The Life of Zora Neale Hurston

It is great to be a famous writer and also greater if you were a woman, but here, she is a black woman born in the early 30s of the 20th century, in my opinion it is the greatest because she was a womanist not just a feminist. Toni Morrison is not the first black woman to publish a novel discussing the black community and its suffering of racism. But Harriet E. Wilson did that before her in 1859 (Reuben). Harriet was unable to put her name on her book, due to being black as well as a woman. Since then, black women authors have come a long way in proving themselves as writers.

Ida was on track to complete high school, her parents and youngest sibling died along with 301 other residents of Holly Springs in 1878 due to the yellow-fever epidemic (Podesta, 2016). Following their deaths, Ida moved to Memphis, Tennessee with her aunt, where she attended Fisk University. Ida began teaching at the age of fifteen to support her younger brothers and sisters following the death of her parents (Carlton-LaNey, 1998). At age 16, Wells-Barnett became responsible for her younger siblings. She also convinced the superintendent that she was eighteen years old and obtained a position as a teacher that paid her twenty-five dollars a month (The Gale Group, 2016).

Web 28 Apr. 2014. Parrish, Ann. Marianne Moore. New York: Great Neck Publishing, 2005.

She had the right to educate the public, as Poe and Whitman eventually did, but she never had the invitation. Had she published during her lifetime, public criticism might have driven her into deeper solitude and even silence. The twentieth century has lifted her without a doubt to the first rank among poets.

African American women with darker and lighter complexions suffered some type of emotional baggage and rejection at a point in their lives. Although one is seen to have privilege, it was never the light skinned woman’s intention to be as superior as she is. She carries privilege but, “both experienced the same things but just on the end of two different spectrum”, states American Inspirational Speaker, Iyanla Vanzant. The Secret Shame has always perceived dark woman as being the inferior but at the end of the day Colorism not only effects woman of darker complexions but woman of lighter complexions as well. No matter how hard one tries to change who they are they have to understand how this really affects the other and until then things have to be said, feelings have to surface, and hearts have to be mended.

Zora Neal Hurston was the daughter of a Baptist Preacher born in Alabama on January 7, 1891 only 26 years after slavery was abolished. When she was three her father moved their family to Eatonville Florida. Eatonville was the first incorporated black community in America, a place that Zora held as the black utopia. Zora was able to receive an education and earned her B.A. in Anthropology from Columbia University in 1928 (Zora).

MELUS 31.2 (2006): 3-20. JSTOR. Web. 19 Mar. 2014. .

Women were not given a chance to prove that they were equal to men during this time. Any opinions they raised were quickly dismissed. Many women writers and thinkers were not taken seriously at this time (many having to create pseudonyms to hide their gender when they wished to not only be published but to be taken seriously), and even the very “influential” women of the salons had very little to no credibility in the male dominated political and social sector. They were seen as inferior to men, especially when it came to education and being able to spread their ideas to the public. Education for women was very different from the education men received.

Gwendolyn Brooks wrote an autobiography that reveals many her attitudes, tendencies and criticisms. Martha, in Brooks’ stories has a low self-esteem. This lack of self is directly related to her being black. Brooks’ experiences growing up are the key influence in the writing of Maud Martha Martha’s self-image is very low because she feels that being black will not get her anywhere in society. She feels as though she is backed into a corner when it comes to the problems that the black culture faces from day to day.

"Wading through waist high weeds, Alice Walker stumbled upon a sunken rectangular patch of ground", under it lay the forgotten literary genius of the South: Zora Neale Hurston (Boyd 2). Zora Neale Hurston, was an African-American novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist during the 1920s in Harlem, New York. The 1920s, also known as The Harlem Renaissance, African-Americans were able to express and represent their culture in its entirety, which until then had been pushed aside by the Whites. During this era Hurston not only embraced her culture, but provided women with a model on how to effectively contribute to it themselves. She showed them what it was like to be a woman writer and speak up for what she believed in regardless of the racial