Zora Neale Hurston's I Am Not My Hair

During a time where African American literature was fueled with racial segregation and pride in ones race during the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston offers a different and controversial approach with her literary work “How it feels to be colored me”.(13) In the works Hurston uses several colloquialisms, anecdotes, imagery and figurative expression to invite the reader on an adventure filled with pleasure. The poem takes the reader from the beginning of the Hurston’s childhood back in Eatonville, Florida into adulthood in Orlando, Florida. Hurston proves that overcoming racism can be accomplished by uniting the public and ignoring the visual difference in a person’s outer appearance. Hurston’s strength, individuality and resilience scream

     The Harlem Renaissance was a time of racism, injustice, and importance. Somewhere in between the 1920s and 1930s an African American movement occurred in Harlem, New York City. The Harlem Renaissance exalted the unique culture of African-Americans and redefined African-American expression. It was the result of Blacks migrating in the North, mostly Chicago and New York. There were many significant figures, both male and female, that had taken part in the Harlem Renaissance. Ida B. Wells and Langston Hughes exemplify the like and work of this movement.

In the short story, "How It Feels To Be Colored Me", author Zora Neale Hurston uses many figures of speech, most notably, metaphor to indicate her attitude towards being "colored." Based on her story, she seemingly feels much pride in being "colored." Some examples of figures of speech she uses is personification, analogy, imagery and metaphor. She merges personification and analogy to describe how happy and proud she is of the actions that her ancestors before her took to fight against slavery. "The terrible struggle that made me an American out of a potential slave said 'On the line!' The Reconstruction said 'Get set!'; and the generation before said 'Go!' "(1041). She acknowledges the struggles her previous generation went through, yet

In the essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me”, author Zora Neale Hurston writes to an American audience about having maturity and self-conscious identity while being an African American during the early 1900’s through the 1920’s Harlem Renaissance. Hurston expresses and informs her audience about how she does not see herself as a color, and instead sees herself as all she is made up of on the inside. Her primary claim is that she is not “tragically colored” and she should not have a single care about how the world reminds her of how she should act about her race. Her essay chronicles her personal experiences in being an unapologetically colored woman and creates the argument that she should not ever feel self-pity for being black. She utilizes her personal anecdotes and weaves them with metaphors, analogies, and rhetorical questions in order to create an immersive experience for the reader. Furthermore, Hurston engages the reader with her slightly sarcastic, strong, and blissfully positive tone effectively creates a way with words that communicate her claims in an entertaining way.

“How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, a piece by Zora Neale Hurston, was written to allow readers to look through the eyes of a colored woman. Specifically, a colored woman living in early segregated America. Hurston described her experiences through emotion, credibility, reasoning, and appropriate timing. With these techniques, she clearly displayed pathos, ethos, logos, and kairos in her writing. Through these appeals, she successfully creates a strong case for her purpose in writing the essay. She intended to not only share her experiences, but to let readers perceive her emotions as well. Hence, the title stating how it “feels” to be her.

The Harlem Renaissance was regarded as a blossoming of African -American culture particularly in the genre of creative art and one of the most influential movement in African- American literary history. While the Harlem Renaissance embraced musical, theatrical, literary and visual arts, the participants within the movementsought to re-conceptualize

The Harlem Renaissance was an event that started during World War One and lasted until the 1930’s. The Harlem Renaissance reshaped art, music, literature and theatre in the African American community. One debated during the Harlem Renaissance was whether folk art or high art best represented racial pride. Folk art best represents racial pride because it does not imitate other people’s art it shows the lives of everyday people, and people could relate to it.

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.

Before laws were passed for equality, African-Americans had a difficult time coping with being undermined by whites. This led them to build their own communities and remain among their own. The story “How it Feels to be Colored Me” by Zora Neale Hurston was written in 1928, about her moving from a community of her own kind to neighbors who discriminated against her and her family. Though a person’s environment can affect how they see himself/herself or how others might perceive him/her, difficult times does not exactly mean that a person will become bitter or vengeful about it.

One of the many revolutionary eras in history was the Harlem renaissance. This was a sudden cultural revolution that was realized in the 1920s and it became popularly known as the “Harlem Renaissance” or “The New Negro movement”. This is a particular era that the African American people draw pride in. the era saw a cultural, social, music and art explosion of epic proportions This was aimed at shifting the stereotypical view of black people as uneducated, intellectually deprived farmers to one of a complex, organized and intellectually equal to the whites. The Harlem renaissance took place in 1920s thru 1930s. This era saw a phenomenon rise in famous black writers and marked the onset of blues, musical theatre, blues, dance and poetry. The new art caught on an appealed to the whites as well. Harlem became a cultural and literature center. The African Americans artists and writers were gaining recognition from the white. [2]

The Harlem Renaissance was an era full of life, excitement, and activity. The world in all aspects was in gradual recovery from the depression. The world of music was

How It Feels to be Colored Me is an essay by Zora Neale Hurston published in the World Tomorrow on May 1928. In the essay she describes her first experience with racism. The purpose of the piece is to show self-confidents and pride in her identity. She shows the reader the positives of embracing your identity and not letting society affect your true selves. Stating “I’m not ashamed to be colored.” (pg.416), meaning that no matter what anyone saying about her being black, she still has pride in herself.

The Harlem Renaissance was a cultural, social and artistic explosion. This event took place in Harlem, New York between World War I and the mid-1930’s. It was known as the “Negro Movement”. During this movement 1.6 million African Americans moved away from the racial discrimination looking for new opportunities. These African Americans went out and expressed their racial pride with different forms of art.

The Harlem Renaissance The Harlem Renaissance is a turning point in the lives of blacks in the United States. Harlem was once a white upper class neighborhood but had developed into a predominantly black urban community. After the Civil War, many blacks moved from the south to Harlem. This Great Migration kick-started the period of time in the early 1900’s known as the Harlem Renaissance.

Zora Neale Hurston How It Feels to Be Colored Me is an autobiographical short story wrote in 1926. She takes us back to her childhood youth a time period when racism was prevalent. She