Zora Neale Hurston
(January 7, 1891– January 28, 1960)
American author, anthropologist, filmmaker, Folklorist, and Co-Founder of The Hilltop newspaper.
She was an American novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist known for her contributions to African-American literature, her portrayal of racial struggles in the American South, and works documenting her research on Haitian voodoo. Hurston’s had four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
In 1934, Hurston established a school of dramatic arts “based on pure Negro expression” at Bethune – Cookman University (at the time, Bethune-Cookman College), a historically black college in Daytona Beach, Florida.In 1956, Hurston received the Bethune-Cookman College Award for Education and Human Relations in recognition of her achievements. The English Department at Bethune-Cookman College remains dedicated to preserving her cultural legacy.
Folklore geographical areas of study for her inspirational works.
In later life, in addition to continuing her literary career, Hurston served on the faculty of North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University) in Durham, NC.
Hurston traveled extensively in the Caribbean and the American South and immersed herself in local cultural practices to conduct her anthropological research. In 1935, Hurston traveled to Georgia and Florida with Alan Lomax and Mary Elizabeth Barnicle for research on African American song traditions and their relationship to slave and African antecedent music. She was tasked with selecting the geographic areas and contacting the research subjects. In 1936 and 1937, Hurston traveled to Jamaica West Indies and Hati for research, with support from the Guggenheim Foundation.,
Death and internmet
During a period of financial and medical difficulties, Hurston was forced to enter St. Lucie County Welfare Home, where she had a stroke.She died of Hypotensive heart disease on January 28, 1960, and was buried at the Garden of Heavenly Rest in Fort Pierce, Florida. Her remains were in an unmarked grave until 1973.
Novelist Alice Walker and fellow Hurston scholar Charlotte D. Hunt found an unmarked grave in the general area where Hurston had been buried; they decided to mark it as hers. Walker commissioned a gray marker inscribed with “ZORA NEALE HURSTON / A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH / NOVELIST FOLKLORIST / ANTHROPOLOGIST / 1901–1960.”The line “a genius of the south” is from Jean Toomer’s poem, “Georgia Dusk,” which appears in his book Cane. Hurston was born in 1891, not 1901.
After Hurston died, her papers were ordered to be burned. A law officer and friend, Patrick DuVal, passing by the house where she had lived, stopped and put out the fire, thus saving an invaluable collection of literary documents for posterity.The nucleus of this collection was given to the University of Florida libraries in 1961 by Mrs. Marjorie Silver, a friend, and neighbor of Hurston. Within the collection is a manuscript and photograph of Seraph on the Suwanee and an unpublished biography of Herod, the Great. Luckily, she donated some of her manuscripts to the James Weldon Johnson Collection of Yale University. Other materials were donated in 1970 and 1971 by Frances Grover, daughter of E. O. Grover, a Rollins College professor and long-time friend of Hurston’s. In 1979, Stetson Kennedy of Jacksonville, who knew Hurston through his work with the Federal Writers Project. added additional papers (Zora Neale Hurston Papers, the University of Florida Smathers Libraries, August 2008).