Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)

Zora Neale Hurston was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, an autobiography, ethnographies, and many essays. Some of her work, namely Tell My Horse (1937), explored ethnomusicological methods of study long before there were formal boundaries for the discipline, especially not boundaries that included the respectful study of communities of color. Hurston's unique background and exceptional approach to anthropology laid key foundations for the growth of ethnography, literature, and Africana Studies.

Quotes

An envious heart makes a treacherous ear.
Grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.
Love, I find, is like singing. Everybody can do it enough to impress themselves, though it may not impress the neighbors as being very much.
Mama exhorted her children at every opportunity to 'jump at de sun.' We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground.