Zora Neal Hurston's Experience During The Harlem Reniassance

During the early 1920’s, African American artists, writers, musicians, and performers took part in a cultural movement known as the Harlem Renaissance. This migration took place after World War 1 and brought African Americans of all ages to the city of Harlem located in New York (Holt). There were many inspiring young artists; one of them in particular was Augusta Savage.

Zora Neale Hurston is unequivocally open about her race and identity in “How It Feels to Be Colored Me.” As Hurston shares her life story, the reader is exposed to Hurston’s self-realization journey about how she “became colored.” Hurston utilizes her autobiographical short story as a vehicle to describe the “very day she became colored.” Race is particularly vital in Zora Neale Hurston’s essay, “How it Feels to Be Colored Me” as she deals with the social construct of race, racism, and sustaining one’s cultural identity.

In Zora Neale Hurston’s essay “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, her racial identity varies based on her location. Towards the beginning of her life when Zora was in her own community she could be a lighthearted, carefree spirit. However, when she was forced to leave her community, Zora’s identity became linked to her race. In this essay I will demonstrate how Zora’s blackness is both a sanctuary and completely worthless.

Hurston stays who she is, no matter what people might think of her. In her non-fiction text she especially manages to convey this by using Humor, that creates Ethos within the text. The first words of “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” include “I am the only Negro in the Unites States whose grandfather on the mother’s side was not an Indian chief”, in which Hurston makes fun of all the Afro-Americans at the time who were trying to claim Native American heritage. This start into the text creates a lighthearted atmosphere, in which the author acknowledges her less than perfect living circumstances, but showing that she will not crumple beneath them. Before being sent to a racially mixed boarding school in Jacksonville, Zora Hurston lived in a town in Florida. She always welcomed white tourists looking at their town and states that she was “the first welcome-to-our state Floridian”, hoping “the Miami Chamber of Commerce will please take notice”. Of course, at the time, it was impossible to involve the government in a personal wit, so the author uses the sarcastic information to show the reader that she would live her life no matter what the social norms might have been in the 1920s. In the second half of her text, Hurston includes the Irony “How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me”, showing that she knows that some people would view her as being socially unacceptable, however Hurston does not care, as long as she can stay true to her own character. Through the humorous tone created, the reader acknowledges that Hurston is light hearted and sympathizes with her

In The essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is a descriptive essay in which Zora Neale Hurston discovers her real identity. At the beginning of the essay, the setting takes place in Eatonville, Florida describing moments when Zora greets her neighbors by singing and dancing without anybody judging her. Back then, she was free from feeling different among other races. However, a tragedy happened when she was thirteen, her mom passed away and she left home to attend school in Jacksonville where she experiences discrimination due to her color of skin. She was introduced to a different lifestyle where the color of her skin was an unfortunate thing. However, she felt this change effected the way she viewed her appearance, as well as inside her. Here she also experienced isolation that comes from being different compared to other races. Hurst realizes that it’s more than just being “colored”, but how race can separate people. Back in history, Jacksonville’s habitants were a mixture of blacks and whites. In Jacksonville, Hurst was just another “colored girl.” However, this essay motivated me to analyze, evaluate and synthesize these works and explore the concepts and themes that run through each of the readings. Most importantly, find out what made this essay so important in American literature. According to the description in the essay, I have notice that the author Hurston uses literary devices like metaphor and tone that I found interesting and deserving for the reader to enjoy this journey.

Even though both Hurston and Hughes grew up around the same time period, they had very different ideals regarding their experience as African American’s as well as a different voice used within their works to convey their ideals. Hurston in her 1928 essay “How it Feels to be Colored Me” describes her childhood and coming of age with a delightful zest that cannot be contained. Although the essay does contain some dark moments such as when she describes her experience with her friend at the jazz club and the sudden realization of the racial difference between her and the other patrons, for the most part the work exudes her keen sense of dignity despite the popular opinion of the masses during that period. Lines in her essay such as “But I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes…I do not belong to the sobbing school of Negrohood who hold that nature somehow has given them a lowdown dirty deal and whose feelings are all hurt about it” (Abcarian, Klotz, and Cohen 812) beautifully express her sense of self dignity and refusal to give in to the negative energies surrounding her race. Despite the many hardships that the color of her skin caused her she was proud and determined to never let that stand in her way of

One of Hurston’s stories, How it Feels to Be Colored Me, reflects the author’s perspective of the colored race (specifically herself). According to the story, when Hurston reached the age of thirteen, she truly “became colored” (1040). The protagonist was raised in Eatonville, Florida, which was mainly inhabited by the colored race. She noted no difference between herself and the white community except that they never lived in her hometown. Nevertheless, upon leaving Eatonville, the protagonist began losing her identity as “Zora,” instead, she was recognized as only being “a little colored girl” (1041). Hurston’s nickname “Zora” represents her individuality and significance; whereas, the name “a little colored girl” was created by a white society to belittle her race and gender (1041).

The Harlem Renaissance, or back then referred to as the “New Negro Movement,” was a movement that took place in Harlem, New York around the 1920s which consisted of art, music, and creative writing. The Harlem Renaissance was an important and memorable movement because it brought a voice, never before found freedom, and joy to African Americans who had been hushed and persecuted for too long. Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865 some blacks expected that just because there was more education and jobs available for them that they would finally be treated “equal.” This was until Plessy versus Ferguson case where the Supreme Court ruled that racial segregation was okay. “Separate but equal” was the legal doctrine used

The New Negro Movement, also known as The Harlem Renaissance, was a time in the early twentieth century where African Americans embraced literature, music, theatre, and visual arts (Alchin). They were inspired and gave inspiration to many blacks in the community. The Great Migration was the beginning of the Harlem Renaissance – it is, where it began the most significant movement in the black history. After World War I, “more than six million African Americans” traveled from “the rural South to the cities of the North, Midwest, and West” to achieve economic and social benefit, and a new home in Harlem, New York City (History.com Staff). It “has been a synonym for being a center of culture, intelligence, and fashion” (Harlem). That exact time period gave black people opportunity to grow, to prosper, and to express. Through art, they have shown the value of life, even though there was brutal racism, injustice in black identity, and slavery. This is a movement in the black culture to show that they are just more than the color of their skin.

Zora Neale Hurston was born in Natasulga, Alabama on January 7, 1891. Mrs. Hurston was the fifth of eight children to John Hurston, a carpenter and Baptist preacher, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former schoolteacher. At a young age, Zora Neale Hurston relocated with her family and moved to the nation’s first incorporated black town, Eatonville, Florida. In Eatonville, Hurston was a privileged young woman living in an eight bedroom house on five acres of land. In this city, Hurston was capable of seeing the “black achievement” at its best. Zora was often recognized as the rambunctious child, despite her recurring run-ins as being the preacher’s daughter (The Official Website of). In 1904, Zora’s picturesque lifestyle came to an end. At the age of 13, Hurston’s lost her mother, and in the same year was forced to leave school to take care of her brother’s children. Soon after, Hurston’s father married Mattie Moge, a young woman six years older than Zora.

The Harlem Renaissance was a spark in African-American culture in which they expressed their voice through music, art, and literature in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Zora Neale Hurston is a novelist, short story writer, folklorist, and anthropologist took part in the Harlem Renaissance. Writing stories in relationship to this movement for example Their Eyes Were Watching God in which Hurston reflects the ideas of the Harlem Renaissance and also departures from it in numerous ways. Throughout the story Their Eyes Were Watching God Hurston, reflects the Harlem Renaissance by inputting ideas of this movement.

The Harlem Renaissance was a period of explosive cultural and intellectual growth for the African Americans because it was a literary, artistic, and intellectual movement that kindled a new black cultural identity. The Harlem Renaissance took place in Harlem, New York City during the 1920-1930’s. Many of the things that came about during the Harlem Renaissance were things such as jazz, poetry, dance, music theaters, and black writers. This time was also known as the New Negro Movement, was considered a phenomenon and made Harlem the center for art and literature. The Harlem Renaissance was the most influential period for cultural black history, in many different aspects.

James Weldon Johnson once said that "Harlem is indeed the great Mecca for the sight-seer; the pleasure seeker, the curious, the adventurous, the enterprising, the ambitious and the talented of the whole Negro world."("Harlem Renaissance") When one thinks of the Harlem Renaissance, one thinks of the great explosion of creativity bursting from the talented minds of African-Americans in the 1920s. Although principally thought of as an African-American literary movement, the Harlem Renaissance's influence extended through every form of culture: art, dance, music, theatre, literature, history, and politics. Along with the great contribution this period made towards art and entertainment,

" If you cannot fly, then run, if you cannot run, then walk, if you cannot run, then crawl, but do whatever you do, you have to keep moving forward"- Martin King Jr. 1920's just before Martin Luther King Jr. was even born the country separation and hatress grew. Even though the civil war was supposed to be the mask of the 'end of separation' in 1865, fifty-six years have passed and blacks were still not accepting in society. The Ku Klux Klan, known as the KKK, formed a terrorizing group of white supremacist. They would burn African Americans churches, houses and even beat African Americans to death. However, through many blacks living in near and ashamed of their race, many writers wanted to promote their racial pride. Two Harlem Renaissance

During the Harlem Renaissance many African American were coming out of the shadow and started a cultural movement. They migrated to the north throughout 1915 to 1918. They moved up north for the urban industrial centers like Harlem, Chicago, St. Louis, and Detroit which was known as the great migration for the African American community was now getting noticed by the white man. This was a breakthrough for the African American they moved to find better jobs to carve out better lives for their families but they didn 't move for higher paying jo/bs they moved to get away from the segregation, Sharecropping, and racial common violence in the south. The white man began to notice the african american because there were so many