Zora Neale Hurston Biography: Jason Peterson

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama on January 7^th, 1891. There has often been a lot of confusion about when and where she was born. In her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road, she stated that Eatonville, Florida is where she was born. She was the daughter of two former slaves and due to her mother’s death, lived with an assortment of family members growing up. She earned an associate degree from Howard university, paying her own way through school. After graduation she moved to NYC’s Harlem neighborhood, where she became a part of the area’s thriving art scene. Hurston was also very much interested in education. She received a scholarship to Barnard college where she studied anthropology. In 1927, she went back to Florida to collect African-American folk tales, and published them in a collection titled, Mules and men (1935). Throughout this time Hurston also explored her art interests. She teamed up with Langston Hughes to work on a play. The play was titled Mule-bone: A comedy of Negro Life, but a fight between Hurston and Hughes would lead to a falling out. Zora also wrote several other plays. A few years later, Zora was given a Guggenheim fellowship. This enabled her to work on her most famous book: Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). Her next major work was her autobiography, which was well received by the public and critics. But due to a false accusation on a charge of molesting a 10-year-old boy, her career faltered.

In her finals years she struggled financially and personally.  She received major backlash for her disagreement with the 1955 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Brown v. Board of Education, which ended school segregation. Despite the backlash she kept writing but had trouble getting any work published. A few years later, Zora had a several stokes and was living at St. Lucie Country Welfare Home. Zora Neale Hurston died alone and poor on January 28, 1960. She was then buried in Fort Pierce, Florida under an unmarked grave.

Work Cited:

Biography.com Editors. "Zora Neale Hurston." Bio.com. A&E Networks Television, n.d. Web. 09 May 2016.

"Zora Neale Hurston." The Official Website of. The Estate of Zora Neale Hurston, n.d. Web. 09 May 2016.