Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes—Feeling Heart

Aired on PBS’s American Masters series, filmmaker Tracy Heather Strain’s biographical documentary chronicles the remarkable life of Lorraine Hansberry, a black writer/artist, profound thinker, social activist, and compassionate individual. Hansberry grew up on the south side of Chicago following the first World War. Watching her father’s struggles to use the legal system to improve conditions for black Americans affected her thinking, and she chose writing as her own way to fight for racial and social justice. After two years of college, Hansberry moved to Harlem, joined the Communist Party, and worked for the Freedom newspaper—editing, writing, and collaborating with other activists in the 1950s. She married a Jewish man from her Youth League and resettled in Greenwich Village, where she turned to playwriting and wrote A Raisin in the Sun (1959), which centered on a black family in Chicago trying to achieve the American Dream. The play won the New York Drama Critics Award and became an instant success on Broadway—starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee, who also appeared in the acclaimed 1961 film version. Hansberry continued to work on other plays but grew ill in 1963. Although she wanted to take a more active role in the growing Civil Rights movement, she was able to write the text for the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s album The Movement. Hansberry was only 34 when she passed away in 1965. Interviewees including Poitier and Harry Belafonte pay tribute to Hansberry’s passion for justice and her artistic ability to capture the experience of black life in mid-20th-century racially-divided America. Highly recommended. Editor’s Choice. Aud: H, C, P. (T. Root)