LGBTQ Activist and Playwright, Lorraine Hansberry
A Raisin in the Sun debuted on Broadway in the year 1959. The story revolves around a black family's experiences in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago's Woodlawn neighborhood as they attempt to better themselves with an insurance payout following the death of the father. The play made Lorraine Hansberry famous almost overnight. The New York Drama Critics' Circle named A Raisin in the Sun the best play of 1959 which, at age 29, made her the youngest American and the first black playwright to win the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award for Best Play. While the iconic work is what most people remember about her, there was so much more to the playwright.
In 1950, Hansberry decided to pursue her career as a writer in New York City, where she attended The New School. She moved to Harlem in 1951 and worked as an activist to fight against evictions. Hansberry ended up joining the staff of the black journal, Freedom Newspaper, edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. She worked with W. E. B. Du Bois, whose office was in the same building, and other Black Pan-Africanists.
"The promise of the future of Ghana is that of all the colored peoples of the world; it is the promise of freedom," Hansberry wrote in response to the independence of Ghana, led by Kwame Nkrumah. They "must concern themselves with every single means of struggle: legal, illegal, passive, active, violent and non-violent... They must harass, debate, petition, give money to court struggles, sit-in, lie-down, strike, boycott, sing hymns, pray on steps—and shoot from their windows when the racists come cruising through their communities."
She was heavily involved with keeping up with and informing others of what went on around the world politically through her writing at the journal. In 1952, Hansberry attended a peace conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, in place of Paul Robeson, who had been denied travel rights by the State Department.
Hansberry was an activist, a writer who contributed to early queer publications including the gay magazine, One and the lesbian-oriented, The Ladder, which ran from 1956 to 1972. Her work tackled LGBTQ rights and the intersection of feminism long before many others.
"She was a feminist before the feminist movement,” said Princeton professor Imani Perry about Hansberry. “She identified as a lesbian and thought about LGBT organizing before there was a gay rights movement. She was an anti-colonialist before independences had been won in Africa and the Caribbean."
Although Hansberry often wrote about sexual freedom, was an activist for gay rights, and wrote about feminism and homophobia in letters to the editor of The Ladder, Hansberry was a closeted lesbian and did so anonymously. On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist, before separating from him a few years later, but remaining friends until her death.
Hansberry was the first black female author to have a play performed on Broadway. She inspired Nina Simone's song "To Be Young, Gifted and Black,” which was the title of her autobiography, and she wrote about sexual freedom in her works. Although Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer in 1965 at age 34, she made a lasting impact on the theatre, literature, and the LGBTQ community.