How Alice Walker Rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston
By Norma Brickner | On May 22, 2020 | Updated November 28, 2022 | Comments (15)
By the time of Zora Neale Hurston’s death, most of her considerable body of work was out of print, rarely read or studied. Here we’ll explore how Alice Walker rediscovered Zora Neale Hurston and revived her literary legacy.
Zora Neale Hurston (1891 – 1960) had a dual career as an anthropologist and author, incorporating regional and cultural realism in her short stories, folklore collections, and novels.
Alice Walker (1944 – ) is an activist, novelist, short story writer, and poet best known for the 1982 novel The Color Purple. Some of her views and alliances are controversial, yet if there is one good deed she has done, it has been to return Zora to her rightful place in the world of literature.
Works by Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston were included in a 1967 anthology of stories. Yet Walker wasn’t very familiar with Zora at the time.
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More about Zora Neale Hurston
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Making her mark in the Harlem Renaissance
Hurston was a major name in the Harlem Renaissance movement of the 1920s. In 1937, what would become her best-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was published. Though it was controversial in its time, later generations of readers, especially women, would find its message empowering.
Although the Harlem Renaissance embraced and promoted Black artists and writers, bringing fame to many who participated in it, Zora’s reputation had completely declined by the time of her death in 1960.
In search of Zora Neale Hurston
After discovering, reading, and rereading Zora Neale Hurston’s works, Alice Walker felt as if she knew Hurston personally.
It was a few years after Zora’s death that Walker read Their Eyes Were Watching God, which set her on the path of researching Zora Neale Hurston’s life and work.
Walker admired how Hurston embraced Black culture through her literature. Something the two authors share in their writing style is that Their Eyes Were Watching God (and other works) and The Color Purple both use the Black southern vernacular in their characters’ dialogue.
In the essay “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” (first published in Ms. magazine in 1975, later titled “Looking for Zora”) Alice Walker explored Hurston’s hometown of Eatonville, Florida, and came to understand that it was immensely influential to her works.
The influence of Eatonville
Hurston’s father was born into slavery; her mother was born to freed slaves. Having lineage branching towards both slavery and freedom is an intriguing background, and perhaps influenced Zora Neale Hurston’s attitude toward the world’s restricting hierarchy.
Growing up in Eatonville, Florida, a small town with such an intentional Afro-American community, might have caused Hurston to experience culture shock once she realized that in the wider world, she was considered a minority, and “less-than.”
Walker discovered that some characters in Hurston’s works were based on the people in her life. One of them was Jody Stark, who was inspired by Joe Clarke, the first mayor of Eatonville, and one of Hurston’s uncles.
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Searching for Zora’s grave
Farther along in her quest, Walker felt drawn to travel to the cemetery where Zora Neale Hurston was buried, the Garden of Heavenly Rest in Fort Pierce, Florida.
Walker wanted to honor the writer who had been such an inspiration, only to discover that Hurston’s unmarked grave had caved in and had been overrun by weeds and snakes. Once Walker was as certain as possible that she’d found the right spot, she purchased a headstone and had it engraved. She observed:
“There are times — and finding Zora’s grave was one of them — when normal responses of grief, horror, and so on, do not make sense because they bear no relation to the depth of emotion that one feels.
It was impossible for me to cry when I saw the field full of weeds where Zora is. Partly this is because I have come to know Zora through her books and she was not a teary person herself; but partly, too, it is because there is a point at which even grief feels absurd.”
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Ripe for rediscovery
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the main character, Janie Crawford, gains her freedom and gains her power after the death of her most-loved husband, Tea-Cake.
This novel challenges societal patriarchy through one African-American woman’s journey of self-discovery. Walker found these ideals and values in Hurston’s literature worthy of being presented to a new generation of readers.
Hurston’s writings seemed ripe for rediscovery in the 1970s, a time when social movements were re-envisioning the relationship between gender and race, and searching for a feminine identity not defined by a patriarchal society.
Her writings, especially Their Eyes Were Watching God, were controversial in their time, partly due to the use of Black southern vernacular. Some critics felt that this served only to ridicule the Black community and provide a source of entertainment for white readers. But in reality, Hurston was expressing affection for the people she grew up with.
In Walker’s collection of essays, In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens (1983), she writes as if she is the metaphorical daughter of Hurston and other great African American female writers before her.
Through their struggles of slavery, oppression, and sexually exploitation, they paved the way for authors and poets who came after them. Certainly, many of today’s African American women authors stand on the shoulders of Zora Neale Hurston.
“Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South” — The inscription that Alice Walker provided for the gravestone she erected says it all.
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Photo: Florida Today
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Further reading and sources
- “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” by Alice Walker
- Crafting a Voice for Black Culture (NPR)
- “Black Matrilineage: The case of Alice Walker and Zora Neale Hurston” by Dianne F. Sadoff, University of Chicago Press Journals
- Zora Neale Hurston … “A Genius of the South”
Norma Brickner is a graduate of SUNY-New Paltz, having studied Journalism and Digital Media.
Really wonder filled information. Is it possible for my library to get copies of her books.
Ellen, you need only ask at your library; if your local branch doesn’t have any of her books, they may be able to get them through Interlibrary Loan.
IT WAS SO KIND OF Alice Walker to purchase a headstone and engrave it for Zora Neale Hurston. I wish there was more information on Zora Neale Hurson. Was she married and have children, pets, hobbies…
Cynthia, we have lots of information on the site, in addition to her main biography (https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/hurston-zora-neale/) a search yields many results: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/?s=Zora+Neale+Hurston (which include full texts and excerpts from some of her work). Enjoy discovering this amazing author! She’s certainly no longer forgotten.
She did have a big brown and white dog named Sport according to one of her old neighbours interviewed in “In Search of Zora.” She didn’t get married or have children, however.
Lys, you got about 1/3 of this right — Zora had 3 short-lived marriages (according to several sources, including her official site, https://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/) She had a dog unimaginatively named Spot, though she didn’t write much about him.
Buffalo, there’s lots of info on Zora everywhere!Start here: https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/literary-musings/fascinating-facts-about-zora-neale-hurston/
and here: (https://www.literaryladiesguide.com/author-biography/hurston-zora-neale/
And her official site: https://www.zoranealehurston.com/about/
There is much information on Zora in her books as a contemporary of Langston Hughes and her patronage from Harlem Renaissance donors to her education as she pursued her anthropology degrees. In my personal collection which includes Moses Man of the Mountain and others I have found out so much about one of my favorite sheroes.
Thank you for your comment, DD Wooten — it’s great that Zora is getting the recognition she deserves. She could have used more of it in her lifetime!
Hello
I first read Their Eyes Were wWtching God maybe 20 years ago and since have collected other writings of Zora. She was brilliant, beautiful, and so very talented, capable of anything, I adore her. Alice Walker’s dedication to Zora is so very honorable and deeply touching. Zora deserves any and all recognition.
Thank you, Sam, and totally agree! I wish Zora would have been able to reap her success during her lifetime; she struggled so much despite that exuberant spirit of hers.
This month is the 130th anniversary of the birth of Zora Neale Hurston in Notasulga, Alabama. TODAY IS JANUARY 20, 2021 and the day that an African-American woman, Senator Kamala Harris, becomes our first female vice-president. It is a matter of record that Zora blazed the path for women of color in this country.
Her work for the Library of Congress on African-American folklore of the American South showed that all women were as able to do constructive, trail-blazing research as any men. Although Vice-President Harris could have got where she is today by herself, I believe she would be the first person to admit that Zora might have made it a little bit easier!
I believe now is the time to give Zora Neale Hurston the recognition that is her due: please join me in my crusade to gain for Zora in the 130th anniversary of her birth either the Pulitzer Prize or the National Book Award for her significant contribution to American Literature. Thank you, Professor John F Murphy
Professor Murphy, that’s such a brilliant idea. I love Zora and her work and I believe she stands among the giants of American literature. A posthumous award of either kind would be well deserved. What can I do to help you in your crusade?
I support this effort to recognize Zora Neale Hurston with a Pulitzer Prize or National Book Award. Thank you Professor Murphy, for your efforts to make this happen.
A posthumous Pulitzer or National Book Award for Zora would be a great idea! And well deserved.