Zora Neale Hurston

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Zora Neale Hurston

• A Genius of
• The South
• 1891 --- 1960
• Novelist, Folklorist,
  Anthropologist
• Click here to view a popular Zora website.

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Zoras Youth

• Born January 7 between 1891 1901 (often lied
  about her age)
• Raised in Eatonville, FL the first all-Black,
  self-governed town (her father was mayor)
• Mother inspired her to Jump at de Sun, which
  became Zoras motto in life
• Loved to eavesdrop on the townsfolk telling their
  lies on the porch of Joe Clarkes store

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Zoras Education

• Attended boarding school after mother died early
  in Hurstons life
• Graduated from Morgan Academy High School
• Majored in English at Howard University
• Moved to Harlem to write
• Studied Anthropology with Franz Boas at Barnard
  College

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Zoras Writing

• Returned to the South to writebelieved that was
  the only place to find authentic Black culture
• Initially wrote under the patronage of a white
  woman, Charlotte Mason, but broke ties with her
  because she limited Zoras creative freedom
• Used folklore and dialect in her writing

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Zoras View on Race

• At certain time I have no race, I am me.
• I am not tragically colored.
• A feel most colored when I am thrown up against
  a sharp white background.
• - from Hustons essay, How It Feels to Be
  Colored Me

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Their Eyes Were Watching God

• Hurstons most popular novel
• Published in 1937
• First modern, feminist text written by an African
  American
• Considered the last text of the Harlem Renaissance

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Summary of Their Eyes

• Set in Eatonville, the main character, Janie,
  struggles to gain her voice and identity despite
  being held back by the men in her life. After
  three marriages, the third to a younger man named
  Tea Cakes, she triumphs in her life mission
  without compromising her dignity as a woman.

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Other Works By Hurston

• Novels
• Jonahs Gourd Vine
• Mules and Men
• Tell My Horse
• Moses, Man of the Mountain
• Dust Tracks on a Road (autobiography)
• Seraph on the Suwanee

• Spunk
• Color Struck A Play
• Sweat
• The Gilded Six-Bits
• My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience
• Conscience of the Court (negative reaction to
  Brown vs. Board of Education)

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Zoras Death

• Died penniless in 1960
• Unappreciated and criticized by authors such as
  W.E.B. DuBois and Richard Wright for not being
  race conscious enough and writing about
  folklore instead of using art as propaganda to
  further the Black race
• Buried in an unmarked grave

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The Rediscovery of Zora Neale Hurston

• In 1973, Alice Walker (author of The Color
  Purple) revived some of Hurstons work, later
  publishing it in two volumes I Love Myself When
  I Am Laughing and Then Again When I Am Looking
  Mean and Impressive and Spunk
• Walker also put a headstone on Hurstons grave,
  dubbing her A Genius of the South

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