Zora Neale Hurston
There are years that ask questions and years that answer.- Zora Neale Hurston
January 7, 1891- January 28, 1960
Biography
Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama; however, she grew up in Eatonville, Florida. Her parents were both former slaves. Growing up in the deep south in what she called a "pure Negro town" (Boyd, 2003) proved challenging for Hurston when Her mother died in 1904. Her father remarried shortly after, but Hurston never got along with her new mother. In the 1920's, Hurston moved to Harlem, New York in the midst of the "Harlem Renaissance." She reportedly befriended multiple artists and became a host for many social gatherings in her time in New York. She also studied anthropology at Barnard College, a feat very few African-American women did at the time, where her love of the world and the unknown finally began to take shape. (biography.com) Hurston went on to write many novels and short stories detailing the lives of the African American people. She died in 1960 ultimately in poverty and forgotten. It wasn't until several years later that people began to realize the remarkable work she contributed to the world of Anthropology. (biography.com)
Anthropology Works
Hurston is known for her influential writings on the lives of African-American people. She took an anthropological approach to addressing the inequalities that her people faced across America. Hurston wrote several short stories and even a novel in the few years after graduating college. In the 1930s, her career began to take off. She published her most well known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God in 1937. This novel follows the life of one Janie Crawford as she moves in and out of three marriages. Janie lives much of her life disappointed in the way she is treated until finally she meets a man who gives her a chance to enjoy life outside of a degrading relationship.
It was novels like these that gave Hurston her power. She challenged the norms of her day by telling stories. Hurston wasn't satisfied with the cultural standard. Instead, she addressed the sexist and racist acts occurring to black women in America. (Kubitschek, 1983) But she didn't do it by simply recounting facts. Instead, she told the true stories of the struggles of African American people - specifically women - across America. Aside fromTheir Eyes Were Watching God, her most prominent novels are Jonah's Gourd Vine, Moses, Man of the Mountain, and Seraph on the Suwanee. Additionally, she wrote two notable collections of folklore in Mules and Men and Tell My Horse.
Hurston didn't only focus on the discrimination she saw. In Mules and Men, she wrote of the folk world of African Americans. She traveled back to her hometown of Eatonville and recorded the tales, oral histories, and songs she remembered hearing as a child. Dust Tracks on a Dirt Road is Hurston's autobiography. In it she writes of deeply personal occurrences and the book itself is as intriguing as her fiction. Additionally, Hurston wrote several more books containing folk tales, fiction, and the struggles of her people. They can be found here: https://www.zoranealehurston.com/books/)
Learn More
Below is a podcast composed by the Deadladiesshow podcasts discussing the amazing women that Zora Neale Hurston was and the amazing things she was able to accomplish in her life.
Below is a video discussing Zora's life as a black women in Anthropology.
A short video by Biography on Zora's life
Below is the Florida Historical Societies' episode regarding Zora Neale Hurston talking about Zora as a person, her works and how she was for a brief period of time "forgotten" in History. The episode discusses what she did in the years when she returned to her home state of Florida.
"Florida Frontiers TV - Episode 6 - The Lost Years of Zora Neale Hurston"
Below is the Movie "Their Eyes Were Watching God" a film based on Zora Neale Hurstons' book under the same title.
"Their Eyes Were Watching God-Full Movie"
Below is a podcast regarding Zora Neale Hurston with a focus on her novels as well as her work as an anthropolgist in the Black community.
The Liturgists Black History is American History: Zora Neale Hurston Podcast
Below is a BBC podcast regarding work by Zora Neale Hurston. This podcast talks about how she was forgotten, her books stopped being printed and her being buried in an unmarked grave. This podcast attempts to bring the voice of Zora to life.
Zora Neale Hurston Books
A nonfiction work written by Zora Neale Hurston regarding the horrors and injustices of slavery by sharing the story of a survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. One of the last survivors on the last "Black Cargo" ship . (https://www.zoranealehurston.com/books/)
A fictional work composed of short pieces by Zora Neale Hurston compiled into one book revealing the evolution of her life. These stories range from 1921 to 1955 and show the immense range of writing ability of Zora Neale Hurston.
A collection of black America's folk world from when Zora Neale Hurston returned to Eatonville, FL in 1930. It helps preserve some of the songs, sermons and oral history.
This is a fiction piece of writing telling the story of Janie Crawford and it follows her quest to find her identity and learn to love herself through lives joys and sorrows.
This fiction piece written by Hurston, helps to display the voices of everyday ordinary people while simultaneously paying tribute to the richness of Black local language and dialect.
Zora Neale Hurston created this nonfiction work as an autobiography. It was published in 1942 and helps readers hear the stories Hurston has to share from her childhood raised in poverty in the South as a black women.
Works Cited
A&E Networks Television. (2020, August 17). Zora Neale Hurston. Biography.com. https://www.biography.com/writer/zora-neale-hurston.
BBC. Seriously..., Seriously... - The death and rebirth of Zora Neale Hurston. BBC Radio 4. https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/articles/4SYxTvQjwY4ydZqbNcFPMby/the-death-and-rebirth-of-zora-neale-hurston.
biography.com (2018) Accessed: September 2019, https://www.biography.com/writer/zora-neale-hurston
Boyd, Valerie (2003) Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston, Simon and Schuster, New York
Hurston, Zora Neale. Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters. Compiled by Carla Kaplan. New York: Doubleday, 2001.
Hurston, Z. N., & Hemenway, R. Dust tracks on a road: an autobiogr.
Kubitschek, Missy Dehn (1983) "Tuh De Horizon and Back": The Female Quest in Their Eyes Were Watching God, African American Review (St. Louis University)
Norwood, A. R. (2017). Zora Neale Hurston. National Women's History Museum. https://www.womenshistory.org/education-resources/biographies/zora-hurston.
Zora Neale Hurston Biography. Encyclopedia of World Biography. https://www.notablebiographies.com/Ho-Jo/Hurston-Zora-Neale.html.
Zora Neale Hurston. (2018, March 29). https://www.zoranealehurston.com/.