Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) was an American author, anthropologist, and filmmaker whose work celebrated Black culture and folklore. Born in Notasulga, Alabama, and raised in Eatonville, Florida—the first all-Black incorporated town in the U.S.—she studied at Howard University and Barnard College under anthropologist Franz Boas. Her most acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), follows Janie Crawford’s quest for selfhood and love, blending Southern dialect with lyrical prose. Hurston also published Mules and Men (1935), a collection of African American folktales, and the autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road (1942). Despite falling into obscurity after her death, her work was revived in the 1970s by Alice Walker, securing Hurston’s legacy as a foundational voice in American literature and Black feminist thought.