Teach-in Thursday: Lorraine Hansberry

the imprint of the one and only Lorraine Handsbury. And I know every time Doc and I do a teacher in Thursday where we're talking about an individual, it is always the one and only, because really they are the one and only there at the top of their game, top of their class, they made they left an indelible mark on this world. And there's a cloud of witnesses for people like this, and Lorraine Handsbury is right in

there now. She wrote a Raisin in the Sun, a play about a struggling black family, and this is how she came into prominence. I think she was the youngest and the first black black woman or just black person. Doc, I forget the distinction to win the prestigious New York Critics Circle Award, which was really a big deal. But Raising in the Sun is not her only work, but it is the work that she is best known for, and it's about a struggling black family which opened and

that opened on Broadway, which was all the rage. Even today, Raising in the Sun is still quite a classic Sidney Poitier played, Yeah, yeah, yeah. If you have not seen The Raisin in the Sun or and or read read the book, you definitely need to do it. She's the granddaughter of freed enslaved person, the youngest by seven years of four children. Lorraine Vivie and Hansbury was born on

May nineteen, That's also Minister Malcolm X's birthday. To doc, she was born on May nineteen, nineteen thirty, and she left this plane of existence on January of twelve, nineteen sixty five. She was born in Shottown and she died in New York. So I'm setting that up for you. I'm setting that layup for you. Lorraine Hansbury.

Marie Evans, the first public speaker. And Lorraine Hansbury, of course takes the play to the highest level in the saying which same way in which Tony Morrison takes it to the highest level, the same way in which the first wave of blues artists at the highest level of mul Rainey and Bessie Smith. So that we brothers, you know, we've done some magnificent things, but we are part of a tradition that has been dominated both as pioneers and

as culminating points by black women. And Lorraine Hansbury and just takes Let people take a look at here. This is who we're talking about. She'd be dead at thirty four years old and produced more than most people in a lifetime. And of course I got I didn't want to lose and miss out Gwendolyn Brooks at the poetry at the point I'm making as well, but to die at thirty four years old. She died January twelfth, nineteen sixty five, was the last funeral that Malcolm X attended.

He was on the front row. Paul Robinson gave the eulogies the only time that Paul Robinson met Malcolm X, and Malcolm was very, very eager to meet Paul Roberson. But our dear sister was in the coffin at that particular church in Harlem in January nineteen sixty five. Malcolm, of course would die the next month. Both born the same day, but five years apart, uncome twenty five, she

in nineteen thirty. So that when we're talking about Lorraine Hansbury, you're talking about this great, great wave in a grand, grand ocean. You mentioned her father, Carl, who was quite an activist, ended up in Mexico because of the racism in America, because of him his attempt to move into a white neighborhood and the ugly response, even gunshots cutting through the windows of his family. Nanny, his wife, who

was Lorraine's mother, was also quite an activist. So Lorraine grew up in a context where she met du Boys when she was very young. She met Rose when she was very young, she met Duke was very young. She was like you and I in terms of just growing up in an ordinary black neighborhood, in the ordinary black church, in a black community. She actually had access to these

giants as a very young person. She never went to college, but the college went through her Toversity of Wisconsin and then made her way up spending time in Mexico to New York to be a writer. So she has a special kind of calling. She had genius, and she had, as you noted before, commitment to writing, and especially in her twenties. She writes and Raisin in the sun, I mean that's and you're so right. She wrote many other

praise LeBlanc's a critique of African colonialism. She wrote sign in Sydney Brusting's Window, which are no black characters at all, just all white and Jewish folk. She wrote, what's the use of flowers? Was the critique of waiting for the Beckett. She wrote a whole host of plays and essays to be Young, Gifted in Black, which is her collection of essays. It was just a classic, all before she thirty four

years old. I keep coming back to that because she was so invested, she was so involved, She was willing to sacrifice to do what she was put here to do, put her pen to paper, and when she did. The world was shaken.

we come forward, we'll continue our conversation. So glad again that you are here with us on this teach in Thursday on Truth Time with doctor Cornell West and Nina Turner. If you've missed any part of not only Teaching Thursdays, but any of our daily shows, make sure you download the Kate BLA fifteen eighty app. You gotta do that, the KBLA Talk fifteen eighty app. And wherever you get

your podcast, you can catch us and our colleagues. The whole network is just teeming with brilliance and you can watch us, or you can catch us on YouTube too, or the two. As my grandson likes to say. We're talking about Lorraine Hansbury, a playwright, a leader through through through the through the not just the written word, but having her works come to life on stage, which is indeed a beautiful thing. En it up self. She made history winning the New York Critics Award the youngest and

the only deck I got to check. I don't know if she was the first. Was she the first black person to win it?

Hughes all up in us? But that poem and the play opened at the Barrymore the fo Barrymore Theater on March eleventh, nineteen fifty nine, and was a great success, and it had a run of over five hundred and thirty performances. People were on fire about this play. It was the first play produced on Broadway by an African American woman nineteen fifty nine. That it took a long time, but she broke that barrier.

to a dream deferred? Does it dry up like a raisin in the sun, or fester like a sore and then run. Does it stink like rotten meat or crust and sugar over like a syrupiece. Maybe it just SAgs like a heavy low or does it explodes? So that is Lengthston Hughes's poem, Harlem, what happens to a dream? You know the first the first stands of what happens to a dream deferred? And that is a seminal question. That is a question for a lifetime. What happens to a dream deferred?

and over. We know what happens to dream deferd? You're lynched, you know your chattel, you live in Jim Crow, debt, peinage, sharecropping, red lining, lack of generational wealth. Can't get in the C suites unless you're cleaning the C suites. Oh, we know utality, a political system that continues to churn on our backs and our bodies. We know what happens to a dream deferred.

the dream for black freedom includes the poverty. Yes, there is a certain prosperity for everybody, but it's not an obsession. It's not a fetishizing or an idolizing of just material things. It's about self respect. It's about self esteem, it's about self regard. It's about quality of community. It's about the right kinds of relationships so that human beings power and flourish. That has a spiritual and a moral dimension to it. That talk about the American dream doesn't have at all,

is he Trump living the American dream? He's a thorough going gangster. You don't have a spiritual either, now a bone of spirituality and morality in his body. But he's a success. And so that, Uh, when when when? When? When? When? When? When? Lorraine Hensbery, Lorraine Hansbury is talking about raising in the sun and the dream deferred. You know, her dream coming out of the Black freedom struggle is in no way the same or identical with the mainstream American dream. But

it's still a dream. Yeah, still a dream, but it has elements in terms of yes, we want prosperity, Yes we want to be able to live life with a certain kind of decency, but at that deeper level of character and integrity, honesty and decency. That that's what Walter was all about in that play when when the mama and his mama looks at him and says, we used to talk about freedom. Now everybody only talks about money. Yeah,

nineteen fifty nine, she said. We used to talk about self respect, and we used to talk about helping each other. We used to talk about a sense of community. Now it's just this isolated individualism and careerism and opportunism and noncistism. Now that's that mama, who herself again didn't go to college, but at least two colleges went through her.

I think that is a beautiful, simple description of what black people have to do on every level of society, and certainly Lorraine Hansbury captures that in her works, and particularly in The Raisin in the Sun. As we were coming forward, talked about the fact that she's the granddaughter of free enslaved persons, and I mean, most black people track their lineage right there, you know, right there, and you know her her father was, her father was a

successful real estate broker. Oh yeah, And this part is important because black people are disproportionately impoverished. Sometimes we forget that there were very successful, very middle class, upper middle class of black people are running the world, so to speak. They were, and they were there, and a lot of them donated to the causes of black uplift because if

they didn't do it, nobody else would. And your point about what the mother the character, the mother character said, I often say that black people have picked up other people's bad habits. And that's pretty much what encapsulates what the mother was saying. We used to talk about this. Now all we care about is that we used you know. So yeah, we have picked up other people's bad habits and it reaks havoc on our community. We can't be

like everybody else. I no, I don't wish that we could, because we the most emulated people on the planet, But in terms of how they get over, society don't let us get over in the same way. So we just cannot. It's an immutable fact. I think it's always going to be that way. It's similarly people like doctor WB the Boys and Nina Simone and so many others who knew that they had to leave this place because their souls were being stripped. Doc every single second in this country,

the souls of black people are being stripped. Fight. I mean we fight. We're resilient, We're definitely resilient as hell. But it is tiring. It is exhausting to have to do that all the time.

just a socialist but a revolutionary socialist. And so she would talk about how spiritually it was so difficult to be able to sustain herself even though she gained strength from black people. She gained strength from black culture, she gained strength from black music. That we made the point before that she was a godmother of Lisa, who was the daughter of Nina Simone. Deep connection to two giants and geniuses, right dead, good call might. But she's there

with the boys. She's said the boy. She's close to Paul Robson. She goes to Uruguay when Robson's passport is taking away. You can't leave the country. He asked her to do it for him, which means to court. The FBI is on her like well on right and black on coal, back on coal and wet on water.

think you started talking about that. I want to lay out the frame a little more, a little deeper. In nineteen thirty eight, Hansbury's family moved to a white neighborhood. Now why the neighborhood got to be a white neighborhood, But I digress. I'm gonna put that in the parking lot. We know they moved to a white neighborhood and because just because of their very presence, they didn't do anything wrong,

they were attacked, stock attacked. They moved into a neighborhood that they can afford to live in, and the white folks of that neighborhood attacked them just because they're black. So they moved into this neighborhood. They wanted them out, you know, you got to go, and they refused. They stood strong, They stood in the strength of blackness, and then a court ordered them to move. See I want them to system it. The system forced him to move.

But it broke his heart. It broke his heart, and I think that radicalized her as Yeah.

the the damage was already done. But in the ruling restrictive they ruled restrictive covenants or illegal because of that case. Stop because of that case. And even in the city of Cleveland, the city of Shaker, which is a suburban community of Cleveland, they had restrictive covenants. No black people,

no Jewish people. They even have barriers that because the community, the Cleveland community that I live in, that I grew up in a butt Shaker, right, and they put on the side street doc these barriers so that you couldnot cross over into Shaker, the city of Shaker, from Cleveland on the resididential streets. Wow, oh yeah, oh yeah. And this is really like this was during my you know, the seventies eighties, during my childhood. Like this, this is real.

So the whole and then the whole Shaker Square, which is historic, the whole notion of Shaker, restrictive covenants, all up in the deeds, all up in the des not you know, we're not talking one hundred, two hundred years ago. Wow, wow, less than sixty years ago. Is wild, I mean, just absolutely wild. So Hansbury Hansbury, the Lee ruling. The Supreme Court finally did rule that restrictive covenants were illegal. But again, look at how many dreams were deferred before we got there.

You're listening to Truth Time with doctor Cornell West and Nina Turner on our Teaching Thursday, lifting up the life of Legacy the brilliance of playwright Lorraine Hansbury. You are listening to Truth Time with doctor Cornell West and Nina Turner on Our Teacher on Thursday. We're talking about the brilliance of Lorraine Hansbury, the playwright, a woman who accomplished so much in a very very short time on this earth.

Her very existence was revolutionary, as it is for most black people, and she got an opportunity to leave an indelible mark on the world through her works. She was born on May nineteenth, nineteen thirty, in Chicago, Illinois, and she passed away on January the twelfth, nineteen sixty five, in New York. So, Doc, her family, you know, highly middle class still, you know, going back to that point about her father, her mother being a teacher, her father

being a real estate broker and highly successful. It really just shows that money does not shield black people from the pain of being black.

Lorraine Hansbury, that she chooses to be a revolutionary. Yeah, she really does. You see it now, just work. You see it in her activism. When she was asked to go to the White House representing Snicks, she ended up telling off to Kennedy's and telling them that they had no sense of what was going on in the world. That she was going to stand for the students who that they were trashing there in the White House. Is very famous exchange that she had with the with the

White House advisor. She was standing in the name of Stokely Carmichael and Diane Nash. Very close of course to James Baldwin, his famous essay Sweet Lorraine. I would highly recommend that the people you want to read with the best of James Baldwin. It's his tribute to Lorraine Hansbury called sweet Lorraine. And Baldwin himself was also there and was very uh, I mean, he was just proud to be in the room with Lorraine. But she had to tell off the Kennedy's and actually ended the meeting while

out on them in the White House. That's a rare thing to have black folks just to walk out on president and vice presidents and attorney generals. Most black folks so happy to be in the White House. They cow towing and help when they get in there.

And you know, her parents they were very generous, as a lot of upper middle class Black people were, because we knew that we really were all that we had, and so they made donations, certainly to two of our legacy organizations, one being the NAACP, any other being the Urban League.

when she moved to New York. You talk about what I take from that is really being attuned to hearing what you're calling could be, instead of getting stuck in what you're doing, which could be. But she was very open to what her spirit was telling her she should do, and thank god.

And now you fast forward to what's happening now where you have President Donald J. Trump and his entire administration attacking higher education, the critical thinking, the freeness of what universities and colleges are supposed to be about.

the question. And then you had the Jewish refugee intellectuals who are escaping jew hating Europe led by the Nazis, And so the New School became a site for not just free speech and freedom of expression, but the most radical dissenting voices in the academy on the East Coast that were joined by the Jewish refugee intellectuals who were escaping Nazism and fashion them. The New School has a very, very rich tradition, it really does. It's a very rare institution.

They're blessed to have you as a singing fellow, is.

fifty nineteen fifty three. She also worked part time as a waitress and a cashier and wrote in her spare time. So although her parents were upper middle class, she was forging her own way, her own way economically, that is what she was doing. By nineteen fifty six, Hansbury quit

her jobs and admitted her time to writing. In nineteen fifty seven she joined the Daughters of built not Shire from Pronouncing that Right and contributed letters to their magazine, The Latter about feminism and homophobia, so ahead of her time on that as well. Her lesbian identity was exposed in the articles, but she wrote under her initials LH for fear of discrimination. And it is the same fear discrimination that our sisters and brothers and family and friends

in that community. The LGBTQ plus community are often under even to this day, so just revolutionary in every way. You're listening to True Time with doctor Cornell Weston Nina Turner on our Teaching Thursday lifting up the life and the legacy of Lorraine Hansbury, playwright and Trailblazer. When we return, we'll contay, yes, this is the our teaching Thursday day. We're lifting up the life of Lorraine Hansbury, playwright, trail blazer,

shaking things up. She was born on May nineteenth, nineteen thirty in Chataw that is, Chicago, Illinois, and she passed away on January to twelfth, nineteen sixty five, in New York, New York. But what she did between that dash in her very short lifetime, most people would not do in like one hundred lifetimes. We are so blessed that God saw fit to put her on this earth, even if it was for a short time. And the fact that she found her purpose and her calling and she used

it in a way to uplift that. What are some of the other points about her and also the legacy of her work that we should bring forward today.

You might remember the Moments and Raising in the Sun. Will Walter grabs Leana and they start dancing too the jazz records, and then you go into the kitchen and Mama's singing, I don't feel no ways tired. He's down and goes to the jazz club and says, the only person that understands me in the whole world is that brother blowing that saxophone in the minor key, living a life of dissonance. That black people have made dissonance a

way of life. So she's grounded in the lived experience of black people, but she's also pulling from the Shakespeares and from the Irish writers, and from the Russian writers and so forth. She has an internationalism and a cosmopolitanism that is really quite powerful, and I think that continues to speak to a lot of the young writers today. Tony Marshall is the same way, of course.

she had a choice because her parents. It was in her you know, she couldn't deny that if she wanted to, and she was with she had the opportunity to be around you know, some very influential people at that time, the Harry Belafontes, at Lena Horns, the James Ballwins, you know, all of that kind of stuff. She had an opportunity to meet with then Attorney General Robert Kennedy to test his position on civil rights. Hello, somebody to test his position, not just to be around him, thinking it was a

privilege to be around him. No, he was privileged to be around her to test his position on civil rights. God, Lorraine Hansbury. This Truth Time with doctor Cordonell West and Nina Turner. When we come forward, we will continue in our remaining moments, this riveting, riveting dialogue about Lorraine Hansbury. You are listening the Truth Time with doctor Corne West

and Nina Turner. We are talking about the life, the legacy, the indelible mark that the one and only Lorraine Hansbury made on this world in such a short period of time. Doct this is our last you know, four minutes here as we were coming forward, or before we came forward, we were talking about her souljoerm within the civil rights movement,

being surrounded by so many giants. I mean, she was a giant also in her own right, Harry Belafonte, Lena Horne, James Baldwin, and the fact that when she met Robert Kennedy, she was there, not the hobnob, not to take pictures. The post on social media did not exist at that time, but she was there to test his position ship on civil rights. Hello, somebody.

of Harriet Tupman, the spirit of Gabrier Brosa. She was a rebel, there's nohing about it.