The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre is named after the acclaimed playwright of "A Raisin in the Sun". She wrote the play while living in Bay Area. Since being founded in 1981, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre has mounted productions that have included performances by Ruby Dee, Ossie Davis, Danny Glover and Ntozake Shange. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre is the first African-American arts institution to be located in downtown San Francisco. For 30 years, The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre has celebrated the African-American experience - an American experience - on stage in the San Francisco Bay Area. Described as the
A Raisin in the Sun was so low among white buyers that Mr. Hansberry may have been the only prospective purchaser available. Lorraine reflects upon the litigation in her book "To Be Young, Gifted, and Black": "Twenty-five years ago, [my father] spent a small personal fortune, his considerable talents, and many years of his life fighting, in association with NAACP attorneys, Chicago’s ‘restrictive covenants’ in one of this nation's ugliest ghettos. That fight also required our family to occupy disputed property in a hellishly hostile ‘white neighborhood’ in which literally howling mobs surrounded our house. ... My memories of this ‘correct’ way of fighting white