Lorraine Hansberry
Writer
May 19, 1930 — January 12, 1965 (34 years)
Lorraine Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her family challenged legal segregation, giving rise to the Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee. This might have inspired Hansberry to accomplish a first: The opening of A Raisin in the Sun on Broadway on March 11, 1959, which was adapted to screenplay form for two feature films. No black female author had done the former before. The play's storyline about the Youngers, a black family trying out an integrationist vision of life in spite of societal racism, resonates with Hansberry's father's legal battle from a decade earlier. Although Hansberry had many writings published and wrote other plays, The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window was her only other play that got a production during her life. In 1963, Hansberry received a diagnosis of pancreatic cancer, leading to her untimely death at the age of 34.
Filmography
| 2021 | You Look Familiar: Vernée Watson · as SelfOn Plex |
| 2017 | Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart · as Self (archive Footage) |
| 2016 | I Am Not Your Negro · as Self |
| 2015 | What Happened, Miss Simone? · as Self |
| 1996 | |
| 1978 | Black Theatre: The Making of a Movement · as Self (archive Footage) |
| 2020 | |
| 1972 | |
| 1964 | |
| 1961 | A Raisin in the Sun · as Screenplay |
| 2014 | A Raisin in the Sun · as Play |
| 2008 | A Raisin in the Sun · as Theatre Play |
| 1980 | American Playhouse · as Theatre Play |
| 1954 | Camera Three · as Writings |