Exam #2
Bessie White
Professor Paul Rosenberg
LIT2000
10 March 2013
A Raisin in the Sun The granddaughter of a freed slave Lorraine Hansberry became a spokesperson for black Americans. Deeply committed to the black struggle for equality and human rights, Lorraine Hansberry’s brilliant career as a writer was cut short by her death when she was only 35. A Raisin in the Sun was the first screen play written by a Black woman to be produced in 1959 on Broadway. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of a black family life “A play that changed American theater.” (Random House Digital Inc, Nov 29, 2004 Drama – 160 pages). Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (1930-1965) was born May, 19, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois the youngest by seven years, of four children. Her father, Carl A. Hansberry, was a successful real estate broker, who later contributed large sums of money to NAACP and the Urban League. Her mother, Nannie Perry, was a schoolteacher who entered politics and became a ward committeewoman (Metzger 146). When Lorraine was eight her parents moved to a white neighborhood where the experiences of discrimination led to a civil rights suit that they won. Her family was violently attacked by neighbors. At an early age she learned to fight white supremacy and that Negroes were spit at, cursed and pummeled with insults and physical acts of violence. In protest to segregation her parents sent her to public schools rather than private ones. She attended Betsey Ross Elementary Schools in 1944; she was enrolled in Englewood High School. Both schools were predominantly white. Lorraine had to fight racism from the day she walked through the doors of Betsey Ross Elementary School (Nemiroff 20). She broke the family tradition of enrolling in Southern Negro Colleges and enrolled in the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she majored in painting. She was soon to discover
Professor Paul Rosenberg
LIT2000
10 March 2013
A Raisin in the Sun The granddaughter of a freed slave Lorraine Hansberry became a spokesperson for black Americans. Deeply committed to the black struggle for equality and human rights, Lorraine Hansberry’s brilliant career as a writer was cut short by her death when she was only 35. A Raisin in the Sun was the first screen play written by a Black woman to be produced in 1959 on Broadway. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award. A pioneering work by an African-American playwright, the play was a radically new representation of a black family life “A play that changed American theater.” (Random House Digital Inc, Nov 29, 2004 Drama – 160 pages). Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (1930-1965) was born May, 19, 1930 in Chicago, Illinois the youngest by seven years, of four children. Her father, Carl A. Hansberry, was a successful real estate broker, who later contributed large sums of money to NAACP and the Urban League. Her mother, Nannie Perry, was a schoolteacher who entered politics and became a ward committeewoman (Metzger 146). When Lorraine was eight her parents moved to a white neighborhood where the experiences of discrimination led to a civil rights suit that they won. Her family was violently attacked by neighbors. At an early age she learned to fight white supremacy and that Negroes were spit at, cursed and pummeled with insults and physical acts of violence. In protest to segregation her parents sent her to public schools rather than private ones. She attended Betsey Ross Elementary Schools in 1944; she was enrolled in Englewood High School. Both schools were predominantly white. Lorraine had to fight racism from the day she walked through the doors of Betsey Ross Elementary School (Nemiroff 20). She broke the family tradition of enrolling in Southern Negro Colleges and enrolled in the University of Wisconsin at Madison, where she majored in painting. She was soon to discover
Cited: Metzger, Linda, ed. “Lorraine Hansberry.” Black Writers. Detroit: Gale Researchers Inc. 1991 p. 146-147 Nemiroff, Robert. To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in Her Own Words. New Jersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1970. Reuben, Paul. “Chapter 8: Lorraine Hansberry. “PAL: Perspectives in American Literature – A Research and Reference Guide. http://web.csustan.edu/english/reuben/pal/chap8/hansberry.html hhtp://www.artistsrep.org/artists/a_lorraine_hansberry.html A Raisin in the Sun (E-Text), 1959; The Sign in Sidney Brusteins’s Window, 1964; The Movement (a collection of with text written by Hansberry), 1964; To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in her Own Words, 1969; unfinished works: Les Blanc, The Drinking Gourd, and What use are Flowers.