Jan. 7, 1891 

Noted author of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, was born in Alabama. Her father later became mayor of Eatonville, Florida — one of the few incorporated all-black towns in the U.S. 

Hurston wrote four novels and dozens of short stories and essays. She is best known for her 1937 novel, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” now regarded as a seminal work in African-American literature and female literature. 

Her mother told her children to “jump at de sun!” she wrote. “We might not land on the sun, but at least we would get off the ground!” 

In the novel, the main character says, “If you kin see de light at daybreak, you don’t keer if you die at dusk. It’s so many people never seen de light at all.” 

That same year, she received a Guggenheim Fellowship to conduct research on those who lived in Jamaica and Haiti. 

“Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry,” she said. “It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It’s beyond me.”

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