Lorraine Hansberry, American author, playwright, and director (b. 1936)
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (May 19, 1930 – January 12, 1965) was a playwright and writer. She was the first African-American female author to have a play performed on Broadway. Her best known work, the play A Raisin in the Sun, highlights the lives of Black Americans living under racial segregation in Chicago. The title of the play was taken from the poem "Harlem" by Langston Hughes: "What happens to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun?" At the age of 29, she won the New York Drama Critics' Circle Award — making her the first African-American dramatist, the fifth woman, and the youngest playwright to do so. Hansberry's family had struggled against segregation, challenging a restrictive covenant in the 1940 US Supreme Court case Hansberry v. Lee.
After she moved to New York City, Hansberry worked at the Pan-Africanist newspaper Freedom, where she worked with other intellectuals such as Paul Robeson and W. E. B. Du Bois. Much of her work during this time concerned the African struggles for liberation and their impact on the world. Hansberry's writings also discussed her lesbianism and the oppression of homosexuality. She died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 34. Hansberry inspired the Nina Simone song, "To Be Young, Gifted and Black", whose title-line came from Hansberry's autobiographical play.
1965Jan, 12
Lorraine Hansberry
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Events on 1965
- 8Mar
Vietnam War
Thirty-five hundred United States Marines are the first American land combat forces committed during the Vietnam War. - 15Mar
Voting Rights Act
President Lyndon B. Johnson, responding to the Selma crisis, tells U.S. Congress "We shall overcome" while advocating the Voting Rights Act. - 6Aug
Voting Rights Act of 1965
US President Lyndon B. Johnson signs the Voting Rights Act of 1965 into law. - 27Nov
Lyndon B. Johnson
Vietnam War: The Pentagon tells U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson that if planned operations are to succeed, the number of American troops in Vietnam has to be increased from 120,000 to 400,000. - 28Nov
Ferdinand Marcos
Vietnam War: In response to U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson's call for "more flags" in Vietnam, Philippine President-elect Ferdinand Marcos announces he will send troops to help fight in South Vietnam.