Sepia Starshine

Godfrey MacArthur Cambridge was born February 26, 1933 in New York City to British Guiana émigré parents. Young Godfrey lived in Nova Scotia with his grandparents where he attended grammar school. GodfreyCambridge made his Broadway debut in Nature’sWay in 1956. He also appeared in both stage and screen versions of the Ossie Davis -penned Purlie Victorious, released in 1963 as Gone Are the Days!    For his work in The Blacks , Cambridge won an Obie in 1961 for Most Distinguished Off-Broadway Performance. Godfrey Cambridge also lent his considerable talent to Hollywood’s silver screen starring as Harlem-based Detective Gravedigger Jones opposite Raymond St. Jacques as Detective Coffin Ed Smith in Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970) and its sequel Come Back Charleston Blue (1972).  Although he was a very competent dramatic actor, Godfrey Cambridge was better known for his work as a stand-up comedian . His material was often drawn from racial conditions in contempor...

Lorraine Vivian Hansberry was born in Chicago on May 19, 1930 to politically-active parents Carl, a real estate broker, and Nannie, a schoolteacher. When she was in third grade, Lorraine and her family were forced to move from the all white neighborhood they had moved into on Chicago's South Side after taunting, harassment and a lower court ruling that upheld restrictive housing covenants in Chicago which barred blacks from moving into white areas.  Carl Hansberry challenged the ruling all the way to the Supreme Court of the United States, which ruled in his favor and struck down restrictive housing covenants. ( Hansberry v. Lee, 1940 ) In addition to her interest in theater, Hansberry also dabbled in art and studied painting at several schools, including the Art Institute of Chicago . Later, while a student at New York's New School for Social Research , Hansberry met Paul Robeson and began working first as a reporter and later as an associate editor for Freedom , Robeso...