Essay About Zora Neale Hurston And Black Community

Zora Neale Hurston
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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.