Zora+Neale+Hurston


 * Zora Neale Hurston** (January 7, 1981 - January 28, 1960) was a novelist, [|anthropologist], and an [|American folklorist] and author during the Harlem Renaissance. She influenced many important figures that we study today including, [|Alice Walker] , [|Toni Morrison] , [|Maya Angelou] , and [|Zadie Smith].


 * Hurston** was born in [|Notalsulga, Alabama] in 1981, even though, as adult, she claimed that she was born in Eatonville, Florida. She was the fifth of eight children to John Hurston, a carpenter, tenant farmer, and Baptist preacher and Lucy Ann Potts Hurston, a former school teacher. She actually moved to Eatonville, Florida, when she was three years old and her father later became the mayor of that town. The death of Lucy Hurston was a very devastating event as she was the mother of eight and Zora was only thirteen years old at the time. Afterwards, she was "tossed around the family like a bad penny" by her father for the next several years.


 * In 1917**, with the help of her employer, Zora entered Morgan Academy, the high school division of Morgan College (now called [|Morgan State University)]. Even though she was twenty-six years old at enrollment, she listed herself as sixteen years old and and 1901 as her year of birth. In 1918, Zora graduated from Morgan Academy and began her undergraduate studies at [|Howard University] in Washington, D.C. That's where she became one of the earliest members of the [|Zeta Phi Beta] Sorority. She was also the co-founder of//[|The Hilltop]//, the University's student newspaper. She set a great path for herself, and pursued her goals. A few years later, she was inspired by [|Alain LeRoy Locke], an American writer, philosopher, educator and patron of the arts. She became really interested in black culture and started her literary career. Hurston left Howard University in 1924 and was offered a scholarship to [|Barnard College] where she was the college's only black student. Hurston recieved her [|Bachelor of Arts] in anthropology when she was thirty six. While she was at Barnard, she worked with other fellow anthropologists like [|Franz Boas] of Colombia University, [|Ruth Benedict] , and [|Margaret Mead] . Zora spent two years as a graduate student in anthropology at Colombia University after graduating from Barnard College.

The Harlem Renaissance was the period during which African American culture and intellectual life flowered in the 1920s and 1930s. Zora was one of the most well known writers when the Harlem Renaissance was at it's peak. Her short story "Spunk" was selected for [|The New Negro], a landmark anthology of fiction, poetry, and essays focusing on African and African American art and literature. In 1926, a group of talented young African American writers including Hurston, [|Langston Hughes], [|Wallace Thurman] , Richard Bruce Nugent, Jonathan Davis, [|Gwendolyn Bennett] , and [|Aaron Douglas] emerged and called themselves the [|Niggerati]. There were many people behind their literary magazine, [|FIRE!!] (it only lasted for one issue until 1926). Here is one of her quotes about discrimination: **//"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."//**




 * In 1930**, Hurston collaborated with Langston Hughes on //[|Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life in Three Acts] .// Even though it was never finished, it was published in 1991. In the mid-1930s, Hurston published several short stories including Mules and Men (1935), which brilliantly documented African American folklore. In 1937, she was given a [|Guggenheim Fellowship] to conduct ethnographic research in Jamaica and Haiti. Her first three novels were also published in the 1930s; J//onah's Gourd Vine// (1934); //[|Their Eyes Were Watching God]// (1937), which was amazingly written during her fieldwork in Haiti and is considered her masterwork (it was also made into a movie); and //__[|Moses, Man of the Mountain]__// (1939).

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 * Her last novel** was published in 1948; Seraph on the Sewanee, which was mostly focused white characters. In 1954, Hurston was assigned by the //[|Pittsburgh Courier]// to cover the murder trial of [|Ruby McCollum], the prosperous black wife of the local [|bolita] racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. She also contributed to //Woman in the Suwanee County Jail//, a book by journalist and [|civil rights] advocate [|William Bradford Huie].

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 * She has made many accomplishments** throughout her lifetime even with the loss of her mother at age thirteen. She was able to overcome the odds, go to high school, college, and become one of the most well known people in history. She has written many novels, based off of her background knowledge and her brilliance cannot be denied. She influenced many writers in the past and is continuing to do so. We owe Zora Neale Hurston for keeping African American culture, as we know it today, alive.======