Literary Birthday – 19 May – Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry was born on 19 May 1930 and died on 12 January 1965.

Lorraine Hansberry Quotes

1. That’s what being eccentric means–being natural.
2. It is difficult for the American mind to adjust to the realisation that the Rhetts and the Scarletts were as much monsters as the keepers of Buchenwald–they just dressed more attractively.
3. A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness, as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men – and people in general.
4. Do I remain a revolutionary? Intellectually – without a doubt. But am I prepared to give my body to the struggle or even my comforts? This is what I puzzle about.
5. I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love.
6. The thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.
7. We only revert back to mystical ideas – which includes most contemporary orthodox religious views, in my opinion – because we simply are confronted with some things we don’t yet understand.
8. There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.
9. Never be afraid to sit awhile and think.

Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright, writer, and civil rights activist. In 1963 she and James Baldwin were part of a group of artists who met with U.S. Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy in an attempt to open a dialogue between the government and activists.  She was the first black woman to write a play performed on Broadway. She is best known for the play, A Raisin in the Sun. In 1969 a selection of her writings, adapted by Robert Nemiroff, was produced on Broadway as To Be Young, Gifted, and Black and was published in book form in 1970.

Source for Image: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lorraine_Hansberry.jpg, Fair use to illustrate author

by Amanda Patterson

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