Erin D. Chapman

This cultural historical biography analyzes Lorraine Hansberry’s career as a journalist, playwright, and activist at the height of the US Cold War. The project explores Hansberry’s personal relationships and inner concerns by examining her journals and correspondence alongside her published articles, speeches, and plays. Proceeding chronologically through the stages of Hansberry’s life, the book offers an account of the gendered, racial, and sexual formations shaping the postwar United States from the perspective of a progressive, queer, black woman artist. It also serves as a cultural history of the radical, artistic activism that formed a crucial aspect of the mid-century Black Freedom Movement.