s. This penetrating psychological study of a working-class black family on the south side of Chicago in the late 1940s reflected Hansberry's own experiences of racial harassment after her prosperous family moved into a white neighbourhood. Comments (0). When she was young, her family famously fought against racial segregation, attempting to buy a home that was covered by a racially restrictive covenantultimately leading to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. Dana Hanson-Firestone has extensive professional writing experience including technical and report writing, informational articles, persuasive articles, contrast and comparison, grant applications, and advertisement. in order to avoid discrimination. Kicks. . Patricia and Fredrick McKissack wrote a children's biography of Hansberry, Young, Black, and Determined, in 1998. Biography. She was born to Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nonnie Louise. Among the hates: being asked to speak, cramps, racism, her homosexuality, and silly men. According to Kevin J. Mumford, however, beyond reading homophile magazines and corresponding with their creators, "no evidence has surfaced" to support claims that Hansberry was directly involved in the movement for gay and lesbian civil equality. Race & Ethnicity in America Lorraine Hansberry was the youngest of four children born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, a successful real-estate broker and Nannie Louise (born Perry), a driving school teacher and ward committeewoman. To Be Young, Gifted and Black She worked on Henry A. Wallace's Progressive Party presidential campaign in 1948, despite her mother's disapproval. In her award-winning Hansberry biography Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, Imani Perry writes that in his "gorgeous" images, "Attie captured her intellectual confidence, armour, and remarkable beauty.". Lorraine Hansberry was 28 when she met James Baldwin, 34 at the time. To support our blog and writers we put affiliate links and advertising on our page. In the introduction of the live version, Simone explains the difficulty of losing a close friend and talented artist. Suggested Posts. Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. And I am glad she was not smiling at me. "An Interview with Lorraine . Lorraine was inspired by her father and the play that she wrote may have been a little ahead of its time, but it won top prize from the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle, which was no small feat. To be young, gifted and black Since its original production, A Raisin in the Sun has been revived on Broadway several times, most recently in 2014 with Denzel Washington as Walter Lee Younger. B. Before her marriage, she had written in her personal notebooks about her attraction to women. I saw it on Broadway, its an excellent play and homage to Lorraine Hansberry! When Nemiroff donated Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library, he "separated out the lesbian-themed correspondence, diaries, unpublished manuscripts, and full runs of the homophile magazines and restricted them from access to researchers." Lorraine Hansberry was the niece of Leo Hansberry, who was a Pan-Africanist scholar and college professor. Louis Sachar Facts 8: Sideways Stories from Wayside School. Lorraine Hansberry (1930 1965) was an American playwright and author best known for A Raisin in the Sun, a 1959 play influenced by her background and upbringing in Chicago. Louis Sachar. Free shipping. She underwent two operations, on June 24 and August 2. Despite not finishing college, Hansberry went on to achieve great success as a playwright and activist. Carl died in 1946 when Lorraine was fifteen years old; "American racism helped kill him," she later said. Like Robeson and many black civil rights activists, Hansberry understood the struggle against white supremacy to be interlinked with the program of the Communist Party. Fact 4: Lorraine worked at the progressive black Freedom Newspaper (published by Paul Robeson) with W. E . Her father was brave and daring enough to move his family into an all white neighborhood during tumultuous times. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an African-American playwright and writer. Hansberry originally wanted to be an artist when she attended the University of Wisconsin, but soon changed her focus to study drama and stage design. God wrote it through me." 519 (1934), had been similar to his situation. The awards are considered one of the most prestigious in American theatre and winners are often considered to be among the best productions of the year. On the night before their wedding in 1953, Nemiroff and Hansberry protested against the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in New York City. She came from a well-established family where both her parents had successful careers.. Hansberry wrote The Crystal Stair, a play about a struggling Black family in Chicago, which was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun. Picture 1 of 1. . All rights reserved, Playbill Inc. National Museum of African American History & Culture. She wrote about her love for women and her struggles with her sexuality in personal papers published posthumously. . Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison but left before completing her degree to pursue a career as a writer. Both of these talented writers wanted to incorporate themes of race and sexual identity into their stage work, something that was considered quite radical at the time. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a. Copyright 2016 FamousAfricanAmericans.org, Museum Dedicated to African American History and Culture is Set to Open in 2016, Scholarships for African Americans Black Scholarships, Top 10 Most Famous Black Actors of All Time. In January 2018, the PBS series American Masters released a new documentary, Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart, directed by Tracy Heather Strain. She was the youngest of Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry's four children. . . September 27, 2022. As the first-ever black woman to author a play performed on. Du Bois, whose office was in the same building, and other Black Pan-Africanists. The familys home was frequently visited by prominent African American leaders, such as W.E.B. Type of work Play. . With the help of the NAACP, he eventually won the right to stay, but never recovered from the emotional stress of their legal battles ("Lorraine Hansberry";Hansberry 21). The Lorraine Hansberry residence, listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 2021, is nationally significant for its association with the pioneering Black lesbian playwright, writer, and activist, Lorraine Hansberry. Happy travels! The granddaughter of a freed enslaved person, and the youngest by seven years of four children, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry 3rd was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her favorite topics are psychology, sociology, anthropology, history and religion. It was previously ruled that African Americans were not allowed to purchase property in the Washington Park subdivision in Chicago, Illinois. She was raised in a strong family, the youngest of three children born to Nannie Perry Hansberry and Carl Augustus Hansberry. Hansberrys work as a writer and activist was groundbreaking in its exploration of the experiences of African American women. The play was later renamed A Raisin in the Sun and was a great success at the Ethel Ballymore Theatre, having a total of 530 performances. Her father, Carl Hansberry, was a successful real estate broker and a prominent figure in the African American community, who fought against racial segregation and discrimination. Before her death, she built a circle of gay and lesbian friends, took several lovers, vacationed in Provincetown (where she enjoyed, in her words, "a gathering of the clan"), and subscribed to several homophile magazines. Lorraine Hansberry, a celebrated African American playwright and writer, was not openly gay during her lifetime. In 2014, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust published a wealth of never-before-seen letters, writings, and journal entries, her heart and her mind put down on paper. Perry pored over these pages, and four years later wrote Looking for Lorraine. Lincoln University's first-year female dormitory is named Lorraine Hansberry Hall. Martin Luther King, Jr.s Radical Vision of Replacing Residential Caste with Communities of Love and Justice, Black Resistance Knows No Bounds in History: A Reading List, Black Poet Listening: Lessons in Making Poetry a Life, Beacon Behind the Books: Meet Catherine Tung, Editor, Martin Luther King, Jr.s Palm Sunday Sermon Celebrating the Life of Gandhi, The Scourge of the January 6 US Capitol Attack: A Citizens Reading List. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre of San Francisco, which specializes in original stagings and revivals of African-American theatre, is named in her honor. She used her writing to redefine difference. Discover Walks contributors speak from all corners of the world - from Prague to Bangkok, Barcelona to Nairobi. He gathered her unpublished writings and first adapted them into a stage play, To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which ran off Broadway from 1968 to 1969. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) wrote A Raisin in the Sun using inspiration from her years growing up in the segregated South Side of Chicago. In doing so, he blocked access to all materials related to Hansberry's lesbianism, meaning that no scholars or biographers had access for more than 50 years. Please refer to the appropriate style manual or other sources if you have any questions. In 1959, Hansberry commented that women who are "twice oppressed" may become "twice militant". The play has also been adapted into a film and has become a classic of American literature and theatre. In 1999 Hansberry was posthumously inducted into the Chicago Gay and Lesbian Hall of Fame. May 19, 1930 Lorraine Vivian Hansberry is born to Carl Augustus Hansberry, Sr. and Nannie Louise Hansberry in Chicago, Illinois. It was always, Marx, Lenin and revolutionreal girls talk.. Time and place written 1950s, New York. She held out some hope for male allies of women, writing in an unpublished essay: "If by some miracle women should not ever utter a single protest against their condition there would still exist among men those who could not endure in peace until her liberation had been achieved.". There are several pieces of evidence that suggest Hansberrys same-sex attraction. We followed her. (James Baldwin, The Cross of Redemption). Heavily damaged by Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it has since closed. Full title A Raisin in the Sun. Additionally, she wrote scripts at Freedom. In 2013, Hansberry was also inducted into the Legacy Walk, making her the first Chicago-native to receive the honour, along with a position in the American Theatre Hall of Fame in the same year. There is a school in the Bronx called Lorraine Hansberry Academy, and an elementary school in St. Albans, Queens, New York, named after Hansberry as well. The Hansberry's were routinely visited by prominent black people, including sociology professor W. E. B. Her civil rights work and writing career were cut short by her death from pancreatic cancer at age 34. . $3.52. The moving story of the life of the woman behind A Raisin in the Sun, the most widely anthologized, read, and performed play of the American stage, by the New York Times bestselling author of Mockingbird: A Portrait of Harper Lee. The late artist also has a school, Lorraine Hansberry Academy, in the Bronx named after her as well as an elementary school in Queen, New York, titled in her honor. . In college, she took classes in stage design and sculpture, and turned her dorm room into an art studio. She herself, knew what it was to be discriminated against.. A Reader's Guide to Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun - Pamela Loos 2008-01-01 Presents a critique and analysis of "A Raisin in the Sun," discussing the plot, themes, dramatic devices, and major characters in the play, and includes a brief overview of Hansberry's other works. . 190-71 111th Ave , Saint Albans, NY 11412 is a single-family home listed for-sale at $799,000. Hansberry and Simone had been friends and shared a bond over their interests in social justice and radical politics. A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry (2004, Mass Market, Reprint) $0.99 + $5.65 shipping. Born in 1930, Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was the youngest of Carl and Nannie Hansberry's four children. The result is an essay that, nearly two decades later, surpasses any document on Lorraine, old or new, in its exploration of her intimate life. Her other works include the plays The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window and Les Blancs, as well as several essays and articles on civil rights and social justice issues. The youngest of four siblings, she was seven years younger than Mamie, her . Learn about her personal life,. In 1957, around the time she separated from Nemiroff, Hansberry contacted the Daughters of Bilitis, the San Francisco-based lesbian rights organization, contributing two letters to their magazine, The Ladder, both of which were published under her initials, first "L.H.N." In 1944, she graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary. He added minor changes to complete the play Les Blancs, which Julius Lester termed her best work, and he adapted many of her writings into the play To Be Young, Gifted and Black, which was the longest-running Off Broadway play of the 196869 season. . That was what formed their bond at the time when Lorraine was developing her own Black, feminist, and queer politics. In 2004, A Raisin in the Sun was revived on Broadway in a production starring Sean "P. Diddy" Combs, Phylicia Rashad, and Audra McDonald, and directed by Kenny Leon. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a successful real estate entrepreneur involved with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Urban League. Her experiences with discrimination and activism served as inspiration for her most famous work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, . Lorraines experiences growing up in this environment informed her writing, which often dealt with issues of race, class, and identity. Posted at 04:07 PM in Beacon Staff, Biography and Memoir, Emily Powers, Imani Perry, Literature and the Arts, Looking for Lorraine, Queer Perspectives, Race and Ethnicity in America | Permalink . Simone wrote the song with the poet Weldon Irvine and told him that she wanted lyrics that would "make black children all over the world feel good about themselves forever." Though A Raisin in the Sun is the crown jewel in Hansberrys legacy, she was also known for the playsThe Sign in Sidney Brusteins Windowand Les Blancs. Hansberry worked on not only the US civil rights movement, but also global struggles against colonialism and imperialism. Fact 9: This isnt a major life milestone of Lorraines, but its too fascinating not to include it!) Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was a playwright, writer, and activist. It is the opening scene . Baldwin remembers: Her face changed and changed, the way Sojourner Truth's face must have changed and changed . Colleagues of hers included famous actor Sydney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. The play opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, and was a great success.