public intellectual

image of author Imani Perry (photo by Sameer Khan)

Eugene Holly Jr. interviews Imani Perry in anticipation of her forthcoming book, Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry.

Image of book cover of Looking for Lorraine (Beacon Press, 2018) with notation as 2019 LAMBDA Literary Award WInner for LGBTQ NonFiction

Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry (Beacon Press, 2018) continues to win awards: on Monday, June 3, author Dr. Imani Perry received the 2019 Lambda Literary Award for LGBTQ Nonfiction.

Plaque at Hansberry residence, 112 Waverly Place in Greenwich Village, New York City.

As part of the 50th anniversary event commemorating the Stonewall Riots—the nights of disturbances from June 28th to June 30th 1969—Lorraine Hansberry’s two Village residences are included in the 17 LGBT landmarks of Greenwich Village.

The Harvard University Digital Access to Scholarship at Harvard (DASH) has made Robin Bernstein’s 1999 article, Inventing a Fishbowl: White Supremacy and the Critical Reception of Lorraine Hansberry’s A Raisin in the Sun available to the public. You can access and download the article here.

The red & white logo of the LILY Awards Foundation.

The Lilly Awards Foundation Executive Director Julia Jordan and Lilly Board Member Lynn Nottage are heading up a fundraising  initiative, with help from NYC’s Arterventions program, to erect a statue of Lorraine Hansberry in the Theater District of New York City.

Solidarity to Prisoners image of several black birds tearing down a wire fence; from the Dreaming Freedom | Practicing Abolition website.

Stevie Wilson, a Black, queer, writer, activist, and student incarcerated in Pennsylvania, is the coordinator of, and participant in, a network of self-organized prisoner abolitionist study groups at SCI-Smithfield. On the website of the four study crews, Dreaming Freedom | Practicing Abolition, Stevie recalls a scene from Lorraine Hansberry's A Raisin in the Sun in his essay, “Doing Abolition.

American Masters Award

Last night Tracy Strain was awarded an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Directing in a Motion Picture (Television), adding to the recognition of the documentary, Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart that aired on PBS in January 2018.

Image: Lorraine Hansberry speaking at Washington Square Park rally, June 13, 1959.

The Greenwich Village Society for Historic Preservation blog features a story on Lorraine Hansberry’s participation in the June 13, 1959 NAACP rally in Washington Square Park.