Zora Neale Hurston
“A Genius of
The South”
1891 --- 1960
Novelist, Folklorist,
Anthropologist
Click here to view
a popular Zora
website.
Zora’s Youth
• Born January 7 between 1891 & 1901
(often lied about her age)
• Raised in Eatonville, FL – the first allBlack, self-governed town (her father
was mayor)
• Mother inspired her to “Jump at de
Sun,” which became Zora’s motto in life
• Loved to eavesdrop on the townsfolk
telling their “lies” on the porch of Joe
Clarke’s store
Zora’s Education
• Attended boarding school after mother
died early in Hurston’s 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
Zora’s Writing
• Returned to the South to write—
believed 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
Zora’s creative freedom
• Used folklore and dialect in her writing
Zora’s 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 Huston’s essay, “How It Feels
to Be Colored Me”
Their Eyes Were
Watching God
• Hurston’s most
popular novel
• Published in 1937
• First modern,
feminist text written
by an African
American
• Considered the last
text of the Harlem
Renaissance
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.
Other Works By Hurston
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Novels:
Jonah’s Gourd Vine
Mules and Men
Tell My Horse
Moses, Man of the
Mountain
Dust Tracks on a
Road (autobiography)
Seraph on the
Suwanee
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“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)
Zora’s 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
The Rediscovery of
Zora Neale Hurston
• In 1973, Alice Walker (author of The
Color Purple) revived some of Hurston’s
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
Hurston’s grave, dubbing her “A Genius
of the South”
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