Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was the most prominent female writer of the 20th century; she was a published, world-renowned writer and anthropologist. Zora was one of the greatest folklorists of the Harlem Renaissance and she dedicated her life and career to learning and writing about Black culture. Born on January 7th, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama, Zora Neale Hurston was a daughter of two former slaves. Soon after her birth, her father John Hurston moved the family to Eatonville, Florida where Zora called home. Eatonville was the first ever integrated black town in America and here her father became one of the first mayors. Following the death of her mother in 1904 and the remarriage of her father, due to the lack of financial support, Zora was forced

Her apartment in Harlem was a popular place for social gathering, she was very intelligent, entertaining and sociable, regardless of having a party at her house, this never kept her away from writing. The 1920s -1930s marked one of the greatest movements of African Americans in history. This movement, the Harlem Renaissance which was born of the experiences and violent psychological experiences of slaves during slavery was a social, cultural and artistic explosion as a result that took place in America. Out of it came the greatest Black writers and it influenced the Black community to dream and explore life in a literary way they’ve never experienced before. Zora Neale Hurston was one of many. Zora Neale Hurston’s stories of Eatonville and her style of folklore writing which incorporated African-American dialect made her an important figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Besides the fact that she befriended well-known poets and writers of the movement, her writing provided for the needed presence of a feminine voice in the movement. Unlike her fellow Black writers, she wasn’t at all into the idea of Black people being victims of White society, she was rather into her own aesthetic. Her way of writing focused on a realistic portrayal of

Few years later, due to health and financial struggles, she was forced to enter the St Lucie County Welfare Home where she suffered several strokes and died of hypertensive heart disease. She died poor and alone in 1960 and was buried in Fort Pierce, Florida in an unmarked grave. Being the famous writer she was, nevertheless her friends and people she made connections with abandoned her in the moments of greater needs. Even though her life was not a beautiful painting in itself, she contributed to the greater cause and advancement of African-Americans through her writings and recorded documents of Black stories relating to that of the Africans. She made it possible for later generations to look back and inquire about their