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Classroom · Grades 8–12

Lorraine Hansberry

Hansberry turned her family’s fight against housing segregation into drama, showing how private dreams and public law collide in the lives of ordinary families.

Lesson at a Glance

Grades
Grades 8–12
Time
One class period (20–40 minutes)
Standards
NCSS Themes 5 (Individuals, Groups, and Institutions) and 10 (Civic Ideals and Practices); C3 D2.Civ.12.9-12, D2.His.1.9-12
Reading
Lorraine Hansberry (profile)

Big Idea

Hansberry turned her family’s fight against housing segregation into drama, showing how private dreams and public law collide in the lives of ordinary families.

Before Class

Students read the profile of Lorraine Hansberry, including the Key Dates and Sources.

Discussion Questions

  1. The Supreme Court ruled for the Hansberrys in 1940 without striking down restrictive covenants. Why might a legal victory still leave a family, and a city, largely unchanged?
  2. Hansberry took the title A Raisin in the Sun from Langston Hughes’s poem about a dream deferred. How does the Younger family’s struggle over the insurance money connect to that idea?
  3. Hansberry wrote for Paul Robeson’s Freedom about civil rights, colonial Africa, and women’s rights. How do those interests show up in her later plays and activism?
  4. Scholars have recovered parts of Hansberry’s life that were little known while she lived. Why might some parts of a public figure’s life stay hidden, and how should historians handle them?

Activity

Students read the first two pages of the Supreme Court’s opinion in Hansberry v. Lee (1940) and highlight the words that describe the restrictive covenant and who was bound by it. Working in pairs, they write a one-paragraph plain-language summary of what the Court decided and what it did not decide, checking their summary against the profile. Then they reread the profile’s summary of A Raisin in the Sun, in which the Younger family weighs whether to move into a white neighborhood, and discuss how Hansberry translated a legal conflict she lived through as a child into a family drama (30–40 minutes).

Primary Sources

Cite this page
MLA
“Classroom lesson: Lorraine Hansberry.” Black-History.com, 30 Sept. 2026, https://black-history.com/classroom/lorraine-hansberry/.
APA
Black-History.com Editors. (2026, September 30). Classroom lesson: Lorraine Hansberry. Black-History.com. https://black-history.com/classroom/lorraine-hansberry/
Chicago
Black-History.com Editors. “Classroom lesson: Lorraine Hansberry.” Black-History.com. September 30, 2026. https://black-history.com/classroom/lorraine-hansberry/.
Editorial Note

By the Black-History.com editors. Last reviewed 30 September 2026. To suggest a primary source or a correction, write to editors@black-history.com or use our corrections form.

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