Title: How Alice Walker Rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston
Headings: How Alice Walker Rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston
How Alice Walker Rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston
Making her mark in the Harlem Renaissance
In search of Zora Neale Hurston
The influence of Eatonville
Searching for Zora’s grave
Ripe for rediscovery
Further reading and sources

Content: In search of Zora Neale Hurston
It was a few years after Zora’s death that Walker read Their Eyes Were Watching God, which set her on the path of researching Zora Neale Hurston’s life and work. Walker admired how Hurston embraced Black culture through her literature. Something the two authors share in their writing style is that Their Eyes Were Watching God (and other works) and The Color Purple both use the Black southern vernacular in their characters’ dialogue. In the essay “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” (first published in Ms. magazine in 1975, later titled “Looking for Zora”) Alice Walker explored Hurston’s hometown of Eatonville, Florida, and came to understand that it was immensely influential to her works. The influence of Eatonville
Hurston’s father was born into slavery; her mother was born to freed slaves. Having lineage branching towards both slavery and freedom is an intriguing background, and perhaps influenced Zora Neale Hurston’s attitude toward the world’s restricting hierarchy. Growing up in Eatonville, Florida, a small town with such an intentional Afro-American community, might have caused Hurston to experience culture shock once she realized that in the wider world, she was considered a minority, and “less-than.” Walker discovered that some characters in Hurston’s works were based on the people in her life. One of them was Jody Stark, who was inspired by Joe Clarke, the first mayor of Eatonville, and one of Hurston’s uncles.