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Zora Neale Hurston (1881-1960), born in Notasulga, Alabama, in January 1891 (according to a 1900 census; reports on her date of birth vary), Hurston and her family moved to Eatonville, Florida in her early childhood. Hurston described Eatonville as "a pure Negro town -- charter, mayor, council, town marshall, and all". Hurston's experiences in this environment, which was so radically from the societal norm of the time, would shape her life. Only in Eatonville could her father, a former tenant farmer, be elected mayor. She attended the Hungerford School, where she was taught the basic principles of self-reliance espoused by Booker T. Washington. Her mother dies in 1904, however, and this event marked a dramatic change in the young Hurton's life. Shunted into a life of poverty, limited schooling, and domestic service, and often living with relatives, Hurston wandered. More... (Harlem Renaissance; this site has disappeared; )

Other websites about Zora Neale Hurston

• http://www.gale.com/free_resources/bhm/bio/hurston_z.htm
  biography from Gale Group