Zora Neale Hurston was an American novelist, memoirist, and folklorist. In the anthology, A Zora Neale Hurston Reader, the chapter titled “What White Publishers Won’t Print” (originally published in Negro Digest in 1950) discusses the lack of average black people appearing in literature and film. 

In it she wrote about the importance of accurate portrayal of society’s marginalized groups. 

In some ways this was ironic, because some African-American writers like Richard Wright criticized her for applying the “minstrel technique” to her characters and penned a scathing review of what is arguably Hurston’s best-known work, Their Eyes Were Watching God.   Read More→