My homosexuality

Things Lorraine Hansberry liked and hated

Welcome to the 36th issue of the Lists of Note newsletter: a new (old) list each Sunday. You can support this project by becoming a paid subscriber, or by donating, or by purchasing a copy of the Lists of Note book. Thanks.

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April 1959: Writer and playwright Lorraine Hansberry poses for a portrait in her apartment at 337 Bleecker Street (where she had written the first-ever Broadway play by an African-American woman, "A Raisin In The Sun") in April, 1959 in New York City, New York. (Photo by David Attie/Getty Images)

Born in Chicago in 1930, it was in New York that Lorraine Hansberry spent most of her adult life and made history—for it was there, in 1957, that Hansberry wrote A Raisin in the Sun, the first ever Broadway play to have been written by an African-American woman. It was there, too, in 1960, that Hansberry—at the time estranged from her husband of seven years—fell for a fellow tenant in her Greenwich Village apartment block named Dorothy Secules. In April of that year, with her fame rising, Hansberry listed the things she liked and hated.

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I LIKE

Mahalia Jackson’s music
My husband—most of the time
dressed up
being admired for my looks
Dorothy Secules eyes
Dorothy Secules
Shakespeare
Having an appetite
Slacks
My homosexuality
Being alone
Eartha Kitt’s looks
Eartha Kitt
That first drink of Scotch
To feel like working
The little boy in “400 Blows”
The way I look
Certain flowers
The way Dorothy Talks
Older Women
Miranda D’Corona’s accent
Charming women
And/or intelligent women

I HATE

Being asked to speak
Speaking
Getting too much mail
My loneliness
My homosexuality
Stupidity
Most television programs
What has happened to Sidney Poitier
Racism
People who defend it
Seeing my picture
Reading my interviews
Jean Genet’s plays
Jean Paul Sartre’s writing
Not being able to work
Death
Pain Cramps
Being hung over
Silly women
As silly men
David Suskind’s pretensions  
Sneaky love affairs

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These lists are reprinted in Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry, a fantastic, award-winning biography of Hansberry written by Imani Perry.