Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston

Zora was a very powerful artist. She wrote many books articles, she was a novelist, folklorist

and an anthropologist. Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891. She died on January

28, 1960. She died on vacation in Fort Pierce Florida. The early life of Zora Neale Hurston has

been shrouded in mystery. No one knows the exact date or the exact place she was born. Zora

was the fifth of eight children of John and Lucy Ann Potts Hurston. Her father was a Baptist

preacher, tenant farmer, and carpenter. At age three her family moved to Eatonville, the first

incorporated black community in America with a then population of 125, and of which her

father would later become mayor. To Zora Eatonville would become a utopia, glorified in her

stories as a place black Americans could live as they desire, independent of white society and all

its ways. The death of her mother when she was thirteen was a devastating event for Zora as

she was "passed around the family like a bad penny" by her father for the next several years.

For all the praise that Zora Neale Hurston received later in her career, the brilliance of her

literary works cannot be denied. Future black writers such as Ralph Ellison, Toni Morrison and

Alice Walker were greatly influenced by her books, and ironically they have addressed the issue

of prejudice in their books. And any aspect of black culture that remains preserved today and

continues to enlighten us owes its status in one way or another to Zora Neale Hurston. Zora

was a really strong women. She has been threw a lot and she still turned out to be a historical

women overcoming all of the major obstacles. Zora Neale Hurston will always be a hero in my

book.