Zora Neale Hurston Research Paper

Zora Neale Hurston was an American folklorist and writer who became associated with the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston celebrated the black culture of the rural south. Zora Neale Hurston’s childhood relationships, surroundings, and events influenced her most popular books. Hurston’s writings depict her experience living in the first all black community of Eatonville, Florida. She studied the surroundings, people, and nature of Eatonville and incorporated that into her writings.

Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama. Hurston was the daughter of two former slaves. Her father was John Hurston and her mother was Lucy Ann (Potts) Hurston. When Hurston was a toddler, her father moved her family to Eatonville, Florida. As a child Hurston was a free spirit and very often voiced her opinion. Hurston's father was a very strict preacher while her mother supported and …show more content…
Hurston was considered “ a bright pupil, but impudent and a bit stubborn”. She would get beatings at school and home because of her free spirit and the ways she expressed her opinions. Hurston was told that she needed to break her free spirit. A few miles down the road from Eatonville, was a white village. The white village were inhabited by people from Michigan, Wisconsin, and upper state New York who often times came to visit Eatonville. They often times brought her many books to study from, and even sent more when they went to visit up North. Hurston became friends with the children of the white village and showed no signs of fear from their “white faces”. Hurston was often times warned to stay away from the white children and men. Of the race, Hurston wrote that she only sees people and that the race is just another detailed description. In 1904, after her mother’s death her father took her out of school to go and take care of her brother’s children. Hurston was very eager to leave the responsibility of caring for her brother’s

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