Lorraine Hansberry
(1930–1965)

Lorraine Hansberry was born and raised in Chicago, Illinois. After high school, Hansberry studied art for two years before moving to New York City. She became a reporter for the radical magazine Freedom. This job began her involvement in the civil rights struggle. She later became an associate editor, but abandoned the magazine to pursue a playwriting career. While working at several jobs, she wrote A Raisin in the Sun. In 1959, this play became the first by an African American woman to be produced on Broadway. The play, starring Sidney Poitier, was a phenomenal success. It earned her a New York Drama Critics Circle Award for best American play in that same year. Hansberry was the youngest American and the first African American to win this prestigious award.

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