Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891 in Notasulga, Alabama. When she was still young, her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, the nation’s first incorporated black township. This is the place that she claims as her home. When Zora was a young teen, her mother died and her father soon remarried after her death. Zora’s father and stepmother then sent her off to Jacksonville, Florida to attend a boarding school. Once her parents stopped paying her tuition, she was expelled from school. Finally, when she was 26 years old, she started attending Morgan Academy in Baltimore, Maryland and graduated from there in 1918. She had lied about her age to qualify for a free high school education. She began to claim 1901 as her birthdate. In 1918, Zora attended Howard University, where she earned an associate’s degree, and in 1925 she was offered a scholarship to Bernard College. In 1927, she received her B.A. in anthropology. Also in 1927, she married a Jazz musician, and one of her former classmates at Howard, by the name of Herbert Sheen, but their marriage was ended in 1931. By 1939 she had married Albert Price, who was 25 years younger than her, but only after a few months, this marriage was also ended. In early 1959, Zora suffered from a stroke and was forced to enter the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. On January 28, 1960 she died of hypertensive heart disease.
The accomplishments of Zora were many. She served on the faculty of North Carolina for negroes in Duram, North Carolina. At Bethune-Cookman University, she started a school of dramatic arts “based on pure Negro expression.” On top of all of this, Zora was an author of four novels, and over 50 published short stories, plays and essays. She was a high profile writer during the time of the Harlem Renaissance, making friends with poet Langston Hughes and singer-actress Ethel Waters. She is best known for her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, written in 1937. This novel was written in just seven short weeks in Haiti where she was doing anthropological research. The novel has many parallels with its author’s life. She won several awards and received an honorary doctorate from Morgan State College in 1939.
Written By: Anna Stephens
Written By: Anna Stephens
