Consider, Compare, and Contrast

Alice Childress

Childress devoted her life to fighting for justice and illuminating the lives of ordinary people -- the 'underdogs,' as she often called them. She presented an American voice not often heard on the stage: one resonating with the voices of women very much like herself -- reliant, vocal, no-nonsense, and often uncompromising. Childress was a spiritual and very compassionate individual who loved people, fighting against social injustices throughout her life. She was aware of the price she paid for her integrity -- particularly financially -- and wished that more of her plays had been professionally produced.  Often called a writer ahead of her time, Childress responded with, 'People aren't ahead of their time, they are choked during their time.'

  ... Kathy Perkins. Introduction, Selected Plays, Alice Childress (2011)

Lorraine Hansberry

...She had been tempered by the fire and emerged briefly to let her own light shine.  She knew that blackness was the basis of her existence, not the totality, and that if it becomes the whole, one can only be consumed by the fires of one's own rage and frustration. Lorraine Hansberry is the black artist who lived beyond anger, which is not to say that she wasn't angry.... Anger did not define her art but motivated and informed it.  The quality which pervades her plays is compassion, the kind of compassion which can slap a face as easily as it can kiss a cheek, which can curse as easily as it can tease.  She didn't make the mistake of hating white people.  She hated what people did to each other.

... Julius Lester. Introduction, Les Blancs: The Collected Last Plays of Lorraine Hansberry (1972)