Raisin in the Sun, A

At the heart of Hansberry's 'A Raisin in the Sun' is the universal message of the desire for social progress amid the differing opinions on how to achieve it.

This primary source set includes photographs, documents, and news footage that provide context for the challenges characters face in the play.

The play debuted in 1959 and made Hansberry the first African American woman dramatist produced on Broadway, and its tensions unfold as the United States worked to convince people of color that they would never be at home.

Deeply committed to the African-American struggle for equality and human rights, Lorraine Hansberry's brilliant career as a writer was cut short by her death when she was only 35. A Raisin in the Sun was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. It won the New York Drama Critics Circle Award - Hansberry was the youngest and the first black writer to receive this award.

On an Important American Writer, About Whom We Know Far Too Little

Hansberry's 1959 success with Raisin gave her a prominent voice in the struggle for black liberation. She delivered this speech at the Town Hall forum in 1964. The memory of her father's failure to shake segregation through legal means shaped her plea for action. Having tried "respectable" ways to battle injustice, she said, it was time to get radical.