Fun Facts and Quotes

By: TEWWG Lit Team F


Hurston Quotes

"I feel most colored when I am thrown against a sharp white background."
     ~Zora Neale Hurston

"Someone is always at my elbow reminding me that I am the granddaughter of slaves. It fails to register depression with me."
     ~Zora Neale Hurston

"I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes. I do not mind at all."
     ~Zora Neale Hurston

"Sometimes, I feel discriminated against, but it does not make me angry. It merely astonishes me. How can any deny themselves the pleasure of my company? It's beyond me."
      ~Zora Neale Hurston
  
"Research is formalized curiosity. It is poking and prying with a purpose. It is a seeking that he who wishes may know the cosmic secrets of the world and they that dwell therein."
     ~Zora Neale Hurston


Fun Facts about Huston and Florida in the early 1900's

• As an increasing number of Americans rose into the middle class,  vacations and other leisure's became common to American families. Due to the invention of the mass-produced automobile, the state's tropical climate and its relatively close proximity to major population centers,  Florida became a vacation "hotspot."

• The strongest inspiration for Hurston's writing of Their Eyes Were Watching God was her former lover Percival Punter. Hurston wrote Their Eyes Were Watching God three weeks after the tumultuous conclusion of her relationship with Punter. The romance between Janie and Teacake is based on the relationship that Hurston had with Punter. 

• A majority of Americans were very materialistic during this time and wanted to "make it high" in society. They found it relativity easy to become rich and thought that Florida was a state that would help them enhance their success. 

• In sharp contrast to the American culture at her time, Hurston refused to censor women's sexuality. She made the woman in her novel out to be very beautiful.

• Though many of the newer, wealthier residents of Florida approved of the prohibition, a majority of the urban population hated the new law. This brought more crime and smuggling to Florida than any other Southern state. Due to its vast shoreline, close proximity to foreign ports, and the large amount of tourists that flocked to the state, Florida soon had one of the highest crime rates in the nation. 

• Zora's father was a Baptist preacher, and when his family moved down to Florida he eventually became the mayor of the town.

• The infamous Al Capone made his residence in Miami, because the already high crime rate would keep him from getting blamed for every crime in the area. 

• Zora Neale Hurston rejected the "Racial Uplift Program" by using vernacular southern African-American English in her novel. 

• Due to the large amount of economic prosperity, many migrant workers came from the Caribbean and Deep South to try and gain from the wealth flooding into the state. This produced a lot of racial tension, which led to the forming of the Klu Klux Klan, and sparked racial riots that took place in Perry (1922), Rosewood (1923) and Oconee (Florida), when white mobs attacked African-Americans and burnt residences. 

• Writers of the Harlem Renaissance wrote to expose the racist oppression in American Society at the time. This was a  likely inspiration behind the novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. 

• The Great Hurricane of 1926, as well as the appearing of the Mediterranean Fruit Fly brought economic disaster upon the thriving state, bringing it to its knees. This stranded thousands of lower-class workers in slums and ghettos. However, because Florida was already so economically low, the Great Depression had little impact on its residents.