Zora Neal Hurston was an African American woman born to a former slave and minister named John Hurston, in 1891 in the town of Notasulga, Alabama. Her fathers career as a minister, and his position as mayor of Eatonville most definitely had an effect on her upbringing, and on her writing of Their Eyes Were Watching God. At the age of 3 Zora's family moved to what she considers her hometown of Eatonville, Florida. Because Zora was raised in Eatonville, a community that had all black neighborhoods she did not experience the racism that many African Americans of her time did. This fact is reflected in her book, because the primary focus of her book was finding one's voice, not racism Zora was very concerned with education, moving to Maryland to finish high school, and later studying Anthropology at Howard University in D.C. As part of her Anthropological studies she traveled to Harlem in 1926, a time when the Harlem Renaissance was reaching full swing, and met several other black writers, including Langston Hughes. Mrs. Hurston married twice, once in 1927 and again in 1939, and divorced both times. These two marriages reflect her book with both Joe Stark and Tea Cake, while she did not divorce either of them, their personality's were likely similar to Janie's marriages in the book. While Zora was living in Harlem in 1928 the Okeechobee hurricane hit Florida, with devastating effect, so much so that Hurston incorporated it as the setting for the climax of her book. In 1931 Zora began her journey to explore African American folklore and legend, by returning to Florida and studying songs, dances, and tales. In 1937 she earned two Guggenheim Fellowship awards, which allowed her to study abroad in the Caribbean, where she wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God in a record 7 weeks. While she had written several other books, and would write others still, none of them received the same appreciation as Their Eyes Were Watching God, Alice Walker, a African American writer said “There is no book more important to me than this one. While Zora had attained moderate success as a writer, she had always remained relatively poor. With her last book Seraph on the Swanee published in 1947 Hurston essentially ended her writing career but continued to write for newspapers and columns until her stroke in 1959, which led to her death in 1960.
Works Cited
Pahler, Stephanie. "Zora Neale Hurston '28." Barnard.edu. Barnard College, 2005. Web. 10 May 2013.
by Trevor Bell
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