Typescript letter signed, to Lorraine Hansberry from James Baldwin, ca. 1961

Meshell Ndegeocello: James Baldwin developed close relationships with many other prominent Black writers of his time. One of these was playwright Lorraine Hansberry, best known for her play A Raisin in the Sun. Although Baldwin was older than Hansberry and already famous when they met, he treated her as a peer and even asked her for help. In a letter from Baldwin to Hansberry on display, he asks her to give the script of his first play, The Amen Corner, to director Lloyd Richards.

Imani Perry is Professor of Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. Her book Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry includes Hansberry’s relationship with Baldwin.

Imani Perry: This letter is reflective of James Baldwin and Lorraine Hansberry’s deep and enduring friendship. She is one of the people to whom he turned for feedback on his writing, in this instance his play The Amen Corner. And he teasingly refers to it as a begging letter, and she responds in kind, and that’s a common term of their period and African American Vernacular English, of a kind of, you know, passionate need for help for some from somebody, and that was reflective of how they were with each other. 

Ndegeocello: These two beautiful, Black, queer artists supported and confided in each other. Like many friends, they could also argue fiercely. 

Perry: They were very down home. They laughed, they drank together. They had quite passionate conflicts. They did not see eye to eye on approach at times or even on how they thought the world should be organized. They of course shared their extraordinary intellectual lives, their passion for trying to capture the heart and soul of Black America, their passion for liberation, but they also were really comfortable with each other, and that’s reflective in their written exchanges. A kind of playfulness, a kind of joy, a kind of, you know, everyday Blackness is evident there, which is really profound because for both of them often in public they were incredibly erudite and formal, but in private they were really very sweet friends.

Ndegeocello: Baldwin and Hansberry’s deep emotional and intellectual bond lasted until Hansberry’s death in 1965. Reflecting on his relationship with “Sweet Lorraine,” as he called her, Baldwin said, “I loved her, she was my sister and my comrade.”