activist

Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography: drawing by Hansberry with text below: March 22, 2018, Schomburg Center, NYC. Panel conversation with Margaret Wilkerson, Imani Perry, Soyica Colbert, Tracy Heather Strain. Moderated by Joy-Ann Reid.

On Thursday, March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture   will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography. In addition to the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary, Sighted Eyes|Feeling Heart, three biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual will be published in the next several years. The four panelists will share how they navigated the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life in their biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual.

Over the last two weeks we have been sharing information about the panel participants as well as information about the Lorraine Hansberry Papers, held at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York Public Library.

Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography: drawing by Hansberry with text below: March 22, 2018, Schomburg Center, NYC. Panel conversation with Margaret Wilkerson, Imani Perry, Soyica Colbert, Tracy Heather Strain. Moderated by Joy-Ann Reid.

On March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining BiographyIn addition to the AMERICAN MASTERS documentary, Sighted Eyes|Feeling Heart, that aired on PBS in January 2018, three biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual will be published in the next several years. Reimagining Biography panelists will be asked to address the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life and her understanding of herself and the worlds she both lived in and created.

In 2010 the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture published an article, “Young, Gifted, Black, and Complicated: The Question of Lorraine Hansberry’s Legacy,” in their newsletter, Africana Heritage. In that article, Steven G. Fullwood, then Assistant Curator, Manuscripts, Archives, and Rare Books Division, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture puts the incredible legacy of Lorraine Hansberry’s contribution as an artist, activist, public intellectual, and writer into context.

Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography: drawing by Hansberry with text below: March 22, 2018, Schomburg Center, NYC. Panel conversation with Margaret Wilkerson, Imani Perry, Soyica Colbert, Tracy Heather Strain. Moderated by Joy-Ann Reid.

On March 22, 2018, the Lorraine Hansberry Literary Trust and the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture will co-present Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography. The four panelists will share how they navigated the feminisms, intersectionalities, political, and private-public voicings that shaped Hansberry’s life in their biographical treatments of the artist, activist, and public intellectual.

Over the last two weeks we have been sharing information about the Lorraine Hansberry: Reimagining Biography panel participants as well as information about the Lorraine Hansberry Papers, held at the Schomburg Center. Today we are sharing the essay used for the liner notes for the 1971 cast recording of To Be Young, Gifted, and Black (Caedmon records, TRS 342) written by Lorraine Hansberry’s ex-husband and executor of the Lorraine Hansberry estate, Robert Nemiroff.

image of book cover of Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry

Princeton University Professor Imani Perry joins WHYY The Takeaway for NPR Philadelphia to discuss her book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, for a live in-studio interview.

 

An image of Imani Perry is on the poster for author event at Uncle Bobbie's Coffee and Books

Black-owned Philadelphia bookstore Uncle Bobbie's Coffee & Books and the People’s Education Center, welcomed scholar Imani Perry for a reading and talk about her book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry.  Moderated by Marc Lamont Hill, the recorded event is available here.

image of book cover of Looking for Lorraine by Imani Perry

Playwright Branden Jacobs-Jenkins reviews Imani Perry’s recent book, noting that, “…Looking for Lorraine is something between a fan’s notes and an academic monograph, less an unpacking of the archive to reveal the life than an exercise in putting the archive in historical context. Its strongest chapters — on “A Raisin in the Sun” and Lorraine’s coming into her own as a public intellectual — are masterly syntheses of research and analysis.

Self-portrait drawn by Lorraine Hansberry in pen & ink on newspaper.

Imani Perry, author of Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Beacon, 2018) offers a meditation on a Hansberry self-portrait for Lapham Quarterly that Perry came across in her research at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture of the New York Public Library.

Karen Grigsby Bates from the Code Switch team reflects on the book she’s reading for Morning Edition on National Public radio: Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine in interview with biographer Imani Perry.