African American playwright and essayist Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965) was born on this day in Chicago, Illinois.

"Money is life. Once upon a time freedom used to be life—now it's money," she wrote in her play A Raisin in the Sun, (1959), which was named after a line from a Langston Hughes poem. The masterpiece was the first written by a black woman to be produced on Broadway. 

A "living-room" drama, the play was inspired by her family's personal experiences as they pursued the American Dream despite difficult odds. The play spoke to the heart of a new black Broadway audience.

"For a person to bear his life, he needs a valid re-creation of that life," Hansberry explained. "Which is why, as Ray Charles might put it, blacks chose to sing the blues."

Hailed as "a watershed in American drama" and named the best American play of 1959 by The New York Drama Critics Circle, A Raisin in the Sun was made into a 1961 film starring Sidney Poitier and received a special award at the Cannes Film Festival.

"Never be afraid to sit awhile and think," said Hansberry. Although her promising career and life were cut short by cancer, A Raisin in the Sun lives on as a relevant inspiration to contemporary audiences.

The talented writer once observed: "There is always something left to love. And if you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing."

Celebrate what makes you exceptional.