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Jump at de Sun: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston

Jump at de Sun: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston

by Alyne Pustanio

Excerpted from Hoodoo Almanac 2013 Gazette


Novelist, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston is widely considered to be one of the preeminent African American writers of the twentieth century. Born January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama, Hurston was the fifth of eight children. When she was still a toddler, her father John, a Baptist preacher and farmer, moved the family to Eatonville, Florida; for Zora, Eatonville would always be home.

The rural community was established in 1887 near Orlando and was the first incorporated black township. Eatonville was a quiet community (Hurston once wrote that it had no jailhouse) and was a place where the doctrine of racial inferiority was never present. Hurston was everywhere surrounded by black role models: black men, including her father who later became mayor, made the laws and enacted city policy; black women, including her mother Lucy Ann, taught in schools during the week and on the weekends guided the coursework of Sunday schools. Black men and merchants comprised the town’s business class; their mothers and wives passed the time telling colorful stories, preserving a rich oral tradition in the town’s culture. Hurston’s childhood was, by all accounts, a happy one, though she often clashed with her father, who considered her somewhat capricious. But Hurston could always rely on the support of her mother who frequently encouraged her and her siblings to “jump at de sun,” as Hurston later wrote.

In her lifetime, Hurston’s works were relegated to near obscurity by a society and an African American community saturated by political correctness and bristling at Hurston’s use of dialects and ideas that many modern blacks considered demeaning.

Alice Walker’s article, In Search of Zora Neale Hurston, published in the March 1975 issue of Ms. magazine, is largely credited with bringing about a revival of interest in Hurston’s life and work. The article coincided with the appearance of other authors, such as Maya Angelou and Walker herself, that celebrate the African- American experience without focusing solely upon racial issues.

Source
Pustanio, A. (2013). Jump at de Sun: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston in Hoodoo Almanac 2013 Gazette, Prescott Valley, AZ: Creole Moon Publications.
 

Read the whole article in Hoodoo Almanac 2013 Gazette

 

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