The African-American playwright and painter, Lorraine Hansberry, was born in Chicago in 1930. She was born into a family of some extremely prominent people. She was not only the daughter of an esteemed real-estate broker, but she was also the niece of William Leo Hansberry, a well-known professor of African history at Howard University. Furthermore, Lorraine's parents proved to be great intellectuals and activists when they won an anti-segregation case after their white neighbors tried to run them out of their new house.
Hansberry developed an interest in Africa and its history at a very tender age. Her uncle William helped her to explore her interest and answer any questions that she had since he was an expert in African history. Hansberry's parents made her attend public schools when she was younger to protest against segregation; however, once Hansberry was ready and old enough to attend college, she decided to matriculate at the University of Wisconsin and in Mexico. While studying in Wisconsin, Hansberry became involved in different organizations including the Young Progressives of America and the Labor Youth League. However, Hansberry decided to move to New York in 1950 to begin her writing career. She started her career off by serving as an associate editor of Freedom, a work by Paul Robeson. Also, while finishing a seminar on African history conducted by the famous W.E.B. DuBois, Hansberry constructed a prolific research paper on "The Belgian Congo: A Preliminary Report on Its Land, Its History and Its People.".
1953 was the year that Hansberry married a Jewish songwriter named Robert Nemiroff, and it was also the same year that she began working on perhaps one of her most notable plays, A Raisin in the Sun. A Raisin in the Sun was completed and ready to be performed in the theatre in 1959. This was the first drama by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway.