Zora Neale Hurston

Born: 1891 in Alabama

Died: 1960

She is the daughter of two former slaves: John Hurston and Lucy Ann Hurston.

Worked on a play called Mule-Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life.

Her most famous work is Their Eyes Were Watching God and was made possible due to her Guggenheim fellowship.

Fellow author Alice Walker (author of A Color Purple ) called her “A Genius of the South.”

Wrote: “I have been in Sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Then I have stood on the peaky mountain wrapped in rainbows, with a harp and sword in my hands.”