Lorriane+Hansberry+bio

__ Lorraine Hansberry Biography __

__Sources__ http://kirjasto.sci.fi/corhans.htm http://www.nndb.com/people/101/000113759/ http://www.biography.com/people/lorraine-hansberry-9327823 Mrs. Messer's materials
 * Lorraine Hansberry lived from 1930 to 1965 and enjoyed financial prosperity when many many African Americans in the US didn't.
 * Carl Hansberry, Lorraine Hansberry's father, was a powerful role model for Lorraine.
 * At a young age, Lorraine had an intrest in her background and in Africa.
 * A brick was thrown in Hansberry's window and nearly hit her after they moved to a white community. Her father went to court about this and won.
 * During her years in University of Wisconsin, Lorraine was inspired by the play //Juno and the Paycock// by Sean O'Casey, she later developed an interest in drama
 * Dropped out of college in 1950 and moved to New York and worked for //Freedom// a racial black magazine. During that time, she met the famous African American poet, Langston Huges, whose work had greatly influenced her life.
 * Lorraine Hansberry met her future husband at a picket line protesting.
 * Robert Nemiroff, from a well cultured, well-established, and finacially secured Russian-Jewish family married Lorraine in 1953
 * The play, //A Raisin in the Sun,// by Lorraine Hansberry opened in Chicago in 1959 and later went on to New York. The title comes from a poem by Langston Hughes called //A Dream Deferred//. The original title of //A Rasin in the Sun// was actually '//The Crystal Stair//' after a line in a different poem by Langston Hughes.
 * 1959, Lorraine became the first African American to receive the prestigious New York Drama Critics Circle Award.
 * Her play, //A Raisin in the Sun,// became the first play to be written by an African-American woman to be aired on Broadway.
 * In 1963, Lorraine became active in the civil rights movement in the South.
 * She completed her second play, //The Sign In Sidney Brustein's Window//, in 1964.
 * In 1965, Hansberry died from pancreatic cancer when she was only 35 years old.