To Sit A While – Tribute to Lorraine Hansberry by Alison Saar

To Sit A While is an installation created by Alison Saar in 2022 to honor Lorraine Hansberry, the author A Raisin In The Sun, the first play by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway in 1959. The title is from a line in the play that says – Never be afraid to sit a while and think – which is exactly what the artist does giving people in Times Square a chance to sit a while. This public art installation is making multiple stops before finding its way to Chicago, which is Lorraine Hansberry’s birthplace and the setting for A Raisin in the Sun, and I happened to catch it in Times Square as part of its journey.

To Sit A While features the figure of Hansberry surrounded by five chairs representing different aspects of her life and work. The installation by Alison Saar is an invitation to the public to sit with Hansberry and reflect on her legacy, and a powerful reminder of Hansberry’s contributions to literature and civil rights activism. The chairs in the work represent Hansberry’s work as a playwright, journalist, and civil rights activist for Black, female and Queer causes.

To Sit A While by Alison Saar

To Sit A While is a sculpture installation created by Alison Saar that features a life-size likeness of the renowned playwright Lorraine Hansberry. The sculpture is surrounded by five chairs, each representing different aspects of Hansberry’s life and work. The chairs are an invitation to the public to sit with Hansberry and think. The sculpture was unveiled on June 9, 2022, in Times Square by The Lilly Awards Foundation. It has since been displayed in various locations,.

Lorraine Hansberry was an American playwright, author, and activist. She is best known for her play “A Raisin in the Sun,” which was the first play written by a Black woman to be produced on Broadway. Hansberry’s work explored themes of race, class, and gender, and her writing was influential in the Civil Rights Movement. The Lorraine Hansberry Initiative was established to honor her legacy and promote her work. One of the ways in which the initiative does this is through the “To Sit A While” sculpture by Alison Saar. This sculpture features a life-size likeness of Hansberry surrounded by five bronze chairs representing aspects of her life and work.

The life-size chairs that surround the sculpture are an essential part of the installation as they represent different aspects of Hansberry’s life and work, such as her activism, writing, and personal life.  The chairs range from modernist chairs to office chairs, stools, ottomans, and even a bentwood chair, and each has an inscription of lines from Hansberry’s work on the seats.

As the Lorraine Hansberry Initiative describes –

“The Modernist Chair recalls the chair Lorraine sat on while writing her plays.

The Office Chair represents her career as a journalist writing for Freedom magazine.

The Stool stands for her contributions as a feminist and early LGBTQ activist.

The Ottoman evokes the one she sat on in Robert Kennedy’s living room while educating the politician on civil rights.

The Bentwood Chair recalls Lorraine’s childhood home and A Raisin in the Sun.”

To Sit A While Chair Inscriptions

The thoughtful inscriptions of lines from Hansberry’s work on the seats include the following –

“I think that the human race does command its own destiny and that this destiny can eventually embrace the stars.”

“Write, if you will, but write about the world as it is and as you think it ought to be – if there is to be a world.”

“There is always something left to love. And if you haven’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothing.”

“One cannot live with sighted eyes and feeling heart and not know and read of the miseries which affect the world.”

“Thought it be a thrilling and marvelous thing to be merely young and gifted in such times, it is doubly so – doubly dynamic – to be young, gifted and black.”

A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry on Broadway

I am privileged to have seen a revival of A Raisin in the Sun by Lorraine Hansberry on Broadway starring Denzel Washington in April 2014. It was a powerful performance in a powerful play that was performed not far from where this sculpture paying tribute to the playwright was exhibited in Times Square.

I am really happy to have caught this work in Times Square while it was on display for a week.