1. To Be Young Gifted and Black
The Life of Lorraine Hansberry & Introduction to A Raisin in the Sun
by Cam Matthews (Modified by Kael Moffat) 1

2. Hansberry Childhood Born May 19, 1930 Grew up in Chicago’s Southside
Youngest of 4 children
Father was a successful real estate broker
Relatively wealthy by neighborhood standards 2

3. Early Experiences At 8 moved into a hostile white neighborhood
Her father in conjunction with the NAACP was protesting against “restrictive covenants” that segregated housing.
Hansberry v. Lee, 311 U.S. 32 (1940)—Supreme Court case that her father was involved in that challenged laws that enforced segregation.
He won the case, but they later moved out of the white neighborhood because of prejudicial behavior by the white kids and neighbors. 3

4. Education Chicago public schools for first through senior year
Showed an early talent for writing and drawing
Later attended University of Wisconsin and The New School for Social Research in New York
Became editor of Freedom, a journal for African Americans 4

5. Adult Life Married Robert Nemiroff, a Jewish student
Began to write plays after seeing a play about African Americans by a white writer that bothered her:
“I suddenly became disgusted with the whole body of material about Negroes. Cardboard characters. Cute dialogue bits. Or hip-swinging musicals from exotic scores.”
-Lorraine Hansberry

6. A Raisin in the Sun
Instant success when it opened in 1959; (opened in New Haven, CT in January, then on Broadway in New York in March)
Marked the beginning of a vigorous black theater movement
Directed by Lloyd Richards; cast included Sidney Poiter, Claudia McNeil, Diana Sands, Ruby Dee, and Louis Gossett (all very important African American actors)
Won the New York Drama Critics Award (at 29 she was the youngest person and first black playwright to ever win this award) 6

7. Hansberry on the Play
“Mama, it's a play that tells the truth about people, Negroes, and life and I think it will help a lot of people to understand how we are just as complicated as they are—and just as mixed up—but above all, that we have among our miserable and downtrodden ranks—people who are the very essense of human dignity. That is what, after all the laughter and the tears, the play is supposed to say.”
-Lorraine Hansberry in a January 19, 1959 letter to her mother

8. Important Themes
A family play—focusing on the most intense and basic human relationships
What is the value of dreams or aspirations?
Can money really bring happiness?
Do we live just for ourselves? 8

9. Other Plays and Her Death
The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window opened 3 weeks before she died.
Died of cancer at 34
To Be Young Gifted and Black (collection of letters, journal entries, speeches, and play excerpts) published in 1969 9

10. Play named after lines from a poem by Langston Hughes, one of the greatest African American poets of all time.
Harlem
What happens to a dream deferred?
Does it dry up
Like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore—
And then run”
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over —
Like a syrupy sweet?
Maybe it just sags
Like a heavy load.
Or does it explode?

11. Mid-Century African American Art
Harlem Renaissance--from the 1920s through the early 1960s
Flowering in popularity and quality of African- American art and music
Artists tried to communicate the pain and hopelessness of being on the losing end of racism.
They also tried to communicate optimism and hope that things could get better!

12. Jacob Lawrence Born in New Jersey & painted in New York
Tried to “Americanize” African art techniques

13. Jacob Lawrence II
Important concept for him was Northern Migration— African Americans moving up from the South

14. 1950s Jazz
Music of protest
Black jazz musicians had mixed feelings about all the white money in the jazz world.
They played in popular “swing” bands to make money, but after hours played in smaller “bebop” bands.
Made music they thought white people wouldn’t like or wouldn’t “get”
Bebop is about two things:
Showing off “chops” or skill
Letting out anger and negative feelings about life
Eventually, many white musicians did get it and were sympathetic with black struggles for civil rights!

15. Review of Play Structure
Plays are meant to be performed, not read silently.
Radio plays were meant to be heard
Stage plays and screen plays are meant to be both seen and heard.
Plays are divided into acts and scenes.
Scenes are shorter than acts and usually focus on 1-2 incidents
Acts are longer and focus on important bits of action or different times or locations
A Raisin in the Sun has three acts