and author
of political speeches, letters, and essays. 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 the South Side of Chicago during her childhood.
Hansberry attended the University of Wisconsin–Madison
, but found college uninspiring and left in 1950 to pursue her career as a writer in New York City
, where she attended The New School
.
A woman who is willing to be herself and pursue her own potential runs not so much the risk of loneliness as the challenge of exposure to more interesting men — and people in general.
I look at you and I see the final triumph of stupidity in the world!
Children see things very well sometimes — and idealists even better.
Don't get up. Just sit a while and think. Never be afraid to sit a while and think.
I wish to live because life has within it that which is good, that which is beautiful and that which is love. Therefore, since I have known all of these things, I have found them to be reason enough and — I wish to live. Moreover, because this is so, I wish others to live for generations and generations and generations.
Eventually it comes to you: the thing that makes you exceptional, if you are at all, is inevitably that which must also make you lonely.