cast

Mary Malone Cook/Mary Oliver and Sophia Smith Collection, Smith College

talent

LaTanya Richardson Jackson

narrator

Anika Noni Rose

voice of Lorraine Hansberry

Alexandria King

Lorraine Hansberry

INTERVIEWEES

Michael Anderson

literary critic

Ann Bannon

author, Beebo Brinker Chronicles

Amiri Baraka

poet, playwright and activist

Harry Belafonte

entertainer and activist

Timuel Black

South Side resident

William Branch

playwright

Dorothy Burnham

friend and Louis Burnham widow

Steven Carter

English professor

Charles Davis

South Side resident

Ruby Dee

Ruth Younger in original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and 1961 film

Burt D’Lugoff

friend and producer of The Sidney in Sidney Brustein’s Window

Harry Elam

theater professor

Louis Gossett, Jr.

George Murchison in original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and 1961 film

Mamie Hansberry

Lorraine’s sister

Clarence Jones

friend and lawyer for James Baldwin, Martin Luther King and sometimes Lorraine Hansberry

Lynn Nottage

playwright

Imani Perry

African American Studies professor

Shauneille Perry

Lorraine’s cousin

Sidney Poitier

Walter Lee Younger in original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and 1961 film

Lloyd Richards

director of original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun

Philip Rose

producer of original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and 1961 film

Marie Rupert

friend and actress

Joan Sandler

friend and Greenwich Village resident

Judith Smith

American Studies professor

Glynn Turman

Travis Younger in original Broadway production of A Raisin in the Sun and Greenwich Village resident

Douglas Turner Ward

friend, activist and actor

Mary Helen Washington

English professor

Margaret Wilkerson

Hansberry biographer

Edie Windsor

friend and gay rights activist