Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Hansberry Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was an African-American playwright and writer. Hansberry was the first black female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play "A Raisin in the Sun", highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant and eventually provoking the Supreme Court case "Hansberry v. Lee". The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like
A Raisin in the Sun a bombing. Her lines are employed as comic relief, but Hansberry also uses this scene to mock those who are too scared to stand up for their rights. In the introduction by Robert B. Nemiroff he writes that the scene is included in print because it draws attention away from a seemingly happy ending to a more violent reality inspired by Hansberry's own experiences. Experiences in this play echo a lawsuit ("Hansberry v. Lee", 311 U.S. 32 (1940)), to which the playwright Lorraine Hansberry's family was a party when they fought to have their day in court because a previous