Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
‘Radiant and Radical’
Author illuminates life of playwright Lorraine Hansberry
WHEN her play “A Raisin in the Sun” premiered on Broadway in March 1959, Lorraine Hansberry received “what one critic called a tremendous personal ovation when audience and cast called her to the stage for repeated curtain calls,” the Tribune reported at the time.
The Chicago native was just 28 when she became the first black woman to have a play produced on Broadway. “A Raisin in the Sun,” which centers on a black American family living on the South Side of Chicago, was immediately hailed by The New York Times as having “vigor as well as veracity” and “likely to destroy the complacency of anyone who sees it.”
Imani Perry, a Philadelphia resident and Princeton University’s Hughes-Rogers professor of African-American studies, considers Hansberry her muse. As a child who spent her summers in Chicago, Perry was exposed to the playwright’s work at a young age; as Perry grew, so did her admiration of Hansberry — which is why, Perry said, she wrote her new book, “Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry.”
“She’s really interesting because she’s such a singular figure: the most widely read black woman playwright in American history, the most widely produced black woman playwright in American history,” Perry said. “She lived a short life, but was extraordinarily accomplished, and there’s relatively little that has been written about her in comparison to her contemporaries and closest friends, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone.
“She was the product of (a) variety of communities — black Chicago, the Greenwich Village crowd — she’s this person who really pulled together so many identities and experiences, and I think through her we can understand (not only) so much about 20th-century American history, but also … the pressing social issues of today.”
The Tribune talked with
Perry about the complexity of Hansberry’s creative scope and what she would think of our current political climate. Hansberry, who died at 34 in 1965 of pancreatic cancer, wrote about policing and race, using her platform to challenge inequality and racism. Perry quotes Hansberry:
“I think the daily press lulls the white community falsely in dismissing the rising temper of the ghetto and what will surely come of it. The nation presumes upon the citizenship of the Negro but is oblivious to the fact that it must confer citizenship before it can expect reciprocity. Until twenty million black people are completely interwoven into the fabric of our society, you see, they are under no obligation to behave as if they were. What I am saying is that whether we like the word or not, the condition of our people dictates what can only be called revolutionary attitudes.”
Perry said she hopes her book will be an invitation to delve further into Hansberry’s life.
“How many biographies do we have about Abraham Lincoln or Frederick Douglass or James Baldwin? She deserves a lot of work,” Perry said.
Tribune: Do you think Hansberry would be saddened by the current political and racial climate?
Perry: I think she would be outraged at the moment we’re in. I think she would be incredibly outspoken. She would be someone who would advocate being in the street, in the courthouse, in the voting booth, in every possible way in this moment. I don’t think she would necessarily think that we would be further along; she understood how trenchant inequality and racism are in our society.
What was the most remarkable thing you found out about her?
I will say the thing that most surprised me was how prolific she was. She just produced so much work in a relatively short life and she was so incredibly well-read. She wasn’t just a genius as a playwright; she was a hardcore intellectual. I didn’t really have a sense of that. The other piece was being in her papers and letters; seeing her vulnerability and her places of insecurity was profound. We think of these figures so often — these great figures in history — in sort of iconic ways, and she was very real, very vulnerable.
Who’s picking up the mantle that Hansberry left behind?
I don’t know if I could identify a singular person, but I do think there are organizations and individuals who are asking the kinds of questions that she asked. I think of a playwright like Lynn Nottage, a novelist like Jesmyn Ward, an activist like Charlene Carruthers of the Black Youth Project. They’re people who I think are really sort of descendants of her, intellectually and politically and artistically.
What else should we know about Hansberry?
I think it’s really important to say that Hansberry is someone who didn’t finish college and struggled academically. James Baldwin (struggled) similarly. I think it is important to tell young people that academic success is wonderful, but it’s not the only way to cultivate your mind or to become excellent and those types of models. We need to have them and to acknowledge them in that way, because we have kids who think that they are stupid because they struggle in school. There are these models, geniuses, for whom that institution didn’t necessarily work, but that didn’t get in the way of their intellectual development.
Lorraine Hansberry lived a short life, but was extraordinarily accomplished, and there’s relatively little that has been written about her in comparison to her contemporaries and closest friends, like James Baldwin and Nina Simone.
Imani Perry