Читать книгу Freedom Facts and Firsts - Jessie Carney Smith - Страница 40

Although Lorraine Hansberry had a short life, her fight for black civil rights and against racism and discrimination were reflected in her work and left a lasting impression on the overall struggle of blacks in America. Hansberry was confronted with racism early in her life. Her family moved to a white neighborhood when she was only eight years old. It was there that she experienced the physical violence and hatred associated with white supremacy and segregationist ideas. Because of this attack on her family, her father filed an anti-segregation case that was heard by the Illinois Supreme Court. In spite of Hansberry’s victory in the court case, they were continually subjected to a hostile environment. This experience was the basis for Hansberry’s 1959 play, A Raisin in the Sun.

The play is about a black family in Chicago who deals with their own dreams and hopes against a barrier of racism when they choose to buy a home and move to a white suburb. The play opened in 1959 and was a huge success; it brought attention to Hansberry as the first female African American playwright whose work was produced on Broadway. The play was later produced as a film in 1961. The Civil Rights Movement at this time had become intense, and Hansberry began to take a more active role in it. She was a field organizer for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) and helped plan fund raising events for the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and other organizations.

Even though she was diagnosed with cancer of the pancreas in 1963, Hansberry continued to lend her support to the movement. She joined with artists such as James Baldwin, Harry Belafonte, and Lena Horne in a rally to raise funds for the SNCC. She left her sickbed to give a speech to the winners of the United Negro College Fund and attended a town hall debate challenging whites’ criticism of the militant direction of the Civil Rights Movement. Hansberry died in 1965 at the young age to of 34, but her contribution to the movement offered a clear reflection of the challenges of being black in America.

Lean’tin L. Bracks

Hughes became a voice in the Harlem Renaissance … that called for race pride and artistic independence.