Zora Neale Hurston and Racial Equality

Zora Neale Hurston and Racial Equality

On September eighteenth, nineteen thirty-seven, Their Eyes Were Watching God, one of the greatest novels of this century, was published. It was met with mixed reviews. The major (white) periodicals found it enjoyable and simple, while black literary circles said it "carries no theme, no message" (Wright,1937). These evaluations are not mutually exclusive, but rather demonstrate the conception of Hurston's work as telling whites what they want to hear and not dealing with racism. While Hurston did receive recognition during her life, she died forgotten and wasn't considered one of America's greatest writers until recently. Why did luminaries such as Richard Wright and Langston Hughes deny her worth? And how do we know they were wrong?

Hurston once told Nick Ford "I have ceased to think in terms of race; I think only in terms of individuals. I am interested in you now not as a Negro man but as a man. I am not interested in the race problem, but I am interested in the problems of individuals, white ones and black ones." Ford's response was "If the Negro is to rise in the estimation of the world, he must be continuously presented in a more favorable light, even in fiction... Negro authors owe such loyalty to their people" (Ford,1936). This response reflects much of her criticisms. There are three important assumptions here: The perception of African-Americans can be improved by writing about racial inequality, Hurston does not do this, and she has accrued some debt to do so.

Literature can probably change the world's thoughts on many things, and racial inequality may be one of them. For this to work, a book needs whites as an audience. But not just any whites- rac...

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...rk: Chelsea House, 1986. 13-14.

* Hurston, Zora Neale. Their Eyes Were Watching God. Philadelphia: J.B.Lippincott, 1937. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

* Hurston, Zora Neale. "What White Publishers Won't Print." I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... Ed. Alice Walker. New York: Feminist Press, 1979. 169-173.

* Locke, Alain. "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Henry Gates. New York: Amistad, 1993. 18.

* Lawrence, Susan V. "Out to Impress an Uncertain China." U.S.News & World Report. 6 Feb. 1995: 50.

* Walker, Alice. "On Refusing to Be Humbled by Second Place in a Contest You Did Not Design: A Tradition by Now." I Love Myself When I Am Laughing... Ed. Alice Walker. New York: Feminist Press, 1979. 1-5.

* Wright, Richard. "Their Eyes Were Watching God." Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Henry Gates. New York: Amistad, 1993. 16-17.