Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South

I have been remiss about my postings, but I had to do this assignment for class and if you know ANYTHING about me, you'll know I love getting lost in the prose of Zora Neale Hurston. She was extremely underappreciated and a talent that died is far worse circumstances than she ever should have.

I've just turned in this assignment, so as a disclaimer, this is all my original work (with a Works Cited.)

"I regret all my novels." -Zora Neale Hurston

Zora Neale Hurston was a brash and bold black author who gained significant notoriety during the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s. Hurston was born in Alabama, but counted Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black township, as her true and only home. Legend has it that Hurston changed her birth date to make herself ten years younger so she could finish high school. She never looked back and held on to her much younger age with ease, style and grace.  

Hurston’s infamous temper drove the passion behind her stories even though her early life was nearly storybook perfect. She was the daughter of a preacher-father and a dreamer mother. Her father often tried to subdue Hurston’s somewhat impetuous spirit, but it was her mother who famously told her to “jump at de sun.” After the death of Hurston’s mother, the author left home as he nature often conflicted deeply with her father’s and her new stepmother’s.

Hurston did not begin her career as a writer, but as a singer. Her prose embodies a great deal of the rhythmic qualities found in her Harlem Renaissance contemporaries—most notably, Langston Hughes, whom she later shared writing credits with for her only play.  

After Hurston completed her concert tours with a Gilbert & Sullivan troupe (composers of The Pirates of Penzance, The H.M.S. Pinafore, and The Mikado), she attended Barnard College, where she published short stories and articles, and wrote her first full-length novel, Jonah’s Gourd Vine; however, Hurston did not truly hit her stride until the 1940s. Hurston’s most notable novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God and a personal favorite of mine.

In Their Eyes Were Watching God the reader takes a journey with the protagonist, Janie, through adolescence, sexual awakening, marriage, love, and loss. For a novel written in 1937, it is still so applicable and fresh in 2011. Hurston’s tale of bold, independent black woman is one that distinctly grated on the nerves of male peers; however, it is one of the most distinctive pieces of literature to exist in black literature.

Hurston, unfortunately, did not gain the monetary recognition he books deserved and was actually buried in an unmarked grave in Fort Pierce, Florida because of the lack of funding for a headstone. It was not until 1975, that a young author by the name of Alice Walker would buy a simple headstone with the epitaph, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Genius of the South.” Due to the great strides of Walker, Their Eyes Were Watching God, which had been out of print for almost thirty years was once again republished and remains in print to this day.

Hursotn’s works include a play: Mule Bone; folkore: Mules and Men, Every Tongue Got to Confess, and Tell My Horse; and of course, her notable novels: Their Eyes Were Watching God, Moses, Man of the Mountain, Joseph’s Gourd Vine, and Seraph on the Suwanee.

Boyd, V. (2007). About zora neale hurston. Retrieved from http://www.zoranealehurston.com/biography. Accessed on 14 February 2011. 

No post today...gearing up for a BIG one

I'm working on a post about the African Diaspora and what it means to Blacks and Hispanics living in the United States today. More to come. I'm really happy you're enjoying the blog!

xo
Jen

Nannie Helen Burroughs: 12 Things the Negro Must Do to Improve Himself

So sorry sorry for the slight break. I had jury duty and free internet at the courthouse would not let you onto Facebook, Twitter, or any blogging website. 

Any way, I'm reading a book called Stop Being Niggardly by Karen Hunter. It's a fantastic read, but I came across this gem I'd never heard of before: Twelve Things the Negro Must Do to Improve Himself by Nannie Helen Burroughs.


Burroughs was born in 1879 to ex-slaves in Orange, Virginia. She was a great education in the African-American community and founded several organizations including the National Association of Colored Women (NACW), America's oldest womens organization.


Of note, however, are the 12 things she outlines that blacks in America need to do in order to be successful and a viable part of society. Sadly, we have not take up the mantle as we should have. There are perfect ideas here that need to become realities.

1.  The Negro Must Learn To Put First Things First.  The First Things Are:  Education; Development of Character Traits; A Trade and Home Ownership. 

• The Negro puts too much of his earning in clothes, in food, in show and in having what he calls "a good time."  The Dr. Kelly Miller said, "The Negro buys what he WANTS and begs for what he Needs."  Too true!

2.  The Negro Must Stop Expecting God and White Folk To Do For Him What He Can Do For Himself. 

• It is the "Divine Plan" that the strong shall help the weak, but even God does not do for man what man can do for himself.  The Negro will have to do exactly what Jesus told the man (in John 5:8) to do--Carry his own load--"Take up your bed and walk."

3.  The Negro Must Keep Himself, His Children And His Home Clean And Make The Surroundings In Which He Lives Comfortable and Attractive. 

• He must learn to "run his community up"--not down.  We can segregate by law, we integrate only by living.  Civilization is not a matter of race, it is a matter of standards.  Believe it or not--some day, some race is going to outdo the Anglo-Saxon, completely.  It can be the Negro race, if the Negro gets sense enough.  Civilization goes up and down that way.

4.  The Negro Must Learn To Dress More Appropriately For Work And For Leisure.

• Knowing what to wear--how to wear it--when to wear it and where to wear it, are earmarks of common sense, culture and also an index to character.

5.  The Negro Must Make His Religion An Everyday Practice And Not Just A Sunday-Go-To-Meeting Emotional Affair.

6.  The Negro Must Highly Resolve To Wipe Out Mass Ignorance.  

• The leaders of the race must teach and inspire the masses to become eager and determined to improve mentally, morally and spiritually, and to meet the basic requirements of good citizenship.
• We should initiate an intensive literacy campaign in America, as well as in Africa.  Ignorance--satisfied ignorance--is a millstone abut the neck of the race.  It is democracy's greatest burden.
• Social integration is a relationship attained as a result of the cultivation of kindred social ideals, interests and standards.
• It is a blending process that requires time, understanding and kindred purposes to achieve.  Likes alone and not laws can do it.

7.  The Negro Must Stop Charging His Failures Up To His "Color" And To White People's Attitude.

• The truth of the matter is that good service and conduct will make senseless race prejudice fade like mist before the rising sun.
• God never intended that a man's color shall be anything other than a badge of distinction.  It is high time that all races were learning that fact.  The Negro must first QUALIFY for whatever position he wants.  Purpose, initiative, ingenuity and industry are the keys that all men use to get what they want.  The Negro will have to do the same.  He must make himself a workman who is too skilled not to be wanted, and too DEPENDABLE not to be on the job, according to promise or plan.  He will never become a vital factor in industry until he learns to put into his work the vitalizing force of initiative, skill and dependability.  He has gone "RIGHTS" mad and "DUTY" dumb.

8.  The Negro Must Overcome His Bad Job Habits.

• He must make a brand new reputation for himself in the world of labor.  His bad job habits are absenteeism, funerals to attend, or a little business to look after.  The Negro runs an off and on business.  He also has a bad reputation for conduct on the job--such as petty quarrelling with other help, incessant loud talking about nothing; loafing, carelessness, due to lack of job pride; insolence, gum chewing and--too often--liquor drinking.  Just plain bad job habits!

9.  He Must Improve His Conduct In Public Places.

• Taken as a whole, he is entirely too loud and too ill-mannered.
• There is much talk about wiping out racial segregation and also much talk about achieving integration.
• Segregation is a physical arrangement by which people are separated in various services.
• It is definitely up to the Negro to wipe out the apparent justification or excuse for segregation.
• The only effective way to do it is to clean up and keep clean.  By practice, cleanliness will become a habit and habit becomes character.

10.  The Negro Must Learn How To Operate Business For People--Not For Negro People, Only.

• To do business, he will have to remove all typical "earmarks," business principles; measure up to accepted standards and meet stimulating competition, graciously--in fact, he must learn to welcome competition.

11.  The Average So-Called Educated Negro Will Have To Come Down Out Of The Air.  He Is Too Inflated Over Nothing.  He Needs An Experience Similar To The One That Ezekiel Had--(Ezekiel 3:14-19).  And He Must Do What Ezekiel Did

• Otherwise, through indifference, as to the plight of the masses, the Negro, who thinks that he has escaped, will lose his own soul.  It will do all leaders good to read Hebrew 13:3, and the first Thirty-seven Chapters of Ezekiel.
• A race transformation itself through its own leaders and its sensible "common people."  A race rises on its own wings, or is held down by its own weight.  True leaders are never "things apart from the people."  They are the masses.  They simply got to the front ahead of them.  Their only business at the front is to inspire to masses by hard work and noble example and challenge them to "Come on!"  Dante stated a fact when he said, "Show the people the light and they will find the way!"
• There must arise within the Negro race a leadership that is not out hunting bargains for itself.  A noble example is found in the men and women of the Negro race, who, in the early days, laid down their lives for the people.  Their invaluable contributions have not been appraised by the "latter-day leaders."  In many cases, their names would never be recorded, among the unsung heroes of the world, but for the fact that white friends have written them there.

"Lord, God of Hosts, Be with us yet."

• The Negro of today does not realize that, but, for these exhibits A's, that certainly show the innate possibilities of members of their own race, white people would not have been moved to make such princely investments in lives and money, as they have made, for the establishment of schools and for the on-going of the race.

12.  The Negro Must Stop Forgetting His Friends.  "Remember."

• Read Deuteronomy 24:18.  Deuteronomy rings the big bell of gratitude.  Why?  Because an ingrate is an abomination in the sight of God.  God is constantly telling us that "I the Lord thy God delivered you"--through human instrumentalities.
• The American Negro has had and still has friends--in the North and in the South.  These friends not only pray, speak, write, influence others, but make unbelievable, unpublished sacrifices and contributions for the advancement of the race--for their brothers in bonds.
• The noblest thing that the Negro can do is to so live and labor that these benefactors will not have given in vain.  The Negro must make his heart warm with gratitude, his lips sweet with thanks and his heart and mind resolute with purpose to justify the sacrifices and stand on his feet and go forward--"God is no respector of persons.  In every nation, he that feareth him and worketh righteousness is" sure to win out.  Get to work!  That's the answer to everything that hurts us.  We talk too much about nothing instead of redeeming the time by working.

R-E-M-E-M-B-E-R

• In spite of race prejudice, America is brim full of opportunities.  Go after them!
  
  
  
  
  Source: Black Men in America.com 
  
  
  Until tomorrow,
  
  xo Jen 

Southern Christian Leadership Conference: A Civil Rights Organizaiton

The Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC; originally called the Southern Leadership Conference) was a critical organization during the Civil Rights Movement. Its roots are in the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955. The SCLC galvanized many of the larger rallys that are so iconic to the Civil Rights Movement: Montgomery, the March on Washington, Selma and the Grenada (Mississippi) Freedom Movement. 


The SCLC attempted to reach out to southern minsters and congregations to support the end of segregation sighting different Biblical references about equality. Non-violence and widespread demonstrations were the cornerstone of this organization. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was the first president of the SCLC and led the group into many a battle during the 1960s. 


The organization is still in existence today, but does not retain as clear of a vision as they once had. The president-elect is currently Bernice King, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr's youngest child.


Source: SCLC History

Letter from a Birmingham Jail: Dr Martin Luther King, Jr's pathos

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.

Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. is a figure that is nearly synonymous with the Civil Rights Movement that embodied much of the 1960s.

We know so much about his life, his speeches, his untimely death, but not much attention is paid to his writings.


But we should. 

Langston Hughes: A Harlem Renaisannce Poet

What happens to a dream deferred?

Does it dry up
like a raisin in the sun?
Or fester like a sore--
...And then run?
Does it stink like rotten meat?
Or crust and sugar over--
like a syrupy sweet?

Maybe it just sags
like a heavy load.

Or does it explode?

Langston Hughes

Ella Fitzgerald: The First Lady of Song

"I know I'm no glamour girl, and it's not easy for me to get up in front of a crowd of people. It used to bother me a lot, but now I've got it figured out that God gave me this talent to use, so I just stand there and sing."

I have such a great appreciation for this woman that this post may be nothing more than gushing on and on about her fantastic qualities and abilities. I fell in love with the voice of Ella Fitzgerald at a young age and live and die in the fabulous recordings of Ella Fitzgerald sings the George and Ira Gershwin Songbook.

Happy Black History Month, white people!

Hello!

I create SO many blogs and never keep up with any of them.

This will most certainly be rectified as I've solidified my writing goals more thoroughly.

I have a goal to write every day. Not just crap, but something substantive. (Maybe some crap, too.)

Just as a warning, this blog may be a little incendiary for some. I enjoy a healthy debate and like conflict a little more than normal. I want you to think. I want you to make ME think. I want you to say, 'Man, that Jen really is a piece of work.'

I named this blog mostly because of the fact I'm a writer, and somewhat by definition a teller of tales. (Though, because I know I'm a tall tale teller, I think it lowers the sociopath rating just a bit.)

This blog will feature a little of everything (except for fashion critiques...I think I MAY be resurrecting 'Shut Up, She Didn't!')

I don't want to be limited on what I can talk about and I have too many ideas and notions and inklings that run through my head on a daily basis to create a separate blog for each.

You say bipolar, I say eclectic.