Lorraine Hansberry: A Black Woman Playwright

1. Lorraine Hansberry: A Black Woman Playwright By: Rachel Quesenberry

2. Three Accomplishments -During the time Hansberry was studying at the Jefferson School for Social Sciences, she was a writer for Paul Robeson’s Freedom Magazine. -Her first play was produced in 1959: A Raisin in the Sun and was performed on Broadway on March 11th. -She received an award for A Raisin in the Sun: “New York’s Drama Critics Circle best play of the year”.

3. Motivation Growing up, Hansberry always was criticized for wanting to be a writer. People always told her it was foolish for a black woman to pursue a career like that, let alone attend college. Even as a young girl, she was always judged for the type of person she wanted to be. Hansberry had been spanked once for sticking up for herself when her teacher called her “stupid” in the fourth grade for saying she wanted to be a poet. All this unsupportive feedback is what inspired Hansberry to work so hard. She knew that if she was white, things would be so much different. That alone should speak for itself why she wanted to write; she wanted things to change for her and anyone like her. Life was very unfair for African Americans and things needed to change!

4. One Influential Contemporary Hansberry studied African Culture and History with W.E.B. DuBois at the Jefferson School for Social Sciences. Her and DuBois got along very well. He encouraged and inspired her to keep pursuing her career.

5. Works Cited http://www.duboislc.org/html/DuBoisBio.html http://comminfo.rutgers.edu/~cybers/hansberry2.html http://www.csustan.edu/english/Reuben/pal/Chap8/hansberry.html