Lorraine Hansburry

Lorraine Hansburry was born into a family with a legacy of education and determination. The starting point of Hansburry's family history is her paternal great grandfather, the child of a slave and her master. Born as a slave, William Hansburry could both read and write, which was extraordinary at the time, considering that educating a slave was illegal in most states during the 1850s.At the age of 15, William retrieved family treasure, which he had helped to bury, and used it to slow

Lorraine's story was not a particularly common one, and because of her upbringing, and the autobiographical air that many of her works took, Hansburry’s writing presented images of intelligent, determined African American people, rather than domestic help. She looked at writing as permitting a person to " abstract his awareness of the world and transmit his feelings about it to his fellows…¦ that may be the most extraordinary accomplishment in the universe for all we know." While living in Harlem, Lorraine wrote for Paul Robeson's publication "Freedom". She used her articles as a vehicle to inform African Americans about issues ignored by the mainstream, as well as a reflection of her love of art, African history, and freedom for all colored people, and the influence of Robeson and Dubois. In one article for Freedom, Hansburry denounced Amos & Andy, calling it "Negroes cast in the same old roles". She wrote " the longer the concept of the half-idiot subhuman can be kept up, the easier to justify economic, and every other kind of discrimination, so rampant in this country." In an effort to provide a more positive and inspiring image of African American people she wrote a collection of stories about African American Heroes, creating an alternative to the aforementioned "half-idiot subhuman". Hansburry's first play to make it to Broadway was named after a line in a Langston Hughes poem- "A Raison in the Sun". It was based on her family's experience of deciding to relocate to an all white area, considering the challenges the decision may bring. "The night that "A Raison in the Sun" premiered on Broadway the history books were rewritten, and a lot of stereotypes about blacks were dimmed, i

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