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Quick Facts
- NAME: Zora Neale Hurston
- OCCUPATION: Civil Rights Activist, Author
- BIRTH DATE: January 07, 1891
- DEATH DATE: January 28, 1960
- PLACE OF BIRTH: Notasulga, Alabama
- PLACE OF DEATH: Fort Pierce, Florida
Best Known For
Anthropologist and novelist Zora Neale Hurston was a fixture of the Harlem Renaissance before writing her masterwork, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
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Play NowZora Neale Hurston. (2013). The Biography Channel website. Retrieved 06:27, May 21, 2013, from http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659.
Zora Neale Hurston. [Internet]. 2013. The Biography Channel website. Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659 [Accessed 21 May 2013].
"Zora Neale Hurston." 2013. The Biography Channel website. May 21 2013, 06:27 http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659.
"Zora Neale Hurston," The Biography Channel website, 2013, http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659 [accessed May 21, 2013].
"Zora Neale Hurston," The Biography Channel website, http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659 (accessed May 21, 2013).
Zora Neale Hurston [Internet]. The Biography Channel website; 2013 [cited 2013 May 21] Available from: http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659.
Zora Neale Hurston, http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659 (last visited May 21, 2013).
Zora Neale Hurston. The Biography Channel website. 2013. Available at: http://www.biography.com/people/zora-neale-hurston-9347659. Accessed May 21, 2013.
That same year, Hurston spent time in Jamaica conducting anthropological research.
In 1942, Hurston published her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road. This personal work was well-received by critics, but her life and career soon began to falter. Hurston was charged with molesting a 10-year-old boy in 1948; despite being able to prove that she was out of the country at the time of the incident, she suffered greatly from this false accusation.
Contents
Death and Legacy
Despite all of her accomplishments, Hurston struggled financially and personally during her final decade. She kept writing, but she had difficulty getting her work published. Additionally, she experienced some backlash for her criticism of the 1955 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Brown v. Board of Education, which called for the end of school segregation.
A few years later, Hurston had suffered several strokes and was living in the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. The once-famous writer and folklorist died poor and alone on January 28, 1960, and was buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Florida.
More than a decade later, another great talent helped to revive interest in Hurston and her work: Alice Walker wrote about Hurston in the essay "In Search of Zora Neale Hurston," published in Ms. magazine in 1975. Walker's essay helped introduce Hurston to a new generation of readers, and encouraged publishers to print new editions of Hurston's long-out-of-print novels and other writings. In addition to Walker, Hurston heavily influenced Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison, among other writers.
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