Black History Month Profiles: Alex Newell and Lorraine Hansberry

Black History Month is observed every February to commemorate the important people and momentous events in African-American history. Hotspots honors Black History Month by profiling black LGBT people who have made noteworthy achievements in their personal or professional lives.

Alex Newell
(born August 20, 1992)

People may recognize Alex Newell from his performing turn at last year's St. Pete Pride, where he headlined the special 27/82 party. Newell was born and raised in Lynn, Massachusetts, to a mother, Brenda, who would raise him alone most of his childhood. (His father died of cancer when he was only six years old.) He graduated from Bishop Fenwick High School, where he was involved in costume club, improv club, and the school choir.

In 2011, Newell moved to Los Angeles to compete on the reality competition "The Glee Project," despite already being accepted to the Berklee College of Music in Boston. He placed as one of the two runners-up on the program, and a character was created for him to play in the show's third season: "Unique" Adams, a male-to-female transgender student who only feels completely like her desired gender while singing, particularly the songs of Beyonc�. The role was very well-received and Newell appeared as Unique in seasons four and five of the program.

In 2013, Atlantic Records signed Newell to a record contract, with the goal being to release his first studio album. They went to the recording studio immediately, and within months had finished the debut single, "Nobody to Love," a cover of the single of the same name by Sigma. He went on to provide vocals on the single "Stronger," released by Clean Bandit. He was introduced to the English pop group in the studio despite initially not knowing who they were. He went on to collaborate with the electropop duo Blonde and the duo The Knocks, and released the piece de resistance for his album: a disco version of Robin S's club hit "Show Me Love." His debut EP, "Power," finally received a release date at the beginning of 2016: people can buy the EP when it is released on February 19.

Newell spoke to Hotspots about his career and his love of singing before he came to town in 2015 to sing at St. Pete Pride. When we asked him when he decided he wanted to be a singer as a career, Newell told us, "I was two years old; I started singing then. My goal has always been to be a singer. I've been doing this nearly my entire life. If you look at my r�sum�, even, it bills me as a "singer/actor/dancer," exactly in that order. I always knew that singing was not only what I wanted to do, it was what I was going to do."

Lorraine Hansberry
(May 19, 1930 - January 12, 1965)

Hansberry was born in Chicago, Illinois, one of four children born to a realtor and a teacher. When she was eight years old, Hansberry's realtor father bought the family a house in the heavily-white Washington Park neighborhood of Chicago. Half of her neighbors did not approve of a black family moving in, and brought legal action against the family. It was only resolved with a Supreme Court decision, allowing the family to keep their house.

She attended the University of Wisconsin in Madison for two years, where she was very politically active and helped integrate a women's dorm. She went on to pursue her dream of becoming a writer in New York City, eventually settling in Harlem and starting work on a black newspaper called Freedom. She married Robert Nemiroff in 1953, who encouraged her to write a play of her own. Her most famous work, A Raisin in the Sun, was completed in 1957 and was first performed on Broadway in 1959. At the age of 29, she became the youngest female playwright to receive the New York Drama Critics Circle Award.

In 1961, she became director of the musical Kicks and Co., starring white actor Burgess Meredith and a slate of black actors such as Nichelle Nichols, who went on to gain fame in NBC's Star Trek, and Al Freeman, Jr., who gained a large audience later on in ABC's One Life to Live. In 1963, Hansberry was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer and despite having two surgeries to remove the cancer, it was very aggressive, and she died at the age of 34 on January 12, 1965.

A Raisin in the Sun, her signature work, was performed on Broadway for 530 performances from 1959-60, starring Sidney Poitier and Ruby Dee. The 1961 film starred many of the same actors as the Broadway production. The play is considered one of the best of the 1950s/1960s era and inspired many remakes, such as a 1973 musical, Raisin! (with Debbie Allen and Ralph Carter) and a 2004 Broadway revival (with Sean "Diddy" Combs, Audra McDonald, Phylicia Rashad and Sanaa Lathan).

Despite being married to Nemiroff through to 1964, there were whispers about Lorraine Hansberry's sexual orientation, namely that she was a closeted lesbian and Nemiroff offered cover from questions relating to sexuality. Her secret letters, released after her death, tend to support this claim. At the very least, she was a pre-second wave feminist and also stood up for gay rights in a time when nearly everyone was against homosexuals and homosexual activity.