June 28th, 2018

The resurrection of Lorraine Hansberry

“A Raisin in the Sun” has become a classic play about black family life. Its prominent status is so secure that many blacks simply take its position for granted. Little is generally known about its author, Lorraine Hansberry. Too many African Americans have all but lost critical awareness of this important historical link.

That hiatus has now been corrected. Tracy Heather Strain and Randall MacLowry, two highly skilled film makers, have produced a documentary on Lorraine Hansberry. The film focuses on Hansberry’s early life and the challenges she faced in getting her play into a major theatre in New York.

On March 11, 1959, “A Raisin in the Sun” became the first black theatre production, other than a musical, to open on Broadway. The play provided some insight into the travails of black family life, and it also launched Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee into more prominent theatrical roles than those normally available for blacks.

While the difficulties confronted by the black stage family were indeed substantial, they were not at all as dramatic as the lives of the Hansberry family. The film entitled “Sighted Eyes and Feeling Heart” tells the story of the Hansberrys, and how Lorraine became a journalist, a militant and a playwright. The story is so captivating and well produced that two hours passed in a flash.

Her family left Mississippi for the better opportunities available for blacks in Chicago. Her father became a successful realtor, but his house was stoned when he violated the racial restrictions and bought a house for his family just over the dividing line. His militancy induced his daughter Lorraine to become a militant journalist.

When she turned to writing fiction, she produced “A Raisin in the Sun,” her first play. It first played in New Haven, then Philadelphia, before it became a hit on Broadway. The Hansberry documentary records that process. Since Hansberry died in 1965 at the young age of 34, her very important contributions to the progress of African Americans would have been lost without the Strain and MacLowry documentary.

arts, black history