lorraine hansberry facts

Lorraine Hansberry was a U.S. writer in the mid-1900s. He was one of the pioneers of African Studies in the United States and his work played an important role in challenging the prevailing Eurocentric views of African history and culture. 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. Fact 4: Lorraine worked at the progressive black Freedom Newspaper (published by Paul Robeson) with W. E . Her most famous play, A Raisin in the Sun, is an exploration of the challenges faced by a black family in Chicago as they struggle to achieve the American Dream in the face of systemic racism and poverty. 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. 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. She also had several close relationships with women throughout her life, including a long-term relationship with a woman named Una Mulzac. In April 1959, as a sign of her sudden fame just one month after A Raisin in the Sun premiered on Broadway, photographer David Attie did an extensive photo-shoot of Hansberry for Vogue magazine, in the apartment at 337 Bleecker Street where she had written Raisin, which produced many of the best-known images of her today. There are a million boys and girls MLS # 3441616 Hansberry's ex-husband, Robert Nemiroff, became the executor for several unfinished manuscripts. . It is a play that tells the truth about people, Negroes [in the parlance of the time], and life. | Hansberrys work and activism were instrumental in advancing the cause of civil rights in America, and she remains an important figure in the history of the movement. . For their magazine, the Ladder, Hansberry contributed articles which talked of feminism and homophobia, revealing her homosexual nature. Omissions? On March 11, 1959, Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun opened on Broadway and changed the face of American theater forever. Best known for her plays, Hansberry was the first black woman to write a Broadway drama; A Raisin in the . Thanks for reading! Lorraine Hansberry, (born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.died January 12, 1965, New York, New York), American playwright whose A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first drama by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Someday perhaps I might hold out my secret in my hand and sing about it to the scornful but if not I would more than survive (86). Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. Colleagues of hers included famous actor Sydney Poitier, Harry Belafonte and Ruby Dee. She holds academic degrees which are: AA social Science In 2013, more than twenty years after Nemiroff's death, the new executor released the restricted material to scholar Kevin J. Mumford. The major theme throughout playwright Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun is how racism impacts daily life for this multi-generational family, not only in relations between black and. 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. It aired recently on PBS and if you didnt catch it, you can find out more. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965) was an African-American playwright and writer. Lorraine Hansberry is often viewed as a visionary because of her ability to predict many of the relevant issues to the African-American community today. Religion She continued to write plays, short stories, and articles in addition to delivering speeches regarding race relations in the United States. 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. The thing I tried to show was the many gradations in even one Negro family, the clash of the old and the new, but most of all the unbelievable courage of the Negro people.. Terkel, Studs. 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. At the same time, she said, "some of the first people who have died so far in this struggle have been white men.". Unfortunately, Lorraine Hansberry passed away in 1965, and the Presidential Medal of Freedom was not established until 1969. 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). Lorraine Hansberry was born in 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, into a family of civil rights activists. Lorraines goal was to change society for the better. This article is about the top 10 interesting facts about Lorraine Hansberry. In 1960, during Delta Sigma Theta's 26th national convention in Chicago, Hansberry was made an honorary member. These were important voices for the movement to bring equality for all people as a basic right of all within the United States. In the book, readers get bits and pieces of Perry, too, as she describes her journey with Lorraine, detailing her thoughts as both an admirer, and a biographer. The original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun was directed by Lloyd Richards and starred Sidney Poitier as Walter Lee Younger, the head of the household. An alarm sounds, and a woman wakes. Carl died in 1946 when Lorraine was fifteen years old; "American racism helped kill him," she later said. Lorraine Hansberry was the first Black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. Bottom Row (left to right): T. S. Eliot; Lorraine Hansberry; Martin Buber; Otto Neurath. Imani Perrys Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry is a watershed biography of the award-winning playwright, activist, and artist Lorraine Hansberry. . . In 2010, Hansberry was inducted into the Chicago Literary Hall of Fame. Lorraine surrounded herself with many people who were important to the civil rights movement, as well as people who held a measure of influence and celebrity status in the world. Top 10 Things to do Around the Eiffel Tower, 10 Things to Do in Paris on Christmas Day (2022), 10 Things to Do in Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. Despite a warm reception in Chicago, the show never made it to Broadway. According to Baldwin, Hansberry stated: "I am not worried about black men--who have done splendidly, it seems to me, all things considered.But I am very worriedabout the state of the civilization which produced that photograph of the white cop standing on that Negro woman's neck in Birmingham. Hansberry's classmate Bob Teague remembered her as "the only girl I knew who could whip together a fresh picket sign with her own hands, at a moment's notice, for any cause or occasion". Her parents both engaged in the fight against racial discrimination and segregration. Lorraine Hansberry wrote the plays A Raisin in the Sun (1959) and The Sign in Sidney Brusteins Window(1964). Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. ", James Baldwin described Hansberry's 1963 meeting with Robert F. Kennedy, in which Hansberry asked for a "moral commitment" on civil rights from Kennedy. A Raisin in the Sun - Mass Market Paperback By Lorraine Hansberry - VERY GOOD. American Society In 2014, the play was revived on Broadway again in a production starring Denzel Washington, directed again by Kenny Leon; it won three Tony Awards, for Best Revival of a Play, Best Featured Actress in a Play for Sophie Okonedo, and Best Direction of a Play. She was born to Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nonnie Louise. The title of Hansberrys now-iconic play A Raisin In the Sun was inspired by Hughes poem Harlem. One could argue that the play illustrated the poems sentiment: Quotes from A Raisin in the Sun Her mother, Nannie Perry, was a schoolteacher active in the Republican Party. . Who Was Lorraine Hansberry? She extended her hand. Hansberrys uncle, William Leo Hansberry, founded the Howard University African Civilization section of the history department, her cousin Shauneille Perry is an actress and playwright, and her younger relatives, Taye Hansberry is an actress and Aldridge Hansberry is a composer and flutist. Du Bois, the Civil Rights activist, author, sociologist, and historian, and Paul Robeson, the musician and actor, were friends of the Hansberry family. We get rid of all the little bombsand the big bombs," though she also believed in the right of people to defend themselves with force against their oppressors. Lorraine Hansberry was an avid civil rights activist because she understood clearly, that people need a champion in this life. 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. On the eightieth anniversary of Hansberry's birth, Adjoa Andoh presented a BBC Radio 4 program entitled Young, Gifted and Black in tribute to her life. The sq. 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 wrote her first play, The Crystal Stair, during the same period, based on a struggling family in Chicago. Open your heart to what I mean The award is given for excellence in the field of theatre, with categories including Best Play, Best Musical, Best Foreign Play, and Best Revival. It is the opening scene . in order to avoid discrimination. Hansberry traveled to Georgia to cover the case of Willie McGee, and was inspired to write the poem "Lynchsong" about his case. Image by Friedman-Abeles from Wikimedia. Queer Perspectives Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois and grew up in a family that was deeply involved in the civil rights movement. The group of 1960's would-be idealists, iconoclasts and intellectuals who hang out in the Greenwich Village apartment of Sidney and Iris Brustein (Oscar Isaac and Rachel Brosnahan) include a painter, Lorraine identified as an American radical and believed that extreme change was necessary to fight against racism and injustice internationally. Goodbye, Mr. Attorney General, she said, and turned and walked out of the room. She herself, knew what it was to be discriminated against.. Founded in 2004 and officially launched in 2006, The Hansberry Project of Seattle, Washington was created as an African-American theatre lab, led by African-American artists and was designed to provide the community with consistent access to the African-American artistic voice. 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 15th was also Dr. King's birthday. Full title A Raisin in the Sun. Also in 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was a. $5.42. . The Hansberry's were routinely visited by prominent black people, including sociology professor W. E. B. 236 pp. Genre Realist drama. Lorraine Hansberry (19301965) was a playwright, writer, and activist. Mumford stated that Hansberry's lesbianism caused her to feel isolated while A Raisin in the Sun catapulted her to fame; still, while "her impulse to cover evidence of her lesbian desires sprang from other anxieties of respectability and conventions of marriage, Hansberry was well on her way to coming out." She left behind an unfinished novel and several other plays, including The Drinking Gourd and What Use Are Flowers?, with a range of content, from slavery to a post-apocalyptic future. Performers in this pageant included Paul Robeson, his longtime accompanist Lawrence Brown, the multi-discipline artist Asadata Dafora, and numerous others. 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). She was a trailblazer in the civil rights movement and an advocate for social justice. Neither of the surgeries was successful in removing the cancer. "An Interview with Lorraine . And I am glad she was not smiling at me. She attended the University of WisconsinMadison, where she immediately became politically active with the Communist Party USA and integrated a dormitory. Lorraine Hansberry. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry was Leos brother. Lorraine Hansberry Biography. . Their white neighbors tried their best to make them move . This gave her a platform for sharing her views. She was both a civil rights activist and a feminist deeply involved in the civil rights movement in the United States and her writing often dealt with issues of race and inequality. In 1961, Hansberry was set to replace Vinnette Carroll as the director of the musical Kicks and Co, after its try-out at Chicago's McCormick Place. Hansberry herself led an extraordinary life, which is profiled in the . . Hansberry died of pancreatic cancer on January 12, 1965, aged 34. She used her writing to redefine difference. In 1938, after her father bought a house in the south side of Chicago, the family was subject to the wrath of their white neighbors, resulting in U.S. Supreme CourtsHansberry v. Leecase. 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. Lorraine was graceful, poised, and elegant (journalists and critics always also seemed to mention her petite frame or collegiate style), but could be icy and confrontational when the situation demandedand sometimes it was demanded. On the night before their wedding in 1953, Nemiroff and Hansberry protested against the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg in New York City. Over the next two years, Raisin was translated into 35 languages and was being performed all over the world. Our editors will review what youve submitted and determine whether to revise the article. Free shipping. She was born on May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. However, many scholars and historians believe that she may have been a closeted lesbian. Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison in the late 1940s, but she left before completing her degree. In 2017, Hansberry was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame. . She came from a well-established family where both her parents had successful careers.. 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. In her early twenties, having just arrived in New York from the Midwest, she published poems in radical journals; worked as a journalist for Freedom, a black leftist newspaper published by the. Theatre Nation Partnerships network extends to every region in England. However, the writer adopted the initials of L.H. Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois, the youngest of four children. Lorraine Hansberry, (born May 19, 1930, Chicago, Illinois, U.S.died January 12, 1965, New York, New York), American playwright whose A Raisin in the Sun (1959) was the first drama by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. . 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. The NYDCC was founded in 1935, and its first awards were given in 1936. Publisher Random House. In 1951, Hansberry joined the staff of the black newspaper Freedom, edited by Louis E. Burnham and published by Paul Robeson. She was brought up alongside three siblings. Kicks. Hansberry's writings also discussed her lesbianism and the oppression of homosexuality. Hansberrys work as a writer and activist was groundbreaking in its exploration of the experiences of African American women. Lorraine Hansberry The Member of the Wedding The Metamorphosis The Natural The Plague The Plot Against America The Portrait of a Lady The Power of Sympathy The Red Badge of Courage The Road The Road from Coorain The Sound and the Fury The Stone Angel The Stranger The Sun Also Rises The Temple of My Familiar The Three Musketeers She wrote about her experiences as a lesbian in her unpublished journals and letters. Many icons of the early African American Civil Rights Movement, e.g., Langston Hughes, visited the Hansberry home Image by Unknown Author from Wikimedia. She was also nominated for the Tony Award for Best Play, among the four Tony Awards that the play was nominated for in 1960. At Freedom, she worked with W. E. B. In 1963, Hansberry participated in a meeting with Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy, set up by James Baldwin. The restrictive covenant was ruled contestable, though not inherently invalid; these covenants were eventually ruled unconstitutional in Shelley v. Kraemer, 334 U.S. 1 (1948). Check another American writer in Lorraine Hansberry facts. Hansberry was raised in an African-American middle-class family with activist foundations. On June 20, 1953, Hansberry married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish publisher, songwriter, and political activist. She later joined Englewood High School. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her father was brave and daring enough to move his family into an all white neighborhood during tumultuous times. . Patricia and Fredrick McKissack wrote a children's biography of Hansberry, Young, Black, and Determined, in 1998. In 2013, Hansberry was inducted into the Legacy Walk, an outdoor public display that celebrates LGBT history and people. Environment & Conservation It was a critical time in the history of the civil rights movement. At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. The latter's legal efforts to force the Hansberry family out culminated in the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940). She admonished the Kennedy administration to be more active in addressing the problem of segregation in the community. Dana Hanson-Firestone has extensive professional writing experience including technical and report writing, informational articles, persuasive articles, contrast and comparison, grant applications, and advertisement. She also enjoys creative writing, content writing on nearly any topic, because as a lifelong learner, she loves research. All mourned her premature death. Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1930. She was an anti-colonialist before independence had been won in Africa and the Caribbean.. Fact 1: The one fact you might already know! She was also a lesbian who kept her sexual preference as classified information, not able to come out during the tumultuous era in which basic human rights were denied on a regular basis, for certain groups of people in society. She was also the youngest playwright and the first Black winner of the prestigious Drama Critic's Circle Award for Best Play. Biography. The fascinating facts about Lorraine Hansberry following illustrate her development as a Black woman, activist, and writer. And how amazing that she had already accomplished so much. Risking public censure and process of being outed to the larger community, she joined the Daughters of Bilitis, a lesbian organization, and submitted letters and short stories to queer publications Ladder and ONE. Politics & Current Events 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.". Perry explains that though the term radical has negative associations, for Lorraine, American radicalism was both a passion and a commitment. Date of first publication 1959. In 1969, Nina Simone first released a song about Hansberry called "To Be Young, Gifted and Black." Image by Eden, Janine and Jim from Wikimedia. Among the likes: her homosexuality, Eartha Kitt, and that first drink of Scotch. . Later, an FBI reviewer of Raisin in the Sun highlighted its Pan-Africanist themes as "dangerous". Also in 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. 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. . She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Race & Ethnicity in America She is best known for writing "A Raisin in the Sun," the first play by a Black woman produced on Broadway. Written and completed in 1957, A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre on March 11, 1959, becoming the first play by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway. 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. . This made her the first Chicago native to be honored along the North Halsted corridor. In 1952, Hansberry attended a peace conference in Montevideo, Uruguay, in place of Robeson, who had been denied travel rights by the State Department. 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 1961, the play was made into a movie. ", In a Town Hall debate on June 15, 1964, Hansberry criticized white liberals who could not accept civil disobedience, expressing a need to "encourage the white liberal to stop being a liberal and become an American radical." Taken from us far too soon. For local insights and insiders travel tips that you wont find anywhere else, search any keywords in the top right-hand toolbar on this page. Due to racial differences, Lorraine and her family faced racism when she was just eight. In 1944, she graduated from Betsy Ross Elementary. 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. She spoke out against discrimination and prejudice in all forms, including homophobia and transphobia. Written by Oscar Brown, Jr., the show featured an interracial cast including Lonnie Sattin, Nichelle Nichols, Vi Velasco, Al Freeman, Jr., Zabeth Wilde, and Burgess Meredith in the title role of Mr. 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.". She was best known for her play A Raisin in the Sun, which highlighted the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. 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. . 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. 'The Black Revolution and the White Backlash . Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1930. Lorraine used the theater to share her views. Fact 9: This isnt a major life milestone of Lorraines, but its too fascinating not to include it!) Her best-known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of black Americans in Chicago living under racial segregation. 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. She was also a civil rights activist and a member of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE). . 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. In 2002, scholar Molefi Kete Asante listed Hansberry in the biographical dictionary 100 Greatest African Americans. In 1969 a selection of her writings, adapted by Robert Nemiroff (to whom Hansberry was married from 1953 to 1964), was produced on Broadway as To Be Young, Gifted, and Black and was published in book form in 1970. Emily Powersjoined Beacon in 2016 after three years at Cornell University Press. Your email address will not be published. I saw it on Broadway, its an excellent play and homage to Lorraine Hansberry! In the same year, her second play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, was released on Broadway but was unable to become a major hit. $26.95. While working as a part-time waitress and cashier, Hansberry worked as the writer and associate editor of the black newspaper, Freedom, from 1950 to 1953 under Paul Robeson. She was also the youngest playwright and the first Black winner of the prestigious Drama Critics Circle Awardfor Best Play. She is a graduate of Le Moyne College. Lorraine Hansberry was 28 when she met James Baldwin, 34 at the time. On June 9, 2022, the Lilly Awards Foundation unveiled a statue of Hansberry in Times Square. Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was born on this day, May 19. Download Our Free Black Liberation eBook Bundle! View more property details, sales history and Zestimate data on Zillow. Hansberry was a critic of existentialism, which she considered too distant from the world's economic and geopolitical realities. :). To celebrate the newspaper's first birthday, Hansberry wrote the script for a rally at Rockland Palace, a then-famous Harlem hall, on "the history of the Negro newspaper in America and its fighting role in the struggle for a people's freedom, from 1827 to the birth of FREEDOM." Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin-Madison but left before completing her degree to pursue a career as a writer. 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. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. According to historian Fanon Che Wilkins, "Hansberry believed that gaining civil rights in the United States and obtaining independence in colonial Africa were two sides of the same coin that presented similar challenges for Africans on both sides of the Atlantic." 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. A Contemporary Theatre (ACT) was their first incubator and in 2012 they became an independent organization. Lorraine Hansberrys father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was involved in the Supreme Court case. Lorraine Hansberry is best known as the playwright of A Raisin In The Sun, the groundbreaking play about a working class African-American family on the South Side of Chicago that illustrates how the American Dream is limited for Black Americans.The play is widely hailed as one of the greatest-ever achievements in theater. 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. Du Bois, who served as one of her mentors. Biography & MemoirDisability Fact 8: Though she married a man, Lorraine identified as a lesbian. Even though her disease brought her career to an abrupt halt, Lorraine Hansberry continues to be remembered through the paintings and writings which she worked on in the early years of her career. She identified as a lesbian and thought about LGBT organizing before there was a gay rights movement. The familys home was frequently visited by prominent African American leaders, such as W.E.B. 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. 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 (May 19, 1930-January 12, 1965) was a playwright, essayist, and civil rights activist. Lincoln University's first-year female dormitory is named Lorraine Hansberry Hall. Upon his ex-wife's death, Robert Nemiroff donated all of Hansberry's personal and professional effects to the New York Public Library.