The landmark play “A Raisin in the Sun” is, for many, the first and only thing that comes to mind when they hear the name Lorraine Hansberry. But Lorraine (born #OnThisDay May 19, 1930) was far more than a one-Broadway-hit wonder. Like her close friend James Baldwin, she held America’s racially oppressive society to account -- in her work as a playwright and as a public intellectual. And like Baldwin, Lorraine was gay. In 1960, she fell in love with Dorothy Secules, a politically outspoken blonde 15 years her senior. Listen to Lorraine in conversation with Studs Terkel in episode 2 of #makinggayhistory season 8 (link in bio). Image: Publicity photo of Lorraine Hansberry, 1955. Credit: Leo Friedman-Joseph Abeles, courtesy of Billy Rose Theatre Division, The New York Public Library. (fb)

Making Gay History fans in LA! We are excited to team up with the One Institute and the Beth Chayim Chadashim synagogue in Los Angeles to host Eric and his “Nazi Era” presentation. Join us on Wednesday, May 14, at 7pm when Eric will introduce our latest season and share clips from archival interviews that bring this painful, often hidden history to life through the voices of the people who lived it. A Q&A session will follow. Register here: https://bit.ly/voices-shadows (fb)