Zora Neale Hurston: Keeping Black Folk Culture Alive

Learning never stops. That's good because the minute you stop learning, you stop growing as a person. Thanks to my daughter, I learned about Zora Hurston in an article in the summer issue of City Journal. The quarterly is one of my favorites and the article supports my contention that it is a hallmark of fine writing and essential information.

If anyone preserved and promoted the folk culture of Americans of African ancestry in the first half of the 20th century, it was Hurston. In the second half of that century, desegregation, diffusion, and assimilation all worked to diminish the culture she worked so hard to preserve. The fact that she was a conservative who believed in self-sufficiency and fierce individualism did not endear her to her contemporaries. Today, her soaring literary legacy and the folkways upon which much of it is based, have returned her to popularity among a wide range of readers.

You can discover Zora Neale Hurston for yourself at this City Journal link.