Lorraine Hansberry

<p>Lorraine Hansberry (1930-1965) was an American playwright and author who was the first black woman to write a play to be performed on Broadway, and was the youngest American playwright to win the Best American Play Award from the New York Drama Critics’ Circle. Her best-known work, <i>A Raisin in the Sun</i>, highlights the lives of black Americans living under segregation in Chicago. She died of cancer at age 34.</p>