Mamie Hansberry is an accomplished artist who was born in Chicago on April 2, 1923, to Carl Augustus Hansberry and Nannie Hansberry; she is also the sister of the late Lorraine Hansberry. As a child of the Hansberry family, Mamie faced the bigotry and harassment of angry whites who wanted to force her family out of their home; and as the office manager of her family business, Hansberry Enterprises, she persevered while the family used their business to fight for the rights and equality of African Americans.

Ms. Hansberry attended Howard University, majoring in Art, and in 1947, she attended the Traphagen School of Design and Art.  Incidentally, Ms Hansberry studied under the distinguished and accomplished artist, Dr. Lois Mailou Jones, whose works are exhibited in the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the National Palace in Haiti.

Mamie Hansberry married Vincent Tubbs, who was the president of the Publicists Guild of America, being the first African American to head a Hollywood film union, and the first African American publicist at Warner Bros. Studios.

Mamie Hansberry is an accomplished and talented artist who has won many awards for her work, including the Winsor and Newton Award for her water color painting “UNDERGROUND RAILROAD,” the Park La Brea street banner award for two works, and the Pacific Palisades Village Book Store Award for “LADY OF THE CITY.”

Mamie Hansberry, as a member of the Hansberry family, represents the legacy of pioneering trailblazers, who fought the system to achieve civil and equal rights for African Americans, personally sacrificing their own business to procure these rights for all.  Mamie Hansberry is the grandmother of actress Taye Hansberry.

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