Moses, Man of the Mountain

Zora Neale Hurston was an African-American author and anthropologist whose writings on the Black experience in the American South made her a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, in 1894 and moved at a young age to Eatonville, Florida, one of the first all-black towns in the United States. Her early experiences in Florida proved essential to her development as a thinker and writer, and many of her later workers are set in Eatonville. Hurston began college at Howard University before transferring to Barnard College, where she began studying anthropology and conducting ethnographic research. After graduating from Barnard in 1928, she conducted graduate work in anthropology at Columbia University. Hurston’s study of Black American folklore and hoodoo magic resulted in the publication of Mules and Men (1935), a collection of Southern folklore and traditions. While living and working in Harlem, Hurston met important writers of the Harlem Renaissance including Langston Hughes. From 1935 to 1948 Hurston travelled extensively through the American South, the Caribbean, and Central America studying folklore traditions. She died in relative obscurity in 1960. In the mid-1970s, the African-American writer Alice Walker laid a tombstone on Hurston’s unmarked grave, reviving interest in and critical appreciation of Hurston’s works.

Hurston is best known for her 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, which describes the difficult life of an African-American woman living in Eatonville, Florida. Although initially poorly reviewed, the novel is now considered a classic of the Harlem Renaissance. Like Moses, Man of the Mountain, the novel demonstrates a thematic interest in race, liberation, and gender roles.