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Zora Neale Hurston Wikipedia

Image:Hurston-Zora-Neale-LOC.jpg|thumb|Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891–January 28, 1960) was an African-American folkloristics|folklorist and author.

Her best-known work is Their Eyes Were Watching God. This novel was adapted into the 2005 film Their Eyes Were Watching God (2005 television)|Their Eyes Were Watching God by Oprah Winfrey's Harpo Productions with a teleplay by Suzan-Lori Parks.

She belonged to the literary period known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama and grew up in Eatonville, Florida.

She began her undergraduate studies at Howard University before transferring to Barnard College where she received her B.A. in anthropology in 1928. While at Barnard, she conducted ethnographic research under her advisor, the noted anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University. She also worked with Ruth Benedict as well as fellow anthropology student Margaret Mead http://beatl.barnard.columbia.edu/rothschild/cent_anth/early.html.

Hurston applied her ethnographic training to fiction (Their Eyes Were Watching God) as well as to dance (she assembled and led a dance group which performed works such as the 1932 Broadway performance The Great Day -- see References below). In addition, Hurston traveled to Haiti in 1937 and was one of the first academics to conduct an ethnographic study of the Voodoo|Vodun, also a subject of study for fellow dancer/anthropologist Katherine Dunham who was then at the University of Chicago http://www.tbwt.org/index.php?option=content&task=view&id=180&Itemid=30.

Hurston's work slid into obscurity for decades, explainable for a number of reasons, cultural and political.

Dialogue in Hurston's work was influenced by her academic experiences. Thinking like a folklorist, Hurston strove to represent speech patterns of the period which she documented through ethnographic research. For example ( Amy from the opening of Jonah's Gourd Vine):

Quote:"Dat's a big ole resurrection lie, Ned. Uh slew-foot, drag-leg lie at dat, and Ah dare yuh tuh hit me too. You know Ahm uh fightin' dawg and mah hide is worth money. Hit me if you dare! Ah'll wash yo' tub uh 'gator guts and dat quick."

Some critics during her the time felt, however, that Hurston's decision to render language in this way made a caricature of Black culture (and thus not deserving of respect). In more recent times, however, critics have praised Hurston for her artful capture of the actual language and idiom of the day.

During the 1930s and 1940s when her work was published, the preeminent African American author was Richard Wright (author)|Richard Wright. Unlike Hurston, Wright wrote in explicitly political terms, using the struggle of Black Americans for respect and economic advancement as both the setting and the motivation for his work.

Wright's works supported the leftist political struggle of the 1930s during the Great Depression. Other popular African American authors of the time, such as Ralph Ellison and Langston Hughes were also aligned with Wright's vision of the struggle of African Americans. Hurston's work was ignored because it was apolitical and simply did not fit in with this struggle. Because her work was not connected to more popular theme's in mainstream African American writing, it slid into obscurity until it was resdiscovered in the 1970s.

image:Zora.jpg|thumb|Zora Neale Hurston

She covered the 1954 Florida murder trial of Ruby McCollum with journalist/author and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie. Hurston's detachment from the wider American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)|civil rights movement struggle was demonstrated by her opposition to the Supreme court#United States|Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v board of education|Brown v Board of Education case (1954). She voiced this opposition in the letter, http://www.lewrockwell.com/epstein/epstein15.html Court Order Can???t Make the Races Mix, which was published in the Orlando, Florida|Orlando Sentinel in August, 1955. This letter caused a furor and proved to be Hurston's last public intervention.

Hurston passed away pennyless in obscurity and was buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Florida until fiction writer Alice Walker found and marked the grave in 1975, sparking a virtual Hurston renaissance.

During her prime Hurston was a supporter of the UNIA and Marcus Garvey, casting her self in fierce opposition to communism as professed by many of her colleagues in the Harlem Rennaisance such as Langston Hughes, who wrote several poems of effusive praise for the Soviet Union. Hurston thus became by far the leading black figure on the libertarian Old Right (United States)|old right, and in 1952 she actively promoted the presidential candidacy of Robert Taft.

Hurston's detachment from the wider American Civil Rights Movement (1896-1954)|civil rights movement struggle was demonstrated by her opposition to the Supreme court#United States|Supreme Court ruling in the Brown v board of education|Brown v Board of Education case (1954). She voiced this opposition in the letter, http://www.lewrockwell.com/epstein/epstein15.html Court Order Can???t Make the Races Mix, which was published in the Orlando, Florida|Orlando Sentinel in August, 1955. This letter caused a furor and proved to be Hurston's last public intervention.

The article, In Search of Zora Neale Hurston, by Alice Walker was published in the March 1975 issue of Ms. Magazine. This article revived interest in her work. The rediscovery of Hurston's work coincided with the popularity and critical acclaim of authors such as Toni Morrison, Maya Angelou, and Alice Walker|Walker herself, whose works are centered on African American experiences which include, but does not necessarily focus upon, racial struggle.

• Kraut, Anthea, Between Primitivism and Diaspora: The Dance Performances of Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, and Katherine Dunham, Theatre Journal 55 (2003): 433???50.

• Barracoon (1999)

• African American literature

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• http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2272 Literary Encyclopedia

Last Modified:   2005-12-19