Saturday, March 9, 2013

Zora Neale Hurston







"I have been in Sorrow's kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and a sword in my hands."
Zora Neale Hurston
 
 
 
Born on Jan. 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, Hurston moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida, when she was still a toddler. Her writings reveal no recollection of her Alabama beginnings. For Hurston, Eatonville was always home. Established in 1887, the rural community near Orlando was the nation's first incorporated black township. It was, as Hurston described it, "a city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and no jailhouse."





In 1917, attended Morgan Academy which was the high school verison of the historically black college Morgan University later known as Morgan State University. A year later she attended Howard University for her undergraduate studies, she became one of the earliest initiates of Zeta Phi Beta Sorority Inc., she also co-founded the school's newspaper The Hilltop. She earned an Associates Degree in 192 she left Howard in 1924. By 1925 she was offered a scholarship to Barnard College, Columbia University where she was the only black student.  She earned a B.A. in anthropology.






She was a member of the writing community during the Harlem Renaissance, she wrote Mules and Men, Jonah's Gourd Vine, Moses, Man of the Mountain, and her most notable piece of work Their Eyes Were Watching God.

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