Who is Zora Hurston?
Zora Neale Hurston was born January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama to Reverend John and Lucy Hurston. Hurston was fifth out of eight children. Although Hurston was born in Alabama she was raised in Eatonville, Florida. While in Eatonville, Hurston's father became mayor. Zora's father tried to tame Zora's peronality. while her mother told her to "Jump at de Sun." When Zora was thriteen years old her mother died. This tragic event devastated Zora's childhood. After Zora's mother died Zora's father remarried. Zora almost killed the young wowan in a fistfight. At twenty-six Zora left Eatonville and moved to Baltimore, MD as a maid to the lead singer of a Gilbert & Sullivan traveling troupe. Hurston had yet to finish high school, so to attend high school she had to pose as a ten years younger. She was then enrolled in Morgan Academy. In 1918 Hurston graduated from Morgan and started attending Howard University. While there she was inspired by Alain Locke to write her first short story entitled John Redding Goes to Sea. In 1921 it was published in Howard Universities literary magazine. Some of her other works caught the eye of Langston Hughes, a poet during the Harlem Renaissance. Zora transferred to Barnard College in New York, she was offered a scholarship in anthropology. While in New York she became good friends with Langston Hughes and Ethel Waters, joining in on the Harlem Renaissance era. Zora's style of writing had a big impact on the Harlem Renaissance era. She wrote about Eatonville and combined anthropology with literature. Hurston married a former classmate Herbert Sheen in 1927, that same year she went to Florida to collect folklore. Hurston and Sheen later divorced in 1931. In 1934 Hurston publishes her first major novel Jonah's Gourd Vine. In 1935 joined the WPA Federal Theatre Project as a "dramatic coach." Hurston was rewarded a Guggenheim Fellowship to study West Indian Obeah practices. She traveled to Jamaica and Haiti. In 1937 Hurston publishes her work of art, Their Eyes Were Watching God. In 1939 Hurston married again to Albert Price II. In 1939 Hurston also took a job at North Carolina College for Negroes as a drama teacher. A year later Hurston and Price divorce. When Hurston suffered a stroke in 1959 she was forced to enter the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. On January 28, 1960 Zora Neale Hurston dies of "hypertensive heart dieases" in Fort Pierce, Florida. During Hurston's life she has published over fifty short stories or essays and over seven novels. Zora Neale Hurston was an amazing African American novelist, folkorist and anthropologist that gave new life to the Harlem Renaissance era.
