Title: Zora Neale Hurston | Encyclopedia of Alabama
Headings: Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston
Content: Zora Neale Hurston | Encyclopedia of Alabama
Zora Neale Hurston
Cheryl Dowe Carpenter, Alabama A&M University
Zora Neale Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an author, folklorist, journalist, dramatist, and influential member of the Harlem Renaissance. She is best known for her novels, particularly Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). A complex and controversial figure, Hurston was an ardent promoter of African American culture. Although criticized by her peers, who were interested in using literature and art as vehicles for overcoming stereotypes and promoting integration, assimilation, and equality, Hurston refused to concentrate on racism in her writing. Hurston's short stories, plays, and novels reflect her interest in anthropology and make use of the material she collected while working on various funded expeditions around the South and in Haiti and Jamaica. The controversy surrounding Hurston begins with the place of her birth. Notasulga, located in both Macon and Lee Counties, and Eatonville, Florida, both vie for the honor, but Notasulga, in east-central Alabama, is currently accepted by most scholars. She was born on January 7, 1891, to John Hurston and Lucy Potts Hurston, who was from a landowning family and had taught school before marrying. The Potts family, according to Hurston in her autobiography, Dirt Tracks on a Road, did not approve of the marriage because the groom's prospects were poor, but John and Lucy wed, farmed, and started their own family. Zora was the fifth child, and when she was a toddler, they moved to the all-black town of Eatonville.