Lorraine Hansberry

Lorraine Hansberry

Symposium on James and Esther Jackson

On October 28, 2006, an event entitled "James and Esther Jackson, the American Left and the Origins of the Modern Civil Rights Movement" was held at the Tamiment Library of New York University. Three panels of academics and activists delivered papers illuminating the lives of the James Jackson and his wife Esther Jackson, their co-workers and the struggles in which they participated that helped shape developments in the United States from the late 1930s to the present. Angela Davis, David Levering Lewis, Percy Sutton, Pete Seeger, Michael Nash, Jean Carey Bond, Michael Anderson, Maurice Jackson and Charlene Mitchell delivered papers and spoke at the event. Sam Webb, Debbie Amis Bell and Daniel Rubin were among the estimated 250 individuals who attended the event.

Former New York Times book review editor Michael Anderson delivered a paper about Lorraine Hansberry and her days as an editor, working under Louis Burnham, on Freedom, the newspaper Paul Robeson published. Later Hansberry was associate editor of New Challenge, the magazine of the Young Communist League. She became the great playwright of the freedom movement.