Lorraine Hansberry House

“A Raisin in the Sun was brought the exploration of the black experience to American theater. Literary critic Margaret Wilkerson emphasized the importance of Hansberry's pioneering drama in the context of African-American art saying, “because the racial experience was so authentically portrayed, blacks found a new voice and created a vital, provocative theater movement in the next decade." On March 11, 1959, A Raisin in the Sun opened at the Ethel Barrymore Theatre in New York City and immediately elicited praise from both audiences and critics.”

“The Lorraine Hansberry House demonstrates and commemorates the Chicago Black Renaissance literary movement, the interconnected effort by artists, writers, scholars, and activists to promote the study of black history, art and politics, to inform social protest against racism and discrimination in the years leading to the modern Civil Rights era.”

“The United States Supreme Court's resulting 1940 decision in Hansberry v. Lee was seen locally as an important victory in the effort to outlaw racially-discriminatory covenants in housing.”

“In 1963 Lorraine Hansberry became very active in the civil rights movement in the South. Along with Harry Belefonte, Lena Horne, and James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry met with the then-United States Attorney General Robert Kennedy to challenge the administration's position on civil rights.”

“Whether Hansberry would have identified as a lesbian as we understand the term today, she was an early supporter of equal rights regardless of sexual orientation, and she did belong to the country's first-ever lesbian political organization and is known to have contributed letters in 1957 to the Ladder, an early lesbian publication.”

“With the assistance of the Chicago branch of the NAACP and attorney Earl B. Dickerson, Hansberry appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. The 1940 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Hansberry v.”

“The struggle of Hansberry's characters to secure decent housing in the face of blatant discrimination closely echoes the trauma that Hansberry's own family endured as part of a legal battle that ensued after her father, Carl Hansberry, purchased a brick apartment building at 6140 S. Rhodes Avenue.”

“This three-story dark brown brick building is accented with stone trim and features simplified Classical-style details. A projecting bay and front porch distinguish the building's front façade. The Hansberrys moved into the building at 6140 S. Rhodes Avenue in May 1937.”

“On June 3, 1937, Anna Lee, a property owner in the neighborhood and member of the Woodlawn Property Owners Association, filed suit for an injunction against the Hansberrys, claiming that their occupancy of the property violated a restrictive covenant attached to it.”