Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine January 2018 New Year, New You | Page 28

Zora Neale Hurston
In 1917, Hurston was in Maryland, where “colored
youths” age 20 and under were eligible for free public
school classes. The only problem was that Hurston
had been born in 1891, which made her 26. She came
up with a solution: Hurston told people that she’d
been born in 1901 instead. This allowed her to attend
night school, the first step on a path that would take
her to Howard University, Barnard College and
beyond. From that moment, Hurston’s altered birth
date remained a part of her story — even the grave
marker that Alice Walker had erected for Hurston in
the 1970s incorrectly notes her birth year as 1901.
Hurston worked at a variety of jobs, from manicurist,
to Fannie Hurst’s secretary, to writer for Paramount
and Warner Brothers Studios, to librarian at the
Library of Congress, to drama coach at North
Carolina College for Negroes. Hurston began her
writing career while at Howard when she wrote her
first short story for Stylus, a college literary magazine.
She continued to write stories, and in 1925 won first
prize in the Opportunity literary contest for “Spunk.”
In 1939 Morgan College awarded her an honorary
doctorate. In 1943 she received the Annisfield Award
for the autobiographical Dust Tracks on the Road;
also in 1943 Howard University bestowed its alumni
award upon her.
Although Hurston worked all of her life at many
jobs and was a prolific writer, money was always a
serious problem. In the late 1940s
she returned to Florida and worked
as a maid in Riva Alto. After several
efforts to re-kindle her writing
career, she died in poverty in the
town of her birth.
28 | NKLC Magazine