To Be Young, Gifted and Black (play) which she eventually died at 34. The play was well received and was one of the most successful plays off-Broadway during the 1968–1969 season. The play is still anthologized and performed around the world. The autobiography adapted from the play was also critically acclaimed. To Be Young, Gifted and Black (play) "To Be Young, Gifted and Black: Lorraine Hansberry in her Own Words", was written by Lorraine Hansberry, an American writer best known for her 1957 play "A Raisin in the Sun", a play that made Hansberry the first black author of a show on Broadway. After her death in
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