This Friday, January 12, marks the anniversary of Lorraine Hansberry's death; she was just 34 years old at the time of her passing. For penning the critically acclaimed " A Raisin in the Sun," she became the first Black playwright and the youngest ever to win a New York Critics' Circle Award.
PBS will premiere "Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart," as part of American Masters at 9pm on Friday, January 19. (Check local listings.)
The documentary by award-winning filmmaker Tracy Heather Strain examines the activism and art of Lorraine Hansberry beyond her most well-known play, "A Raisin in the Sun" (1959). It is the first in-depth presentation of Hansberry’s complex life, using her personal papers and archives, including home movies and rare photos, as source material. The film explores the influences that shaped Hansberry’s childhood, future art and activism.
The film features interviews with Sidney Poitier, Ruby Dee, Harry Belafonte, and Louis Gossett Jr., narration by award-winning actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson, and the voice of Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose as Hansberry.
Hansberry drew upon the lives of the working-class Black people in the South Side of Chicago for her ground-breaking play. The granddaughter of a freed slave, Hansberry grew up in Chicago, surrounded by prominent social and political Black leaders. Her father, Carl Augustus Hansberry, was the founder of one of the first banks for Blacks.
Despite growing up middle-class, Hansberry came of age in a heavily segregated community in Chicago. The racial and economic tensions informed “A Raisin in the Sun,” which follows the Youngers, a working-class family including married couple Ruth and Walter, Walter’s mother, and Walter’s sister Benethea. Masterfully exploring themes such as racism, poverty, and identity in a portrait of one family’s pursuit of the American Dream, Hansberry created a classic work of drama whose lessons still resonate to this day.
"A Raisin in the Sun" changed the face of American theater. The play’s richly drawn characters and unprecedented subject matter attracted record crowds.
"American Masters – Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart" explores the influences that shaped Hansberry’s childhood, future art and activism. Narrated by acclaimed actress LaTanya Richardson Jackson and featuring the voice of Tony Award-winning actress Anika Noni Rose as Hansberry, the documentary portrays the writer’s lifetime commitment to fighting injustice and how she found her way to art—the theater—as her medium for activism at a crucial time for black civil rights.
The film also explores her concealed identity as a lesbian and the themes of sexual orientation and societal norms in her works. The film title comes from Hansberry’s view that “one cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know or react to the miseries which afflict this world.
"American Masters – Lorraine Hansberry: Sighted Eyes/Feeling Heart" is a production of Lorraine Hansberry Documentary Project, LLC in co-production with Independent Television Service and Black Public Media in association with The Film Posse, Chiz Schultz Inc. and American Masters Pictures. Materials from the Lorraine Hansberry Properties Trust were provided by special consultant Joi Gresham. Tracy Heather Strain is producer, director and writer. Randall MacLowry is producer and editor. Chiz Schultz is the executive producer.