ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses life history of Zora Neale Hurston, a feminist thinker. Her fieldwork took her from the work camps and phosphate mines of Florida, to Alabama and Louisiana where she collected narratives, songs, and games, and conducted a systematic study of Hoodoo, conjure practices, and religious expressions. With the lore collected in the Bahamas, she began comparative studies of African Diaspora folk communities. Hurston's experiences and observations emboldened her to declare African American folklore as "the greatest cultural wealth on the continent". Hurston's course work and fieldwork merited her membership in the American Folk-Lore Society, the American Ethnological Society, and the American Anthropology Society. From her collection of lore, Hurston drew material to produce several theatrical productions. Hurston's short stories, novels, plays, and essays are the leaves of a tree whose roots are deeply embedded in the African-enriched soil of black southern folk culture.
