This year marks the 135th birthday of writer, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston (A.A. ’20) born Jan. 7, 1891. The prolific writer cared deeply about Black people and Black culture and was oftentimes referred to as the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance” for her impact and contributions during the time period.  

According to the Zora Neale Hurston Trust, Hurston was a student at Howard University from 1919 to 1924, where she majored in English and received her associates degree in 1920. While at Howard, she joined a literary club sponsored by professors Alain Locke and Montgomery Gregory, and would go on to publish her first story  “John Redding Goes to Sea,” along with the poem “O Night,” in the university’s literary journal the Stylus. She’d later attend Barnard College to study anthropology and was the first Black person to graduate from the university in 1928. Hurston’s anthropological and ethnographic work included examining Black folklore and documenting cultural and religious traditions of places such as the U.S. South, Haiti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Honduras. Her literary oeuvre included authoring several books — such as her most known work, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (1937) — and penning more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays. 

While Hurston was one of the most influential literary figures of the 20th century, she died in 1960 largely forgotten and enveloped in a life of poverty. Her legacy and literary genius reemerged into the public consciousness nearly two decades after her death when writer Alice Walker wrote the Ms. magazine article “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” in 1975. The article chronicled Walker’s pilgrimage to Eatonville, Florida, where Hurston grew up, in search of the people who knew the writer and her burial site. She found that Hurston’s final resting place was an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Florida, reflective of just how forgotten the literary titan was at the time. Walker purchased a headstone for Hurston and had it engraved with “A Genius of the South.”  

A Literary Legend 

Walker’s article sparked a renewed interest in Hurston’s work. Today, Hurston’s legacy lives on through her publications, the artists who were influenced by her, and the entities named after her, such as the annual Zora Awards (formally the Legacy Awards) presented by the Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation.  

Howard alum Sarai Johnson (B.A. ’14), a professor in Howard’s Department of Literature and Writing, was a 2025 recipient of the Zora Award for Debut Fiction for her novel “Grown Women” (HarperCollins, 2024). Johnson was also a 2025 recipient of an NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Literary Work.  

“I was very honored to be the first honoree of the Debut Fiction Zora Award,” said Johnson. “It’s really moving to be able to continue the legacy that Hurston died building — the legacy of Black women writers who left a lot behind for me to pick up and move forward with as a writer and an educator. I enjoy thinking about Hurston and I being in the same spaces and me walking in her footsteps. I’m very grateful for all she did.” 

Johnson, a first-year writing lecturer, shared that she wasn’t familiar with Hurston’s story until her time as a graduate student, when she learned about Walker’s discovery of the writer’s unmarked grave. She’s now making it a point to educate students on Hurston’s legacy.  

“When I started teaching at Howard, I taught a few pieces of Hurston’s, and in the process of that I was trying to give context to students about who she was [and] her story,” Johnson explained. “The way she did all of this work for others but ultimately died in obscurity is really interesting.” 

Five Facts about Zora Neale Hurston

Gone are the days of Hurston’s forgottenness. Beyond her literary and anthropological contributions, here are five facts you may not have known about Zora Neale Hurston. 

Hurston founded the nation’s oldest Black collegiate newspaper 

During her time as a Howard student, Hurston, alongside Louis Eugene King (B.S. ’24), founded The Hilltop, the university’s student newspaper and the oldest Black collegiate paper in the nation. The pair published the first issue of The Hilltop Jan. 22, 1924, and more than a century later, the paper continues to be one of the country’s premiere collegiate news sources. 

Hurston was a manicurist in D.C. 

To fund her education at Howard, Hurston took on several service jobs, one of which included being a manicurist in 1919 at a Black-owned barbershop in D.C. Despite the shop’s policy of only serving white patrons, Hurston admired the shop’s owner, entrepreneur George Robinson, who, she said, “would give any Howard University student a job in his shops if they could qualify,” wrote Valerie Boyd in the article “Zora Neale Hurston: The Howard University Years,” published in the Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. According to Boyd, because Hurston went unnoticed in the barbershop, the “men of power talked freely around her — about backstairs maneuvering at the White House, the inner workings of Congress, about secret romantic liaisons.” 

“I know that my discretion could do no harm,” Hurston observed. “If I told, nobody would have believed me anyway.” 

Hurston was a drama teacher

In the 1930s, Hurston was seriously invested in writing and producing folk plays that highlighted everyday Black life. Hurston’s love of theatre began to take shape during her time at Howard. She was a member of the Howard Players, the university’s historic theatrical troupe. In 1934, she worked to establish and lead a school of dramatic art at Bethune-Cookman University. During her time at Bethune-Cookman, she successfully arranged for students to perform her musical play “From Sun to Sun” in front of 2,100 people. Five years later, Hurston served a brief stint as faculty and head of the Dramatic Arts Department at the North Carolina College for Negroes (now North Carolina Central University).  

Hurston had an infectious sense of humor 

Throughout her works, Hurston emphasized the importance of humor and laughter as an integral part of Black culture and Black survival. In her real life, she was known for her charm, wit, sense of humor, and larger-than-life personality. Her humor, Hurston wrote, derived from her sense that “we are just as ridiculous as anybody else.” 

Hurston’s satirical essay “Ten Commandments of Charm” — featured in “You Don’t Know Us Negroes” (Amistad, 2022), the first comprehensible collection of Hurston’s essays, criticism, and articles — provides tongue-in-cheek advice for women on navigating societal expectations and pursing romantic interests.  

 “‘You Don’t Know Us Negroes’ has such a diversity of writing in it, and I felt like I got to see all of these other sides of Hurston,” said Johnson. “Hurston was funny and nobody talks about that.” 

Hurston lived on a houseboat 

After her autobiographical book “Dust Tracks on a Road” (1942) won the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for being the “best book in racial problems in the field of creative literature,” Hurston used the prize money to buy her first home, a 32-foot wooden houseboat. Hurston named the boat “Wanago” (want to go) and lived in it for four years in Daytona Beach. She later bought a second houseboat named “Sun Tan” and spent much of her time on the boats writing and enjoying the Florida sun.  

Take a moment to appreciate Zora Neale Hurston’s unequivocal legacy. If you’re new to her work, we recommend the documentary "Zora Neale Hurston: Claiming A Space."