Lorraine Hansberry became the first black
woman to have a play produced on
Broadway when A Raisin in the Sun opened
in 1959. She was the youngest American
playwright and the first African-American to
win the prestigious New York Drama Critics
Circle Award for best play.

Hansberry lived here at 5936 South Parkway
(now King Drive) while attending Englewood
High School. Her parents were prominent
activists, and their home was a mecca for
African-American leaders in the arts and politics, including Duke Ellington, Paul Robeson, and Langston Hughes. Her family's earlier move to a white neighborhood, and their subsequent legal battle against restrictive real estate covenants, would inspire the play A Raisin in the Sun.

Hansberry moved to New York in 1950. There she worked at Freedom, the progressive newspaper founded by Robeson. She began writing plays soon after her marriage to songwriter Robert Nemiroff.

Lorraine Hansberry's life was cut short by cancer in 1965. Her other works, many published after her death, include The Sign in Sidney Brustein's Window, Les Blancs, The Drinking Gourd, What Use Are Flowers? and the autobiographical To Be Young, Gifted, and Black.