Title: How it Feels to be Colored Me by Zora Neale Hurston Plot Summary | LitCharts
Headings: How it Feels to be Colored Me Summary
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How it Feels to be Colored Me Summary

Content: However, in her present life, Hurston doesn’t view her colored status as a tragedy. She contrasts herself with other African-Americans, who she says feel victimized by their oppression. Instead, she claims that life is dominated by the powerful, whether that power is applied on the basis of skin color or any other criteria. Hurston complains about the tendency to overemphasize the legacy of slavery, which she dismisses by placing it “sixty years in the past.” She describes the struggles of previous generations as a sacrifice for her current freedom, which she plans to use in pursuit of glory and adventure. In contrast, white people are haunted by the historical guilt of African-American slavery. Hurston notes that she doesn’t always “feel [her] race,” but she feels it most often around white people, as she does at Barnard College in New York. But she describes the feeling in positive terms, as it brings her sense of self into greater relief. She tells an anecdote about bringing a white friend to a jazz club in her black neighborhood. As the band strikes up, Hurston enters a trance where she makes contact with a more primitive, animal nature.