WHITE PLAINS, NY (March 1, 2026) — Westchester County honored Lorraine Hansberry posthumously with the Ruby Dee Award for the Arts at its 2026 Trailblazers Awards Ceremony.
WATCH VIDEO HERE
Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was a Black playwright, author and activist. Her best-known work, A Raisin in the Sun, was inspired by her family’s legal battle against racially segregated housing laws in the Washington Park Subdivision of Chicago’s Woodlawn neighborhood. Civil rights attorney Earl B. Dickerson successfully argued Hansberry v. Lee before the U.S. Supreme Court in 1940.
Hansberry died on Jan. 12, 1965, at the age of 34 from pancreatic cancer. At her funeral, which took place at Church of the Master in New York City, the Rev. Eugene Callender recited messages of love and admiration from her colleagues and friends, including a letter from Martin Luther King Jr..
In the letter, King wrote: “Her creative ability and her profound grasp of the deep social issues confronting the world today will remain an inspiration to generations yet unborn.”
Hansberry is buried at Bethel Cemetery in Croton-on-Hudson. The epitaph on her tombstone is a quote from her 1964 play, The Sign in Sidney Brustein’s Window. It reads: “I care. I care about it all. It takes too much energy not to care…The why of why we are here is an intrigue for adolescents; the how is what must command the living. Which is why I have lately become an insurgent again.”
This article was prepared with the assistance of AI tools under the direction and editing of Robert Cox.
Discover more from Talk of the Sound
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.