Mamie Hansberry was a teenager when a chunk of cement shattered the glass window of the family's new home. It smashed into the wall, just a foot from where her little sister, Lorraine, was sitting on the loveseat.
The act of violence seven decades ago was a message from white neighbors that the black family wasn't welcome in the three-flat at 6140 S. Rhodes Ave. in Woodlawn.
"That was a grotesque sight to see that (chunk of cement) lodged in the wall," said Mamie Hansberry, now 86 and living in Los Angeles. "You know that somebody doesn't like you, doesn't want you there."
But her father, Carl Hansberry, waged a three-year legal battle for the right to live there, culminating in 1940 with a U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended racially discriminatory housing covenants in Chicago. The experience inspired her sister, the late Lorraine Hansberry, to write "A Raisin in the Sun," the first drama by an African-American woman to be produced on Broadway.
The City Council is scheduled on Wednesday to vote on designating the home, now known as the Lorraine Hansberry House, an official landmark, along with the George Cleveland Hall Branch Library, Richard Wright House and Gwendolyn Brooks House.
The historically significant properties are considered part of the city's Black Renaissance Literary Movement of the 1930s through 1950s. Brooks was a Pulitzer prize-winning poet and poet laureate. Wright's books included "Native Son."
The Hansberry House was nominated for landmark status in 2007 by a teacher, parents and students from Amelia Earhart Elementary School on the city's South Side, after the students studied the Hansberry family and racial segregation for history projects.
The teacher, Stacy Stewart, says the students were struck by the family's courage and how their challenge of discriminatory housing practices paved the way for integrated neighborhoods. She said they believed the home's history needs to be remembered and studied by others.
"The house is a symbol that anything is possible in America," said student Ishmael Smith, who is now a junior at Mount Carmel High School on the South Side.
The house's current owner could not be reached for comment. The owner did not sign a consent form for landmark status and did not attend a hearing on the issue, but owner consent is not required for landmark designation.
Before the Hansberry court ruling, African-Americans in the city were restricted to living in what was known as the "Black Belt," congested, impoverished neighborhoods on the South Side, said Tim Black, a historian and former professor at the City Colleges of Chicago, who knew the Hansberry family.
The segregation was enforced by property covenants that restricted blacks from moving into white neighborhoods. Even walking into white areas could lead to a confrontation, Black said.
The Hansberry family was "taking a tremendous risk," he said. "But they were willing because of their feeling that all Americans had a right to live wherever they could afford."
Mamie Hansberry said civil rights battles were a way of life for her family. She and her three siblings would try to eat at white-owned restaurants that were known to discriminate and, when denied service, sue for equal access.
"Sometimes you were shaking a bit but you did it, because you knew your dad was going to come back you up," she said.
She doesn't remember anyone in the family announcing that they would try and break the racial housing barrier -- it was simply understood that segregation was wrong and had to be challenged.
Once they moved into the white neighborhood, Mamie Hansberry remembers being mocked by classmates at the all-white elementary school and being graded unfairly by teachers. The family was saddened when they had to temporarily move after initial court decisions upheld the racial covenants, she said.
Mamie Hansberry said she's honored that the city is considering commemorating her old home, once a source of both pain and pride for her family. She believes Lorraine Hansberry, who died in 1965, would feel the same way.
"I'm sure she would just love it," Mamie Hansberry said.
About time. This city was founded by a black man, Jean Baptiste Pointe Du Sable, not much is said about him and what is said is full of lies and distortions. A brief history at Navy Pier states that Du Sable built a shack along the shores of Lake Michigan. He built a 24 room mansion along the shores of Lake Michigan and was eventually cheated out of his fortune ran out of town by corrupt whites.
The corruption in Chicago continues to this day with 39 alderman sentenced to jail since the early 1970's.
Jean Baptiste Pont du Sable relocated to Missouri, where he died in 1818.
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