Zora Neale Hurston: Genius of the South

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was perhaps one of the most prolific of the Harlem Renaissance writers, but she was also the most polarizing. To some of her contemporaries she was 'disconcerting'; to others, 'eccentric,' and even boastful and outrageous. As if a subtle critique, author Wallace Thurman cast her as  "Sweetie Mae Carr," an effete, egotistical would-be artiste in  Thurman's satiric novel, Infants of the Spring. To others, however, Hurston was a trail-blazer, an iconoclast, and later for Alice Walker, a 'spiritual mother.' 

No matter her reputation among Harlem Literati, she was one of the earliest African American female scholars to venture into post-Occupation Haiti to gather invaluable cultural material for her compilation, Tell My Horse. Later she would expose African American folklife to U.S. audiences in Mules and Men. Hurston was an intrepid and rigorous preserver and conveyer of Africana folklife and folk culture.

Born in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated all-African American town, Hurston was the daughter of John and Lucy Hurston. Her parents and the folk of Eatonville made an indelible mark on the author. John Hurston, a preacher in the Sanctified Church and mayor of Eatonville, loomed large in her memory and became the basis for many of the male characters in her writing, principally of Hurston's semi-biographical novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine. Her mother, Lucy, was the first to tell Zora to "Jump at the sun...you may not reach it, but at least you'll get off the ground." Lucy Hurston's words and memory resonate throughout the pages of Hurston's novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God."

Most notable in Hurston's novels and short stories like "Sweat," the townsfolk of Eatonville recur and assume shape as characters in themselves. "Porch talk," and "Mouth Almighty" become terms familiar to Hurston scholars to describe and dramatize the ways in which the community comments on individual lives and characters. Further, the townsfolk of Hurston's fictional renderings of her hometown explore the folk within an insular context in which blacks were free to be themselves and express their hearts, minds, loves and relationships liberally. Gates comments that "[i]n her view, the absence of whites not only kept Eatonville free of racism but also freed blacks to express themselves without reservation" (Gates 1019). This freedom revealed the true character of the folk, and Hurston's novels depicted the lives of these characters with honesty and compassion.

Always the iconoclast, Hurston's "How it Feels to be Colored Me" reveals the author's assertive--even brazen--character that some relished, and others deplored. The latter because of her apparent and unapologetic refusal to politicize her art. Even today, this essay resonates with some critics as complicit, even accommodationist. Even her ardent admirer Alice Walker was critical. In her compendium of Hurston's essays, Walker described the author of "Colored Me" as Hurston at her "most exasperating." Still, there are other readers of Hurston's work who see the author's effective resistance to racial discrimination. How shall we judge this essay? From a historicist view that observes Hurston within her social and historical context (of the Renaissance, as a southern transplant); or, from presentist perspective that views Hurston as a comparatively softer, less relevant voice of protest? Or must we view her art as having a protest role? Again we cannot help but find ourselves confronted with the potentially political role of art and the artist. 

Alice Walker discusses Hurston's portrayal of her people in Their Eyes Were Watching God: