SOURCE: Wilkerson, Margaret B. “Political Radicalism and Artistic Innovation in the Works of Lorraine Hansberry.” In African American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader, edited by Harry J. Elam Jr. and David Krasner, pp. 40-55. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.

In the following essay, Wilkerson contends that the radical, political message of Hansberry's work was ignored by critics until the 1990s, when a re-assessment of her plays led scholars to recognize the compelling political message of Hansberry's work.

Lorraine Hansberry was a visionary playwright whose belief in humankind's potential to overcome its own excesses of avarice, oppression, and inhumanity compelled her to raise provocative questions on the American stage. Ironically, her success with A Raisin in the Sun, which won the 1959 New York Drama Critics Circle Award and which won acclaim from white as well as black audiences during its Broadway production, led some critics to view...