Lorraine Vivian Hansberry (1930-1965) was an important American writer and a major figure on Broadway. Although her reputation grew with the posthumous publication of a range of works, she remained best known for the play and movie A Raisin in the Sun.

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born May 19, 1930, in Chicago, Illinois. Her father, Carl A. Hansberry, was prominent in Chicago's African American business and political community. He owned real estate, generously supported African American causes, and ran for Congress as a Republican; her mother, Nanny Perry Hansberry, taught school and also was active in politics. The Hansberry home, where Lorraine was the youngest of four children, was often visited by famous African Americans.

In 1938 the Hansberrys moved into a white neighborhood that excluded African Americans through the then widely used restrictive covenants. Carl Hansberry, while resisting attacks on his home and family from neighborhood hoodlums, took his case...