Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston

Hurston moved to New York City's Harlem neighborhood in the 1920s. In 1920, Hurston earned an associate degree from Howard University, having published one of her earliest works in the university's newspaper. To support herself and finance her efforts to get an education, Hurston worked a variety of jobs, including as a maid for an actress in a touring Gilbert and Sullivan group. Following the death of her mother, Lucy Ann (Potts) Hurston, in 1904, and her father's subsequent remarriage, Hurston lived with an assortment of family members for the next few years. Her father, John Hurston, was a pastor, and he moved the family to Florida when Hurston was very young. Hurston was the daughter of two formerly enslaved people. Her birthday, according to Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (1996), may not be January 7, but January 15.

Hurston was also known to adjust her birth year from time to time as well. She probably had no memories of Notasulga, having moved to Florida as a toddler. However, according to many other sources, she took some creative license with that fact. Her birthplace has been the subject of some debate since Hurston herself wrote in her autobiography that she was born in Eatonville, Florida. Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Notasulga, Alabama.

Hurston died in poverty in 1960, before a revival of interest led to posthumous recognition of her accomplishments. Zora Neale Hurston became a fixture of New York City's Harlem Renaissance, due to her novels like Their Eyes Were Watching God and shorter works like 'Sweat.' She was also an outstanding folklorist and anthropologist who recorded cultural history, as illustrated by her Mules and Men.

Dust Tracks on a Road by Zora Neale Hurston