Author’s Note: In an effort to make Zora Neale Hurston’s voice manifest throughout this biography, I quote from many of her writings—including numerous candid letters to friends and associates, which I culled from various archives as cited in the notes below. The comprehensive collection of Hurston’s available correspondence has now been compiled. Readers interested in the full text of her letters may wish to consult Carla Kaplan, ed., Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (New York: Doubleday, 2002).
13 “whether it was sort of tucked”: Zora Neale Hurston, Dust Tracks on a Road (New York: HarperPerennial, 1996), p. 27.
13 “I did not give up the idea”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 28.
13 “So for weeks I saw myself”: Ibid.
14 “I want a fine black riding horse”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 29.
14 “No one around me knew”: Ibid.
15 “over the creek”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 7. Also, 1880 Census, Lee County, Alabama.
15 By 1880: 1880 Census, Lee County, Alabama. Also, Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible. Courtesy of Lois Hurston Gaston.
15 “bee-stung yaller”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 8–9.
15 Lucy’s parents: 1880 Census, Lee County, Alabama.
16 “great come-down in the world”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 8.
16 Lucy and John were married: Marriage License Record, Lee County, Alabama, p. 242.
16 The bride had just turned sixteen: Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible. Lucy Hurston’s birthday was December 31, 1865; John Hurston was born January 1, 1861. Also, Hurston comments on her parents’ unusually close birth dates in Jonah’s Gourd Vine (New York: HarperPerennial, 1990), p. 51.
16 When [Lucy] rode off beside John: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 79.
16 “dat yaller bastard”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 9.
16 In November 1882: 1900 Census, Orange County, Florida. Also, Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible.
17 “What was it”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 74.
17 “It seems that one daughter”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 19.
17 January 7, 1891: 1900 Census, Orange County, Florida. Also, Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible. Although Hurston often cited her birth year as 1901 or later, the 1900 census lists her as nine years old and gives 1891 as her birth year. The Family Record Page of the Hurston Family Bible also gives 1891 as the year of Hurston’s birth, though it cites January 15 as the date. However, Hurston consistently gave January 7 as the date of her birth—no matter how many variations she gave of the year. Also, as Hurston scholar Cheryl A. Wall has pointed out, all the entries on the Family Record Page of the Hurston Bible appear to be recorded in the same handwriting, which suggests one person may have made all the entries retrospectively, perhaps based on family research and memory, rather than various family members recording events as they occurred. For this reason, I have only cited the Family Bible when I could corroborate its information with at least one other primary source. No such corroboration exists for the January 15 birth date. Therefore, the best available evidence indicates Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891. Finally, this date is further supported by a letter, dated November 15, 1974, that ZNH’s brother, Everett Hurston, wrote to Fort Pierce attorney Elsie O’Laughlin in an attempt to probate Hurston’s estate. Letter courtesy of Ms. O’Laughlin and attorney Ron Jayson.
17 hog-killing time: Author interview with Roger Boyd, a former Alabama tenant farmer, May 24, 1999.
17 “this is all hear-say”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 19. This account of Hurston’s birth is largely taken from her description of it in her autobiography. Yet one significant deviation is made in this account: Hurston always identified Eatonville, Florida, as the place of her birth. In fact, she was born in Notasulga, Alabama, according to the 1900 Census, Orange County, Florida, and the Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible.
18 “he took out his Barlow knife”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 21.
18 “She complained that the cord”: Ibid.
18 Zora Neal Lee Hurston: No other corroboration for the name “Lee” has been found, and Hurston never used this name in any public records or private correspondence. The 1900 Census, Orange County, Florida, lists nine-year-old Zora as “Zora L.” The “L” could have been for “Lee” or it could have been the mistake of a census taker who misheard “Neal(e)” as “L.”
18 “Perhaps she had read it somewhere”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 21.
18 “I don’t think he ever got over”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 19.
19 “crushing to his ambition”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 7.
19 “the black back-side”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 1.
19 “You mean uh whole town”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 107.
20 voted to incorporate Eatonville: Frank M. Otey, Eatonville, Florida: A Brief History (Winter Park, FL: Four-G Publishers, 1989).
20 “The terrain was as flat”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 4.
20 “No more backbending”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 5.
21 Joe Clarke: Otey, p. 2.
22 At Eatonville’s incorporation meeting: Otey, Chapters 1 and 2.
22 a second church: Otey, p. 10.
22 “Negroes are made to feel”: Booker T. Washington, The Negro in Business (Wichita, KS: Devore and Sons, 1907; 1992 reprint), p. 53.
22 “the city of five lakes”: ZNH, Mules and Men (New York: Harper & Row, 1990), p. 4.
23 “He wouldn’t let her walk”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 108.
23 “Lucy sniffed sweet air”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 109.
24 the Hungerford School: Otey, p. 11. The Robert Hungerford Normal and Industrial School, named for the deceased son of its benefactors, Edward and Anna Hungerford, was founded in Eatonville in 1889 by Russell and Mary Calhoun.
24 “But I was not taking this thing”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 22.
24 “The strangest thing about it was”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 23.
25 “Wherever you go”: For a recent, artful evocation of this abiding folk principle, listen to vocalist Cassandra Wilson’s “Run the Voodoo Down” on the CD Traveling Miles (Blue Note, 1999).
25 Notasulga, Alabama: Interestingly, Zora’s older brothers, who’d spent more of their childhood time in Alabama than Zora had, also would claim Florida as their state of birth in some public records.
25 “Races have never done”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 248–49.
26 a talented seamstress: ZNH interview, Twentieth Century Authors, ed. by Stanley Kunitz and Howard Haycraft (New York: H. W. Wilson, 1942).
26 “He could put his potentialities to sleep”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 68.
26 the “empty house threw back”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 52.
26 “His trial sermon had”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 111.
26 “God’s Battle-Axe”: Sanford Herald, November 25, 1910.
26 Lucy gave birth to another child: 1900 Census, Orange County, Florida. Also, Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible.
26 “It was a common thing”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 12.
27 “Jump at de sun”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 13.
27 “It did not do”: Ibid.
27 “The white folks”: Ibid.
28 “Zora is my young’un”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 14.
28 “If the rest of us”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 75.
28 “We black folks don’t love”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 5.
28 If Lucy spanked John’s favorite child: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 74.
29 “I was the one girl”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 29–30.
29 “Dolls caught the devil”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 30.
29 “I was driven inward”: Ibid.
29 “It did not matter”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 75.
29 “Behind Mama’s rocking chair”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 14.
30 Booker T. Washington’s National Negro Business League: Paula Giddings, When and Where I Enter: The Impact of Black Women on Race and Sex in America (New York: William Morrow and Company, 1984), p. 75.
30 “What’s de use”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 14.
30 “On two occasions”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 10.
30 “She definitely understood”: Ibid.
30 “with the muzzle of his Winchester rifle”: Ibid.
31 “She was glad to see him”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 114.
31 “There came other times”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 115.
31 “Every time Mama cornered him”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 16.
31 “I looked more like him”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 19.
31 “a wife-made man”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 113.
31 “My mother took her”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 69.
32 “Maybe he was just born”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 11.
32 “I know that I did love him”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 68.
32 “All that part”: Ibid.
33 “I know that my mother”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 10, 11.
33 “For a long time I gloated”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 26.
34 “That was my earliest conscious hint”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 27.
34 “the most interesting thing”: Ibid.
34 “The movement made me glad”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 33.
34 “I know now”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 34.
34 Zora’s maternal grandmother: Family Record Page, Hurston Family Bible.
34 “Git down offa”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 34.
34 “The Southern whites”: ZNH, Twentieth Century Authors, 1942.
35 Washington himself: Otey, p. 11.
35 “Mrs. Calhoun always”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 34.
35 We stood up in the usual line: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 35–36.
36 “They asked me”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 37.
36 “My sandy hair”: Ibid.
37 “Perhaps I shall never”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 38.
37 “The clothes were not new”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 39.
37 “In that way I found out”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 40.
37 “thin books about this and that”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 39.
37 “Of the Greeks”: Ibid.
38 “Stew beef, fried fatback”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 41.
38 “the heart and spring”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 45.
38 “There were no discreet nuances”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 46.
38 “God, Devil, Brer Rabbit”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 48.
38 Eatonville’s second mayor: Otey, p. 16.
39 “while Mama waited on me”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 48.
39 her father became pastor: Otey, p. 10.
39 moderator of the South Florida Baptist Association: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 51.
39 “Life took on a bigger perimeter”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 52.
40 “You hear dat young’un”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 53–54.
40 “my mother was always”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 13.
40 “She’d listen sometimes”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 53–54.
40 “How was she going to tell what”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 54.
40 visions of events to come: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 41–42.
40 I had knowledge before its time: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 42.
41 “I consider that my real childhood”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 43–44.
42 “I named it”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 52.
42 September 18, 1904: The Hurston Family Bible lists September 19, 1904, as the date of Lucy’s death, but in her autobiography, Hurston gave the date as September 18—a date that she likely found impossible to forget.
42 “I noted a number of women”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 65.
42 “Death stirred”: Ibid.
42 “She kept getting thinner”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 63–64.
42 Lucy only had one sister: 1880 Census, Lee County, Alabama.
43 “Aunt Dinky had”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 63.
43 “He went to a party”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 64.
43 “There was never any move”: Ibid.
43 “Mama could just go on back”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 63.
44 “I could not conceive”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 64.
44 several superstitions about death: ZNH, Mules and Men (New York: Perennial, 1990), pp. 228–29. Also, Margaret M. Coffin, Death in Early America (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson, 1976), pp. 97–98.
44 “I was not to let them”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 64.
44 “Papa was standing”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 65.
45 Somebody reached for the clock: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 65–66.
45 “In the midst of play”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 66.
45 “That moment was the end”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 66–67.
46 The warm climate: Coffin, pp. 79, 102. Also, Eugene D. Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll: The World the Slaves Made (New York: Vintage Books, 1976), p. 198.
46 “Bob’s grief was awful”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 67.
46 “from the kitchen to the front porch”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 68.
46 “I have often wished”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 67–68.
46 “Pull up your socks”: Toni Morrison, Song of Solomon (New York: Signet, 1978), pp. 310–11.
47 “That hour began my wanderings”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 67.
48 “The village came behind”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 135.
48 “the finality of the thing”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 69.
48 “That night, all of Mama’s children”: Ibid.
48 “Mama died at sundown”: Ibid.
49 “The loss of a parent”: Hope Edelman, Motherless Daughters: The Legacy of Loss (New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks, 1994), p. xxiii.
49 “Researchers have found”: Edelman, p. 8.
49 “a love-hurt relationship”: Deborah G. Plant, Every Tub Must Sit On Its Own Bottom: The Philosophy and Politics of Zora Neale Hurston (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1995), p. 160.
49 “choose goals realistically”: J. Irving & E. Scott, The Education of Black People in Florida (Philadelphia: Dorrance & Company, 1974), p. 53.
50 “I had seen myself”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 70.
50 “Jacksonville,” she wrote cryptically: Ibid.
51 “School in Jacksonville”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 71.
51 “Lessons had never worried me”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 79.
51 “My underskirt was hanging”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 70.
52 “In a week or two after”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 73.
52 John Hurston’s second wedding: Orange County Marriage License Record, Book 2: 1889–1909, p. 262.
52 Mattie Moge: The 1910 Census gives Mattie Moge’s birth year as 1885.
52 “My father certainly”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 97.
52 “Ah got dese li’l chillun”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 138.
52 “Sarah just married”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 73. Hurston’s youngest brother, as an adult, spelled his name Everette, with an “e” on the end; ZNH always spelled it without the “e.” I have chosen to use ZNH’s spelling of her brother’s name throughout.
52 John Robert Mack: Author interview with Zora Mack Goins, daughter of Sarah Hurston Mack, June 30, 2000.
53 “I had gotten used to”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 79.
53 “After a while”: Ibid.
53 “I received an atlas”: Ibid.
53 “He acted like he was satisfied”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 79–80.
54 “I made up my mind”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 80–81.
54 “A child who loses a parent”: Edelman, p. 42.
54 “Maybe it was Mama”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 71.
54 “I kept looking out of the window”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 81.
55 “she seemed to speak a little softer”: Ibid.
55 “The very walls were gummy”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 84.
55 “To see this interloper”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 85.
56 “His well-cut broadcloth”: Ibid.
57 “So my second vision picture”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 85.
58 “bare and bony”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 119.
58 “I was miserable”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 87.
58 64 percent of black schools in the South: Darlene Clark Hine, Kathleen Thompson, A Shining Thread of Hope: The History of Black Women in America (New York: Broadway Books, 1998), pp. 206–7.
59 “people who had no parents”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 88.
59 “A child in my place”: Ibid.
59 more than 40 percent of all black: James D. Anderson, The Education of Blacks in the South, 1860–1935 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1988), p. 150.
59 “Housewives would open the door”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 88.
60 an average wage: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 93. Also, Economic History Resources, “How Much Is That?” Conversion Calculator.
60 She also was drawn to Jacksonville: 1910 Census, Duval County, Florida.
60 “It did sound grand”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 95.
60 No white man: Hine, Thompson, p. 215.
61 “Right then”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 95.
61 “He went on down the steps”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 96.
61 “There is something about poverty”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 87.
61 “I wanted family love”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 97.
62 “like a stepped-on worm”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 98.
62 “The bottle came sailing slowly”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 76.
63 “I was so mad”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 77.
64 “I could not bear the air”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 98.
66 Zora “luxuriated in Milton’s syllables”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 98.
66 By 1912, only two remained open: Hine, Thompson, p. 222.
66 “When I got on the train”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 99.
66 While Bob finished medical school: Author interview with Lois Hurston Gaston, Bob’s granddaughter. October 4, 2000. Also, Kristy Anderson, “The Tangled Southern Roots of Zora Neale Hurston,” 1995, an unpublished paper by filmmaker working on a biographical documentary on Hurston.
66 The soon-to-be-famous dance: ZNH, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in Nancy Cunard, ed., Negro: An Anthology (New York: Continuum, 1996). Originally published by Hours Press, 1934. Also, Marshall and Jean Stearns, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance (New York: Da Capo Press, 1994).
67 A studio portrait: Family photo in the possession of Winifred Hurston Clark, Bob’s youngest daughter. First published in Pamela Bordelon, “New Tracks on Dust Tracks,” African American Review, vol. 31, no. 1, 1997.
67 “That did not make me happy”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 100.
67 After graduating from Meharry in 1913: Bob Hurston’s year of graduation was verified in a phone interview with Quinton Jones, archivist at Meharry Medical School.
67 The two-story house: Winifred Hurston Clark, in Bordelon, “New Tracks on Dust Tracks.”
67 “My brother was acting”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 100. Also, interview with Bob Hurston’s daughter, Winifred Hurston Clark, in Pamela Bordelon’s Go Gator and Muddy the Water (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999).
68 directory of Bethel Baptist Institutional Church: This church directory is the only known record of Hurston from this period of her life. And she is not listed in subsequent church directories, nor in city directories in Jacksonville or Memphis.
68 “a house, a shot-gun built house”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 42.
68 “the house that needed paint”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 119.
69 “Don’t you love nobody”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 130.
69 Though Hurston virtually hid this fact: Hurston scholars previously had assumed that Bob Hurston’s home in Memphis was the house Zora Hurston fled to join the Gilbert and Sullivan tour. But a careful study of her language reveals otherwise. See ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 100–101; p. 119. Also, the church record places her in Jacksonville in 1914, after her time in Memphis, casting further doubt on the notion that she fled Bob’s home to join the troupe.
69 “to my own self”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 101.
69 The singer offered to pay ten dollars: Economic History Resources, “How Much Is That?” Conversion Calculator.
69 “It wouldn’t take long for me”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 103.
69 “Everything was pleasing”: Ibid.
70 men and women migrated: Hine, Thompson, pp. 214–19.
70 “I was the only Negro”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 104.
70 “burnt-ettes”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 118.
71 “I was a Southerner”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 104–5.
71 “I just happened to be there”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 117.
72 “That was the way we parted”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 116.
72 “Working with these people”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 119.
73 Baltimore had suffered: Maryland Historical Chronology, 1900–1999. Maryland State Archives.
73 “But theatrical salaries being so uncertain”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 121.
73 “those presumptuous cut-eye looks”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 121–22.
74 “I bet God that”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 122.
74 listed in the 1917 Baltimore City Directory: Baltimore City Directory, 1917 and 1918.
74 “struggling along”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 142.
74 Sarah would name her daughter after Zora: Author interview with Zora Mack Goins, daughter of Sarah Hurston Mack, June 30, 2000.
74 “I was only jumping up and down”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 122.
74 “I got tired of trying”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 122–23.
75 The Maryland Code: The Maryland Code, 1903. Volume II, Chapter 18, Article 125.
75 she shaved ten years off: Cheryl A. Wall and other Hurston scholars have cited Hurston’s return to school as the moment she began her deception about her age. See Wall’s chronology in Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, And Other Writings (New York: Library of America, 1995).
75 a matter of necessity: The General Educational Development (GED) Diploma—a high school equivalency certificate awarded upon successful completion of a test—would not become available until decades later, in 1942.
76 “So I went to the night high school”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 123–24.
76 “This was my world”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 123.
76 she was given credit: Morgan College Entrance Record. From the Office of the Registrar, Morgan State University.
76 “good-looking, well-dressed girls”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 125–26.
77 “Sometimes somebody would ask me”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 127.
77 “Once I had the history classes”: Ibid.
77 Predictably, Zora did well: Morgan College Record, Morgan State University.
77 “I did not do well”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 129.
77 “The atmosphere made me feel right”: Ibid.
77 Her father recently had moved: Bordelon, “New Tracks on Dust Tracks.” Also, ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 141–42.
77 John Hurston had been elected mayor: Otey, p. 17.
78 he had become pastor of Friendship Baptist Church in Jacksonville: 1916 and 1917 Jacksonville City Directory.
78 not listed as married: According to Hurston’s account, John and Mattie Hurston separated a few months after the Zora-Mattie fight. See Dust Tracks, p. 78. Bordelon, in “New Tracks on Dust Tracks” and Go Gator, argues that Mattie was living with John in Memphis, based on the testimony of Bob Hurston’s youngest daughter, Winifred Hurston Clark. But Mrs. Clark was not born until 1920, two years after John Hurston’s death, and no corroborative evidence has been found to prove that John and Mattie were still living as husband and wife at the time of his death.
78 “the engine struck”: ZNH, Jonah’s Gourd Vine, p. 200.
78 John Hurston was fifty-seven years old: The date of John Hurston’s death is not clear. The Hurston Family Bible is difficult to read; Bordelon has reported John Hurston’s death date as May 1918; Wall lists it in her chronology as August 10. His youngest son, Everett Edwin Hurston, also remembered it as August 10 in a letter to attorney Elsie O’Laughlin.
79 “the capstone of Negro education”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 129.
79 higher education for Negroes: David Levering Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), pp. 157–58.
79 “Zora, you are Howard material”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 129.
79 Howard had been founded in 1867: William M. Banks, Black Intellectuals: Race and Responsibility in American Life (New York: W. W. Norton, 1996), p. 45.
80 Zora withdrew from Morgan: Morgan College Record, Morgan State University. The record indicates that Hurston did not graduate from Morgan, as previously reported, but withdrew.
80 On December 2, 1918: Student’s Record, Academy Division. Office of the Registrar, Howard University. On the record from the Academy Division, 1919 has been noticeably erased, with 1920 written over it, indicating that Hurston may not have actually received the diploma until May 1920. But that would have been a mere technicality: her university records clearly indicate she entered the college division in autumn 1919.
80 “You have taken me in”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 130.
80 Zora’s first quarter: Howard University Scholastic Record. Office of the Registrar, Howard University.
80 “My soul stood on tiptoe”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 131.
81 “I know that my discretion”: Ibid.
82 “I know a place”: “Home.” Unpublished poem from the Hurston Collection at the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City.
82 “Who has not felt the fire”: Untitled poem, dated April 21, 1919. Hurston Collection, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture, New York City.
83 Herbert Arnold Sheen: Unpublished bio of Herbert A. Sheen, M.D., from Robert E. Hemenway Files.
83 “She wasn’t narrow-minded”: REH Interview with Herbert A. Sheen, M.D. REH Files.
83 “He noticed me, too”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 204.
83 Alpha Kappa Alpha: 1920, 1923 Howard University yearbooks. Howard Dodson, Christopher Moore, Roberta Yancy, The Black New Yorkers: The Schomburg Illustrated Chronology (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 2000), p. 129.
83 “There were these three sororities”: Eleanor Des Vessey Stinette, “An Oral Memoir of Mrs. Ophelia Settle Egypt,” 1981–82. Manuscripts Division, Moorland-Springarn Research Center, Howard University.
84 “stimulating and producing authors”: ENOPRON, 1920–21, Howard University, Moorland-Springarn Research Center.
84 a popular literary salon: Lewis, When Harlem Was in Vogue, p. 127.
84 “Listening to him”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 136–37.
85 set in an unnamed Florida village: ZNH, “John Redding Goes to Sea,” in The Complete Stories (New York: HarperCollins, 1995).
86 “Hurston’s fully developed use”: John Lowe, “Hurston, Humor, and the Harlem Renaissance” in Victor Kramer’s The Harlem Renaissance Re-Examined (New York: AMS Press, 1987), p. 292.
86 “did a lot for the family”: REH Interview with Herbert Sheen. Unpublished bio of Herbert A. Sheen, M.D. REH Files.
86 she published three poems: Hurston published “Night,” “Journey’s End,” and “Passion” in Negro World, the official newspaper of Marcus Garvey’s Universal Negro Improvement Association. See chronology in Cheryl Wall’s Zora Neale Hurston: Folklore, Memoirs, And Other Writings (New York: Library of America, 1995).
86 “soulful poet”: ZNH to Georgia Douglas Johnson, July 18, 1925, The Georgia Douglas Johnson Papers, Howard University, Moorland-Springarn Research Center. For the full text of Hurston’s correspondence, see Carla Kaplan, ed., Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters (New York: Doubleday, 2002).
87 “I have a heart”: The Bison, 1923. Howard University, MSRC.
88 her grades were faltering: Howard University Scholastic Record. Office of the Registrar, Howard University.
88 “I was out on account of illness”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 138.
88 “to lay bare Negro life”: Nathan Irvin Huggins, Harlem Renaissance (New York: Oxford University Press, 1971), p. 28.
88 “When the magazine would report”: Ibid.
89 “The Negro Speaks of Rivers”: Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes, Volume I: 1902–1941, I, Too, Sing America (Oxford, New York, Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1986), p. 48.
89 “He was primarily responsible”: George Hutchison, The Harlem Renaissance in Black and White (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1995), p. 173.
89 Langston Hughes was in Paris: Lewis, p. 90. Also Rampersad, p. 107.
90 “What American literature decidedly needs”: Lewis, pp. 94–95.
90 “the progressive spirit”: Steven Watson, The Harlem Renaissance: Hub of African-American Culture, 1920–1930 (New York: Pantheon Books, 1995), p. 28.
90 “did more to encourage”: Langston Hughes quoted in Lewis, p. 125.
90 “so-called Negro Renaissance”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 138.
90 “press agent”: Lewis, p. 149. Watson, pp. 23–24.
91 “Although Locke rarely saw promise in”: Watson, pp. 70–71.
91 exuberant sense of humor: For further discussion of Hurston’s humor, see “Hurston, Humor, and the Harlem Renaissance,” by John Lowe, in Victor Kramer’s The Harlem Renaissance Re-Examined, op. cit.
92 “in an ecstasy of joy for a minute”: ZNH, “Drenched in Light,” available in The Complete Stories.
92 Isis was considered: This is a gross oversimplification of the Egyptian mythology surrounding Isis. For a more refined discussion, see George Hart’s A Dictionary of Egyptian Gods and Goddesses (New York: Routledge Kegan & Paul, 1986).
92 “Drenched in Light”: For this analysis, I am indebted to the work of Robert E. Hemenway in Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography (Urbana and Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1977), pp. 10–11.
93 “no job, no friends”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 138.
93 In this trio’s relatively plush Harlem flat: Lewis, pp. 126–129; Watson, p. 26.
93 “a terrifically warm person”: Richard Bruce Nugent, 1971 interview with Robert E. Hemenway. REH Files.
93 she was two years older: Johnson was born in 1893. Banks, Black Intellectuals, p. 275.
93 During Zora’s early days: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 139.
93 “fun to be a Negro”: Arna Bontemps, quoted in Lewis, p. 103.
93 “When I set my hat”: ZNH, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” May 1928, The World Tomorrow.
94 “At one time or another”: Lewis, pp. 210–11.
94 Harlem’s rents: Watson, p. 130.
94 thirty dollars was a significant chunk: Economic History Resources, “How Much Is That?” Conversion Calculator.
95 1924 Urban League study: Winthrop D. Lane, “Ambushed in the City: The Grim Side of Harlem,” Survey Graphic, March 1925.
95 40 percent of his or her income: Lewis, pp. 107–11.
95 “flop-wallies”: Frank Byrd, “Rent Parties,” August 23, 1938. Reprinted in A Renaissance in Harlem: Lost Voices of an American Community, edited by Lionel C. Bascom (New York: Avon Books, 1999), pp. 59–67. Also, Lewis, pp. 107–11; Watson, pp. 130–31.
95 “You would see all kinds”: Willie “the Lion” Smith, quoted in Lewis, pp. 107–8.
95 “When Zora was there”: Arna Bontemps and Sterling Brown, quoted in Hemenway, p. 61.
95 “where all of the members are saints”: ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, undated letter from 1926. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH.
96 The March 1925 Survey Graphic: Watson, p. 28.
96 “In Harlem”: Survey Graphic, March 1925.
96 “a certified misogynist”: Lewis, p. 96.
96 more than seven hundred submissions: “Contest Awards,” Opportunity, vol. 3, no. 29, May 1925, p. 142.
97 “a novel sight”: Watson, p. 66.
97 the May 1 awards dinner: Lewis, pp. 113–14.
97 The winner of the most prizes: “Contest Awards,” Opportunity, vol. 3, no. 29, May 1925, pp. 142–43.
97 John Matheus won: “Prizes to Negro Writers,” The New York Times, May 2, 1925. Also “Contest Awards,” Opportunity, vol. 3, no. 29, May 1925.
97 cool temperature: Weather Report, May 2, 1925, The New York Times. High temperature for May 1 was 56, low was 41.
98 “Colooooooor Struuckkkk!”: May Miller interview notes, April 29, 1971. REH Files.
99 “Zora Neale Hurston is a clever girl”: Hughes to Carl Van Vechten, June 4, 1925. Emily Bernard, Remember Me to Harlem: The Letters of Langston Hughes and Carl Van Vechten, 1925–1964 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 19.
99 “less and less the more I see of her”: Eslanda Robeson, quoted in Martin Duberman, Paul Robeson: A Biography (New York: New Press, 1989), p. 82.
99 “In appearance, Zora”: Arna Bontemps interview, November 1970. REH Files.
100 “one of the most amusing people”: Carl Van Vechten, in letter to his wife, Fania Marinoff, June 3, 1925, quoted in Watson, p. 71.
100 “the gift”: Fannie Hurst, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Personality Sketch,” Library Gazette, Yale University, 1961.
100 Meyer had played a critical role in: Unpublished biographical sketch, part of the Inventory to the Annie Nathan Meyer Papers at the American Jewish Archives, Cincinnati, OH.
100 “Being of use to the Negro”: Lewis, pp. 100–101.
101 of the thirteen thousand or so black people: Lewis, p. 158.
101 “I am tremendously encouraged”: ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, May 12, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
101 “It is mighty cold comfort”: Ibid.
101 “Do you think you could get”: Virginia C. Gildersleeve to Annie Nathan Meyer, June 9, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
101 who had secured a publishing contract: Rampersad, pp. 109–10.
101 Annie Pope Malone: ZNH to Meyer, July 18, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives. Also, Hine and Thompson, p. 204.
102 “your humble and obedient servant”: ZNH to Meyer, July 18, 1925, September 15, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
102 “I see white people do things”: ZNH to Meyer, June 23, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
102 “if she showed certain scars”: Author interview with John Henrik Clarke, May 28, 1997.
102 “We wear the mask”: Excerpt from Paul Laurence Dunbar, “We Wear the Mask,” 1895. The full poem has been reprinted in various anthologies, including Henry Louis Gates, Jr., and Nellie McKay, general editors, The Norton Anthology of African American Literature (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), p. 896.
103 “I have had some small success”: Record of Freshman Interest, Barnard College.
103 “The Hue and Cry About Howard University”: ZNH, “The Hue and Cry About Howard University,” The Messenger, September 1925.
104 “If spirits kin fight”: ZNH, “Spunk,” The Complete Stories.
104 Fannie Hurst wrote to Carl Van Vechten: Brooke Kroeger, Fannie: The Talent for Success of Writer Fannie Hurst (New York: Times Books, 1999), pp. 122–23.
104 “I am sure she would help”: ZNH to Meyer, October 17, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
105 She owed $117: Gildersleeve to Meyer, October 2, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
105 “I still must get”: ZNH to Meyer, October 12, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
105 “I need money worse”: Langston Hughes, The Big Sea (New York: Hill and Wang, 1993), p. 240. Originally published by Alfred A. Knopf, 1940. Also, Arna Bontemps interview, November 1970. REH Files.
105 “I have been my own sole support”: ZNH to Meyer, October 17, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
105 Zora had moved into Fannie Hurst’s apartment: Kroeger, p. 123. Also, ZNH to Meyer, November 10, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
106 She told Meyer of a student loan fund: Gildersleeve to Meyer, November 5, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
106 “I knew getting mad”: ZNH to Meyer, November 10, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
106 With a load of seven classes: Barnard College transcript, Barnard Archives.
106 “You see”: ZNH to Meyer, November 10, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
106 “Perhaps Zora bartered”: Kroeger, p. 123.
107 Hurst had become: Kroeger, pp. 104, 121–27, 187–90.
107 “blazing zest for life”: Fannie Hurst, “Zora Hurston: A Personality Sketch,” Library Gazette, Yale University, no. 35, 1961.
107 Hurst was only five years older than Hurston: Kroeger, p. 126. Fannie Hurst was born in 1885.
107 “a great artist and globe famous”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 197.
107 “She knows exactly what goes”: Ibid.
107 “a stunning wench”: ZNH, “Fannie Hurst by Her Ex-Amanuensis,” Saturday Review of Literature, October 3, 1937.
107 “I doubt if any woman on earth”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 197.
107 “Her shorthand was short”: Fannie Hurst, “Zora Hurston: A Personality Sketch.”
107 “My idea of Hell”: Undated letter to Tracy L’Engle, Tracy L’Engle Angas Papers, University of Florida.
107 “Though the myth holds otherwise”: Kroeger, p. 124.
108 “The girls at Barnard”: ZNH to Meyer, December 13, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
108 “But even if things were different”: ZNH to Meyer, December 17, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
108 “I feel most colored”: ZNH, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” The World Tomorrow, May 1928.
108 “I suppose you want to know”: ZNH to Constance Sheen, January 5, 1926. ZNH Collection, University of Florida.
108 “Barnard’s sacred black cow”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 139.
108 “Partly because you took me under your shelter”: ZNH to Fannie Hurst, March 18, 1926. Fannie Hurst Papers. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
109 “I do not wish to become Hurstized”: ZNH to Meyer, December 13, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
109 At a December 19 party at Fannie’s home: ZNH to Constance Sheen, January 5, 1926. ZNH Collection, University of Florida.
109 “They are OFTEN insincere”: ZNH to Constance Sheen, February 2, 1926. ZNH Collection, University of Florida.
109 working part-time as a waitress: ZNH to Meyer, December 13, 1925. Also, ZNH to Fannie Hurst, March 18, 1926.
109 “That was how he”: ZNH, “The Emperor Effaces Himself,” typescript. ZNH Papers, Yale.
109 Her play Color Struck was scheduled: ZNH to Meyer, November 10, 1925. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
110 “Youth speaks”: Alain Locke, “Negro Youth Speaks,” The New Negro (New York: Atheneum, 1974). Originally published in 1925.
110 all routinely lied about their ages: Cheryl A. Wall, Women of the Harlem Renaissance (Bloomington and Indianapolis: Indiana University Press, 1995), p. 12.
110 Meyer, in turn, sent Zora a copy: ZNH to Meyer, January 15, 1926. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
110 “I got the scholarship!!!”: ZNH to Meyer, postmarked February 5, 1926. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
110 “I wonder whether”: Virginia Gildersleeve to Annie Nathan Meyer, February 9, 1926. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
110 “I felt that I was highly privileged”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 140.
111 “just running wild”: ZNH to Constance Sheen, February 2, 1926. ZNH Collection, University of Florida.
111 “Your rebuke is just”: ZNH to Meyer, undated [January 1926]. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
112 “All this is a reason”: ZNH to Meyer, undated [January 1926]. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
112 “like a foretaste of paradise”: Arna Bontemps, quoted in Watson, p. 66.
112 “It was not a spasm”: Charles S. Johnson, quoted in Lewis, p. 115.
112 Soon after the Opportunity triumph: Lewis, pp. 178–80; Watson, p. 205.
112 “a song I and most southerners”: ZNH to Cullen, March 11, 1926. Amistad Research Center, Tulane University, New Orleans.
113 “I want to start on it”: ZNH to Meyer, February 22, 1926. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
113 “the best novel”: Lewis, p. 179.
113 “It is the Mecca”: Charles T. Crowell, “The World’s Largest Negro City,” Saturday Evening Post, August 8, 1925.
114 the first anthropology department: “Rethinking Anthropology,” Columbia Magazine, Fall 1999, Columbia University.
114 “full of youth and fun”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 140.
114 “Almost nobody else”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 239.
114 anthropometry: The most infamous use of anthropometry was by the Nazis, who classified Aryans and non-Aryans based on measurements of the skull and other physical characteristics. Now, anthropometry has many practical, and benign, uses. For example, it is used to assess nutritional status, to monitor children’s growth, and to assist in the design of office furniture. Source: “The Skeptic’s Dictionary” by Robert Todd Carroll. Online copyright 1998.
114 “learn as quickly as possible”: ZNH to Annie Nathan Meyer, undated letter from 1926.
115 “Of course, Zora”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 140.
115 “the King of Kings”: Ibid.
115 “like a tight chemise”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 1.
115 “make people work”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 140.
115 “The regular grind”: ZNH to Countee Cullen, March 11, 1926. Tulane University.
116 “the Niggerati”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 235. Also, Lewis, pp. 193–95.
116 “our business of”: ZNH to Alain Locke, June 5, 1925. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University Library.
116 “Zora would have been Zora”: Bruce Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
116 “the perfumed orchid”: Watson, p. 90.
117 “She was not the gentle person”: Bruce Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
117 “with nothing but his nerve”: Theophilus Lewis, quoted in Watson, p. 85.
117 the Krigwa Players: Dodson, Moore, Yancy, The Black New Yorkers, p. 192.
117 “chief mid-wife”: ZNH to Alain Locke, Alain Locke Papers, Howard University, Washington, D.C.
118 “I rather think”: Du Bois to ZNH, March 19, 1926. Tulane.
118 “in a Negro neighborhood”: Huggins, p. 292.
118 “Could you”: ZNH to Du Bois, July 3, 1926. Tulane.
118 “We want Negro writers”: Du Bois, The Crisis 31 (January 1926).
118 “I do not care a damn”: Du Bois, “Criteria of Negro Art,” The Crisis 32 (October 1926).
118 “that crowd”: Lewis, p. 193.
119 “We younger Negro artists”: “The Negro Artist and the Racial Mountain,” The Nation 122 (June 23, 1926), pp. 692–94.
120 “This year has been”: ZNH to Fannie Hurst, March 16, 1926. Fannie Hurst Papers. Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin.
120 Despite her flagging stamina: Barnard College transcript, Barnard Archives.
120 a “furniture” party: Author interview with John Henrik Clarke. Also, Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 239.
120 “I have been going through”: ZNH to W.E.B. Du Bois, July 3, 1926. Tulane.
121 “She was always prepared”: Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
121 “It fills ’em up quick”: ZNH in radio interview with Mary Margaret McBride, January 25, 1943. 7. Recorded Sound Reference Center, Library of Congress.
121 Perhaps because of the hunger: Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
121 “I wrote at Zora’s”: Ibid.
121 “all greased curls”: Fannie Hurst’s description of ZNH in letter to Carl Van Vechten, April 1926. Carl Van Vechten Papers, Yale University.
121 if she had an appointment: Carolyne Rich Williams, quoted in Hemenway, pp. 60–61.
121 “Those were the days”: Theophilus Lewis, quoted in Watson, p. 89.
122 Meet the Mamma: Typescript for this previously unknown work is available in the Music Division of the Library of Congress.
122 “He suggested”: Nugent, quoted in Rampersad, p. 134.
122 “The way I look at it”: ZNH to Alain Locke, October 11, 1927. Locke Collection, Howard University Library.
122 “would burn up”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 235.
122 “were going to do something”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
123 “I believe we can”: ZNH to Langston Hughes, March 17, 1927. James Weldon Johnson Collection, Yale University.
123 “the fullest embodiment”: Lewis, p. 193.
123 “a strangely brilliant”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 234.
123 “welling up”: West, quoted in Mae Gwendolyn Henderson, “Portrait of Wallace Thurman,” Arna Bontemps, The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972), p. 149.
123 “Thurman fitted”: West, quoted in Watson, p. 89.
123 “sexualized the narrative”: Ann Douglas, Terrible Honesty: Mongrel Manhattan in the 1920s (New York: Noonday Press, 1995), p. 47.
124 “If it gets its yearning”: Quoted in Lillian Faderman, Odd Girls and Twilight Lovers: A History of Lesbian Life in Twentieth-Century America (New York: Penguin Books, 1992), p. 62.
124 “This generation was the first”: Douglas, p. 53.
124 Zora saw: ZNH to Van Vechten, 1926 postcard. Van Vechten Papers, Yale University.
124 “BE COOL AND LOOK HOT”: Douglas, pp. 16 and 48.
124 “mere sightseers”: Hughes, The Big Sea, pp. 246–49.
125 “The Negro”: Watson, p. 105.
125 “the Coon Age”: Mencken in October 1927 issue of The American Mercury, quoted in Douglas, p. 77.
125 “Negro stock is going up”: Fisher, quoted in Watson, p. 66. Originally in Fisher, “The Caucasian Storms Harlem,” The American Mercury, May 1927.
125 “Sullen-mouthed”: Quoted in Watson, p. 99.
125 “so Negro”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 251.
125 “taboo-tea”: Kroeger, p. 187.
125 “Harlem is an all-white picnic ground”: Both McKay and Fisher quoted in Watson, p. 126 and p. 105.
126 “I dance wildly”: ZNH, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” The World Tomorrow, May 1928.
126 “a sincere friend”: Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
126 “If Carl was a people”: ZNH as quoted in Fannie Hurst, “Zora Neale Hurston: A Personality Sketch,” Library Gazette, Yale University, 1961.
127 “Anyone who would call”: Watson, p. 103.
127 “We could find a counterpart”: Lewis, p. 181.
127 “Colored people”: Hughes, quoted in Rampersad, p. 134.
127 “a copyrighted racial slur”: Lewis, p. 181.
127 “go inspectin’”: Lewis, p. 182.
127 “family secrets”: Johnson, quoted in Lewis, p. 186.
128 “They had shows”: Ruby Walker Smith, quoted in Faderman, p. 74.
128 “Jungle Alley”: Watson, p. 128.
128 Homosexual nightclubs: Watson, pp. 128–29.
128 “Miss Bentley was”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 226.
128 Less is known: Faderman, p. 232. See also Gloria Hull, “Under the Days: The Buried Life and Poetry of Angelina Weld Grimke,” Conditions: Five, The Black Women’s Issue, Autumn 1979.
128 In 1925, Rainey: Faderman, pp. 74–75.
129 Harlem housewives: For an excellent discussion of lesbianism in the 1920s, see Fader-man, pp. 62–92.
129 “Nobody was in the closet”: Nugent, quoted in Watson, p. 134.
129 Harlem’s “joy-goddess”: Hughes, The Big Sea, pp. 244–45.
129 She’d inherited a fortune: For an excellent study of Madam Walker, see A’Lelia Bundles, On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C. J. Walker (New York: Scribner, 2001).
129 “funny parties”: Mabel Hampton interview by Joan Nestle. Lesbian Herstory Archives.
129 “Zora would go”: Bontemps interview. REH Files.
130 Zora was on her way: Story recollected by Hurston family member. Hemenway, p. 30.
130 “Will you walk”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
130 “He was fond of her”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 198.
131 “She is shy”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 200.
131 Waters’s bisexuality: Alberta Hunter, Ethel Waters’s peer and sometimes rival, made pointed references to Waters’s bisexuality in Frank C. Taylor with Gerald Cook, Alberta Hunter: A Celebration in Blues (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987).
131 “I am her friend”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 199.
131 “There was nothing in her”: Bontemps interview. REH Files.
131 “At the time”: Herbert Sheen interview. REH Files.
132 “Whatever I ‘knew’ about Zora”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
133 “For artists and writers”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 236.
133 “It was really a”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
133 “worthy of the drawings”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 236.
133 “We are all under thirty”: Unsigned, handwritten letter of introduction to Fire!! Aaron Douglas Papers, Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
134 “She never made”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
134 “for his pseudo-sophisticated”: Thurman, “Fire Burns,” Fire!!, vol. 1, no. 1, November 1926, p. 47.
134 “a flawed, folk-centered masterpiece”: Lewis, p. 195.
134 “We have no”: Unsigned, handwritten letter of introduction to Fire!! Aaron Douglas Papers, Schomburg Center.
134 “his usual ability”: Rean Graves, quoted in Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 237.
135 “I have just tossed”: Watson, p. 92. Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 237.
135 “original in all its aspects”: Robert Kerlin, writing in Southern Workman, quoted in Lewis, p. 194.
135 At Craig’s restaurant: Lewis, p. 194.
135 “none of the older Negro intellectuals”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 237.
135 A friend told Cullen: Lewis, p. 194.
135 “If Uncle Sam”: Brawley, quoted in Lewis, p. 194.
135 “We had no way”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 237.
135 close to $10,000: Economic History Resources, “How Much Is That?” Conversion Calculator.
135 An optimistic Zora: ZNH to Hughes, March 17, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
135 “Fire!! is certainly”: Thurman, quoted in Mae Gwendolyn Henderson, “Portrait of Wallace Thurman,” Arna Bontemps, The Harlem Renaissance Remembered (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1972), p. 154.
136 “I suppose that Fire!!”: ZNH to Alain Locke, October 11, 1927. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
136 “I think that only two”: Nugent Interview. REH Files.
136 “so despises her own skin”: ZNH, Color Struck, Fire!!, November 1926.
136 “an idea of searing”: Lewis, p. 195.
136 “Ah done tole you”: ZNH, “Sweat,” Fire!!, Vol. 1, No. 1, November 1926. Reprinted in ZNH, The Complete Stories.
138 “Under the Bridge”: ZNH, “Under the Bridge.” The story was lost for years, but redis covered by collector Wyatt Houston Day in 1996. It was published in American Visions, December/January 1997.
139 “Muttsy”: ZNH, “Muttsy,” The Complete Stories, pp. 41–56.
139 “The Eatonville Anthology”: ZNH, “The Eatonville Anthology.” The Messenger, September, October, November 1926. Reprinted in ZNH, The Complete Stories, pp. 59–72.
140 “Only to reach”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 239.
140 “Zora had shone”: Nugent, “Smoke, Lilies and Jade,” Fire!!, p. 36.
140 Sweetie May Carr: Wallace Thurman, Infants of the Spring (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1992), p. 229. First published in 1932 by the Macaulay Company.
141 “Zora showed at any party”: Nugent interview. REH Files.
142 “the affairs of the world”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 271.
142 With this sum: Franz Boas to Carter G. Woodson, November 6 and December 7, 1926. Also, Boas to Elsie Clews Parsons, December 7, 1926, and Woodson to Boas, February 17, 1927. American Philosophical Society.
142 “So I knew”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 1.
143 “formalized curiosity”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 143.
143 “too much impressed”: Franz Boas to Elsie Clews Parsons, December 7, 1926. American Philosophical Society.
143 “penetrate through”: Franz Boas in preface to ZNH, Mules and Men, p. xiii.
143 “gorgeous sunlight”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 3, 1927. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.
143 “dirty upholstery”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 237.
143 “My brother plays”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, undated, postmarked February 18, 1927. Schomburg Center.
143 Her brother’s logic prevailed: ZNH to Franz Boas, March 29, 1927. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
143 “because I knew”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 2.
143 “I was delighted”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 7.
144 “like a four-walled room”: Russ Rymer, American Beach (New York: HarperCollins, 1998), p. 296.
144 “Folklore is not as easy”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 2.
144 “habitual movements”: Franz Boas to ZNH, May 3, 1927. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society. Copies also at the Library of Congress.
144 “Oh, I got a few little items”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 144.
144 After about ten days: ZNH to Carter G. Woodson, undated letter. Expense report shows Hurston was in Eatonville from June 20 to June 30. Carter G. Woodson Papers, Library of Congress.
145 For this, Zora packed: REH interview with Everett Hurston Jr., 1976. Cited in Hemenway, p. 112.
145 In 1926: These figures, which are widely believed to be conservative, are from the Archives at Tuskegee Institute. Also see “The Negro Holocaust: Lynching and Race Riots in the United States, 1890–1950,” by Robert A. Gibson. Published online by the Yale–New Haven Teachers Institute.
145 Zora heard a firsthand account: ZNH to Meyer, May 22, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
145 “forsaking the creature comforts”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, postmarked February 18, 1927. Schomburg Center.
145 “Sometimes, I feel”: ZNH, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” The World Tomorrow, May 1928.
146 “The poor whites”: ZNH to Meyer, March 7, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
146 “Flowers are gorgeous now”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, March 24, 1927. Schomburg Center.
146 “A man arrested”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 3, 1927. Schomburg Center.
146 “The glamor of Barnard College”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 144.
146 “I find that what you obtained”: Boas to ZNH, May 3, 1927. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society. Copy also at the Library of Congress.
147 “Getting some gorgeous material”: ZNH to Hughes, March 17, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
147 “I do hope”: Meyer to ZNH, January 21, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
147 “I take the mornings”: ZNH to Meyer, March 7, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
147 “No, I am not dead”: ZNH to Meyer, May 22, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
148 “Nature has up-ended”: ZNH to Meyer, March 7, 1927.
148 “I feel a little lonely”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, March 24, 1927. Schomburg Center.
148 “I am getting a certain amount”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 3, 1927. Schomburg Center.
148 “I felt the warm embrace”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 142.
149 Zora’s second diversion: Marriage license, Herbert Sheen and ZNH, May 19, 1927. Marriage Book 5, p. 17. Court records, St. Johns County, Florida.
149 “Believe it or not”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 3, 1927. Schomburg Center.
149 “For the first time”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 204.
149 “a dark barrier”: ZNH to Herbert Sheen, January 7, 1955. REH Files.
149 “Somebody had turned a hose”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 204.
150 “interested in tramping around”: Herbert Sheen interview with Robert Hemenway. REH Files.
150 One male admirer: Countee Cullen, quoted in Rampersad, p. 81.
151 “I knew it would be fun”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 296.
151 “our only contact”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 296.
151 “Our father who art”: Hughes to Carl Van Vechten, August 15, 1927. Van Vechten Papers, Yale University.
151 “The trouble with white folks”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 296
152 “Young Woman’s Blues”: Lyrics by Bessie Smith. Recorded October 26, 1926. Columbia Records, 14179-D. For an excellent analysis of this song, see Wall, Women of the Harlem Renaissance, p. 20.
152 “We are charging home”: Hughes and Hurston to Van Vechten, August 17, 1927. Note is in Hurston’s handwriting and signed by both. In Hughes–Van Vechten correspondence at Yale University.
152 “Somehow,” Zora reported: ZNH to Van Vechten, August 26, 1927. Van Vechten Papers, Yale University.
152 “I hate that”: ZNH to Hughes, undated. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
153 “This story was secured”: Journal of Negro History XII (October 1927), p. 648.
154 Whether she wanted to or not: The discovery was made in 1972—a full twelve years after Hurston’s death—by linguist William Stewart. It was first exposed in Robert E. Hemenway’s 1977 book, Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography. I relied heavily upon Hemenway’s report for my discussion of Hurston’s plagiarism.
154 “The more I see of the South”: ZNH to Meyer, October 7, 1927. Annie Nathan Meyer Papers, American Jewish Archives.
154 “Considering the mood of my going south”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 144.
156 “I could not see”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 42.
156 “I had gotten command”: ZNH in audiotaped radio interview with Mary Margaret McBride, January 25, 1943. Library of Congress.
156 “I think”: ZNH to Hughes, September 21, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University. Also September 20, 1928, letter from ZNH to Hughes, in which Hurston mentions that it is the anniversary of her meeting Mason.
157 “She likes the idea”: ZNH to Hughes, September 21, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
157 “altogether in sympathy”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 145.
157 “just as pagan as I”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 144.
158 Godmother “possessed the power”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 324 and pp. 312–15.
158 Seeking to remove any drains: Rampersad, pp. 156–59.
158 According to one rough estimate: Hemenway, p. 105. Also Economic History Resources “How Much Is That?” Conversion Calculator.
159 “desirous of obtaining and compiling”: Contractual agreement between Hurston and Mason, signed December 8, 1927. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
160 “I will have a better car”: ZNH to Hughes, December 9, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
160 In November 1927: Mills died on November 1, 1927. U. S. Thompson, “Florence Mills,” in Cunard, Negro: An Anthology. Also, Watson, p. 117.
161 A month before: Rampersad, p. 154.
161 “a Fannie Hurst marriage”: The New York Times, May 4, 1920. Quoted in Brooke Kroeger, Fannie, pp. 63–64.
161 “Zora didn’t seem to fit”: Author interview with John Henrik Clarke, May 28, 1997.
161 “a way out”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 205.
161 “I am going to divorce Herbert”: ZNH to Hughes, March 8, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
161 “he is old”: ZNH to Hughes, December 9, 1927. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
162 “I lonely for my folks”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 168.
162 “Polk County Blues”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 60.
162 “I want to collect”: ZNH to Hughes, April 12, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
162 On February 29, 1928: Barnard College transcript, Barnard Archives.
163 “Negro women are punished”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 60.
163 “Fan-foot, what you doing”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, pp. 149–50.
163 “This worried me”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 60.
163 “The Negro”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 2.
164 At five feet four inches tall: Height and weight information taken from Hurston’s driver’s license. ZNH Collection, University of Florida.
164 “Oh, Ah ain’t got”: ZNH, Mules and Men, pp. 63–64.
165 “I not only collected”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 65.
165 “I have not written a line”: ZNH to Hughes, March 8, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
165 “I can really write”: ZNH to Hughes, April 12, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
165 “I am getting inside”: ZNH to Hughes, March 8, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
166 “A Negro goes abroad”: ZNH to Hughes, April 12, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
166 “and lay me by the heels”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 144.
166 “An interpretation of”: Rampersad, p. 140.
166 “they got the point”: ZNH to Hughes, March 8, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
166 “You are being quoted”: ZNH to Hughes, July 10, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
167 He urged Zora: Locke to ZNH, February 24, 1928. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
167 “I have come to 5 general laws”: ZNH to Hughes, April 12, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
168 “Did I tell you”: Ibid.
168 “I know it is going”: ZNH to Hughes, May 6, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
168 “Godmother asked me”: ZNH to Hughes, March 8, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
168 “I believe I have”: Ibid.
168 “proved to be”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 157.
168 Zora rapidly “dug in”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 152.
169 “Tain’t a man”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 154.
169 “uh whole woman”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 152.
169 “Dat Cracker Quarters Boss”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 154.
169 “Big Sweet helped me”: Ibid.
169 “I aims to look out”: Ibid.
170 “I didn’t move”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 179.
170 “It seemed that anybody”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 156.
170 “Curses, oaths, cries”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 179.
170 “When the sun came up”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 156.
171 though she had collected: In a recently discovered, previously unpublished manuscript called “Negro Folktales from the Gulf States,” Hurston recorded her time spent in Polk County and nearby places (including Eatonville) as January 15 to June 2, 1928. See ZNH, Every Tongue Got to Confess: Negro Folk-tales from the Gulf States (New York: HarperCollins, 2001), pp. 257–58.
171 “I shivered at the thought”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 154.
171 “I am getting much more”: ZNH to Hughes, July 10, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
172 “as tender as”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 145.
172 “Her tongue was a knout”: Ibid.
172 Zora judged: ZNH to Alain Locke, May 10, 1928. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
172 “white people could not be trusted”: ZNH to Alain Locke, June 14, 1928. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
172 “I am colored”: ZNH, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me,” The World Tomorrow, May 1928.
173 While painting a mural in Harlem: Lewis, p. 152.
173 “in things that have”: Charlotte Mason, as quoted by ZNH in Dust Tracks, p. 144.
174 “the greatest cultural wealth”: ZNH to Thomas E. Jones, October 12, 1934, Fisk Archives. Also ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 145.
174 “two men came over”: ZNH to Hughes, July 10, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
175 “I have landed here”: ZNH to Hughes, August 6, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
175 Marie Leveau was: The conjure queen’s last name is sometimes spelled Laveau. For a fascinating fictionalized account of Leveau’s life, see Jewell Parker Rhodes’s novel, Voodoo Dreams (New York: Picador USA, 1995).
175 Conjure’s roots are distinctly African: This is an enormously simplified summary of a tremendously complex subject. For further reading, a suggested beginning is Robert Farris Thompson’s Flash of the Spirit: African and Afro-American Art and Philosophy (New York: Random House, 1984). Also, in New Orleans, conjure’s U.S. stronghold, most contemporary practitioners refer to their spirituality as Vodou, to link it with its African roots. In Hurston’s time, however, the conjure tradition in the black South was most often called hoodoo, so that is the term most frequently used in this discussion.
176 “thousands of secret adherents”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 183.
176 “The way we tell it”: Ibid.
176 Folks consulted root workers: All of the prescriptions listed are taken from Hurston’s Mules and Men and “Hoodoo in America,” Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 44, no. 174, October–December 1931.
177 “It makes me sick”: ZNH to Hughes, September 20, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
177 “It is not the accepted theology”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 185.
178 “The preparation period”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 198.
178 “I know 18 tasks”: ZNH to Hughes, September 20, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
178 “in the lap of”: ZNH to Hughes, October 15, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
178 “Some things must be done”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 220.
179 “unearthly terror”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 221.
179 “hard work”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 220.
179 “the Frizzly Rooster”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 213. Hurston identified the Frizzly Rooster as Father George Simms in “Hoodoo in America,” an article she published in the Journal of American Folk-Lore (vol. 44, no. 174, October–December 1931). In fact, she used different names for each of the hoodoo doctors she studied with in the “Hoodoo in America” article, probably to conceal their identities from other folklore collectors until she could publish her research in book form. In an attempt to determine which set of names is authentic, I found that the 1928 New Orleans city directory had listings for each of the names Hurston used in her Mules and Men account, but not for all the names used in the “Hoodoo in America” article. Therefore, I have chosen to consistently use the names given in Mules and Men.
179 “Before my first interview”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 214.
179 “Boss of Candles”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 216.
179 “I am getting on”: ZNH to Hughes, November 22, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
179 “lots of thrilling”: ZNH to Hughes, October 15, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
180 Kitty Brown: Kitty Brown is called Ruth Mason in ZNH, “Hoodoo in America,” Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 44, no. 174, October–December 1931.
180 “Some of the postures”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 242.
180 “the vacuum method”: ZNH to Alain Locke, October 15, 1928. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
180 Luke Turner: Hurston called this particular hoodoo doctor Luke Turner in Mules and Men. But in “Hoodoo in America,” she called him Samuel Thompson. It’s probable that Turner was his real name, but that Hurston used Thompson in the 1931 article to conceal his identity until she could publish her research in book form.
181 “I could see”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 192.
181 “We sat there silently”: ZNH, “Hoodoo in America,” Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 44, no. 174, October–December 1931, p. 358.
181 “I must have clean thoughts”: Ibid.
181 “On the second day”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 156.
182 “with no feeling of hunger”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 199.
182 “A pair of eyes”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 200.
182 “He wanted me to stay”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 205.
182 “That is why”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 185.
182 “That man in the gutter”: ZNH to Hughes, November 22, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
183 “The experience that I had”: ZNH to Boas, December 27, 1928. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society. Copies also in Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
183 Margaret Mead’s book: Douglas, p. 50.
183 “This is confidential”: ZNH to Boas, December 27, 1928. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
183 “Yes, I WILL conjure”: ZNH to Hughes, November 22, 1928. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
183 “stating that she would stand by me”: ZNH, Mules and Men, p. 226.
184 “She trusts her three children”: ZNH to Locke, December 16, 1928. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
184 “I am sitting down to sum up”: ZNH to Hughes, April 3, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
185 “I have more than 95,000 words”: ZNH to Boas, April 21, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
185 “Really I think our material”: ZNH to Hughes, April 30, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
185 “The trouble with Locke”: ZNH to Hughes, undated 1929 letter. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
185 “I shall now set it aside”: ZNH to Hughes, May 31, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
186 She wanted to buy: Ibid.
186 “I am getting on fine now”: ZNH to Hughes, August 17, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
186 “little depressed spiritually”: ZNH postcard to Hughes, postmarked September 9, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
187 “Without giving Godmother”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 157. Also, ZNH to Hughes, October 15, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
187 “You do anything”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 158.
187 “It was horrible”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 159.
187 Growing hungry: “The Seventh Child: Zora Neale Hurston Success as Author and Scientist,” New York Amsterdam News, April 6, 1935.
187 “I saw dead people”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 159.
188 “I had only my return ticket”: ZNH to Hughes, October 15, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
188 “Well, honey”: Ibid.
188 “You know I depend”: ZNH to Hughes, May 31, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
188 “Can you not take them”: ZNH to Hughes, October 15, 1929. Also, ZNH to Hughes, undated letter. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
189 “You are my mainstay”: Ibid.
189 “mental characteristics”: Boas to ZNH, May 17, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
189 “The old songs are”: ZNH to Boas, October 20, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
190 “I find that I am restrained”: ZNH to Boas, October 22, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
190 “I am in a trying situation”: ZNH to Boas, undated, but clearly from October 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
190 “Miss Hurston strikes me”: Otto Klineberg to Franz Boas, November 18, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
191 “Please be sure”: Boas to Klineberg, November 25, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
191 “She continues to be”: Klineberg to Boas, November 29, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
191 “Dr. Klineberg is very fine”: ZNH to Boas, December 10, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
191 “all the miraculous tales”: ZNH to Hughes, undated 1929 letter. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
191 “I want to make this conjure work”: ZNH to Boas, December 10, 1929. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
191 “I am simply wasting away”: ZNH to Hughes, undated letter from late 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
192 “A poet should turn out”: Ibid.
192 Despite his own troubles: Hughes’s handwritten note on back of Hurston’s undated 1929 letter about the car. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
192 “Well, I tell you, Langston”: ZNH to Hughes, December 10, 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
192 “with my tongue hanging out”: Ibid.
193 “People were sleeping in subways”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 319.
193 “Some of my friends”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 31, 1930. Schomburg Center.
193 “over capon”: Hurston, Dust Tracks, p. 145.
193 Hurston’s footage: Author’s notes from ZNH’s footage, which is housed in the Margaret Mead Collection at the Library of Congress.
194 “I am stuffed”: ZNH to Hughes, undated letter from late 1929. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
194 “She used to talk about Zora”: Thompson, quoted in Rampersad, p. 182.
194 “Poor Wallie!”: ZNH to Hughes, undated 1929 letter, Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
194 “I am urged”: ZNH to Boas, April 16, 1930. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
194 “I thought it would cheer you”: Locke to ZNH, April 28, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
195 “It has been very hard”: ZNH to Franz Boas, June 8, 1930. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
195 “You are God’s flower”: ZNH to Godmother, May 18, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
195 Godmother sent an excessively exotic dress: Louise Thompson recalled this story in Hemenway, p. 139.
196 “I really should not extend”: ZNH to Godmother, May 18, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
196 “Make it clear to her”: Boas to Hurston, June 13, 1930. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
196 “I have broached the subject”: ZNH to Boas, June 8, 1930. Franz Boas Papers, American Philosophical Society.
198 Why didn’t someone: Hughes to Carl Van Vechten, January 16, 1931. Carl Van Vechten Papers, Yale. Also Hughes to Arthur Spingarn, January 21, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
198 Hughes had begun looking: Rampersad, pp. 175–76.
199 “The assault and the gobbler”: ZNH, “The Bone of Contention,” undated. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University. This story was not published until 1991 in Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life, edited with introductions by George Houston Bass and Henry Louis Gates Jr. (New York: HarperPerennial).
199 “The elders neglected”: ZNH, “The Bone of Contention.” Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
199 “It was the regular thing”: Charlotte Mason’s notes, headed “Zora-L.H.” January 29, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
199 Hughes later would claim: Hughes to Van Vechten, January 16, 1931. Carl Van Vechten Papers, Yale. Also Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 320.
200 “Hurston’s contribution was”: Rampersad, p. 184.
200 “the dandy job”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 31, 1930, Schomburg Center. Also, “Zora’s Account for May, 1930,” Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
200 “a very gay and lively girl”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 320.
200 “All of them cried to me”: ZNH to Lawrence Jordan, May 31, 1930, Schomburg Center.
201 “Now Langston, nobody”: ZNH to Hughes, January 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
201 “lost its meaning”: Hughes to ZNH, January 20, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
201 “already overpaid”: Charlotte Mason’s handwritten notes, headed “Zora-L.H.” January 29, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University. Hughes wrote two conflicting accounts of the Mule Bone dispute—one to his lawyer at the time, another nine years later in his autobiography, The Big Sea. Hurston apparently never wrote a comprehensive account of the Mule Bone episode, but her letters to Hughes at the time outline her perspective. She also told her side of the story to Mason in early 1931, and Godmother recorded Hurston’s account—cited here—for her personal files.
202 “I felt that I was among strangers”: ZNH to Hughes, January 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
202 “Off at last”: ZNH to Hughes, postmarked August 11, 1930. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
202 “it would be a grand play”: Hughes to Van Vechten, January 16, 1931. Hurston Papers, Yale.
202 “the play was hers”: Charlotte Mason’s handwritten notes, headed “Zora-L.H.” January 29, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
203 In early June, an indignant Mason: Mason to Hughes, June 6, 1930, Langston Hughes Papers, Yale. Quoted in Rampersad, p. 186.
203 “I ask you to help”: Hughes to Mason, draft, August 15, 1930. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale. Also quoted in Rampersad, p. 188.
203 “You can help me”: Hughes to Mason, draft, undated. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale. Quoted in Rampersad, p. 187.
203 “a short but excruciating” session: Louise Thompson, quoted in Rampersad, p. 192.
203 “Darling Godmother”: ZNH to Mason, September 24, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
204 “Dance Songs and Tales from the Bahamas”: ZNH, in Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 43, July–September 1930.
204 “I thought her behavior strange”: Hughes to Arthur Spingarn, January 21, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
205 “a very heavy blow”: Arna Bontemps interview, December 18, 1970. REH Files.
205 “I am helping myself forget”: Charlotte Mason to Alain Locke, August 8, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
205 “With the present economic situation”: Hurston’s November 1930 expense sheets, Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
205 “I am beginning to feel”: ZNH to Mason, November 11, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
206 “to hold my spiritual forces together”: ZNH to Mason, November 25, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
206 “You see, Darling Godmother”: Ibid.
206 In her notes on “Zora’s play”: Charlotte Mason’s notes, “Zora’s Play,” November 8, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
206 “Langston and I started out”: ZNH, as quoted by Van Vechten in a January 19, 1931, letter to Hughes. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
206 a monthly stipend of $150: Mason’s notes headed “Zora,” December 21, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
206 “You have given me”: ZNH to Mason, undated. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
207 “That hurt”: ZNH to Mason, January 12, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
207 “I said you had no right”: Mason’s notes, draft of letter to ZNH, headed “Zora,” January 15, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
207 “Is there something”: Hughes to Van Vechten, January 16, 1931. Hurston Papers, Yale.
207 “I sense a good deal”: ZNH to Hughes, undated. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
208 “Now, get this straight”: ZNH to Hughes, undated. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
208 “I didn’t intend to be evasive”: ZNH to Hughes, January 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
209 “grand tangle”: Hughes to Van Vechten, January 18, 1931. Hurston Papers, Yale.
209 Acting in his capacity: Van Vechten to Hughes, January 21, 1931. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
209 “Zora came to see me”: Van Vechten to Hughes, January 20, 1931. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
209 “I don’t think”: ZNH to Hughes, January 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
209 Infuriated by Hurston’s claim: Arthur Spingarn was the brother of longtime NAACP officer Joel Spingarn, whose wife, Amy, had financed Hughes’s education at Lincoln University.
209 “as a permanent agreement”: Hughes to Arthur Spingarn, January 21, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
209 “I am convinced that”: Van Vechten to Hughes, January 21, 1931. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
210 “to set up the claim”: ZNH to Godmother, January 20, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
210 “wrassled with me”: ZNH to Eslanda Robeson, April 18, 1934, quoted in Duberman, p. 170.
211 “Let’s not be niggers”: Hughes to ZNH, January 19, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
211 “pathetic letter”: ZNH to Mason, January 20, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
211 “not one word”: Telegrams, as typed by Hughes and sent to Spingarn. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
212 “I suppose that both of us”: ZNH to Hughes, January 20, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
212 Calling Zora’s jealousy: Hughes to ZNH, January 20, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
212 “Miss Hurston insists”: Spingarn to Hughes, January 24, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
212 “If you feel”: Hughes to ZNH, January 22, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
213 This second copyright: Hurston had secured a copyright for a revised version of Mule Bone on October 29, 1930, under the name De Turkey and De La w, according to the records of the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress. At the same time, she secured a copyright for Cold Keener, A Revue, which incorporated the filling station skit and other bits she’d written for the proposed folk opera with Hughes. In addition, see ZNH to Mason, August 14, 1931, and Spingarn to Hughes, January 28, 1931. Both in Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
213 “glad things seem”: Hughes to ZNH, January 22, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
213 The same day: Spingarn to Hughes, January 27, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
213 “Congratulations”: Locke as quoted by Hughes to Spingarn, January 30, 1931, Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
213 “Zo darling”: Hughes to ZNH, January 27, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
214 “The only thing”: Thompson to Hughes, January 28, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
214 “stupidly untruthful”: Hughes to Spingarn, January 30, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
214 “to straighten out”: Hughes to Spingarn, February 3, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
215 In a most unflattering portrayal: Hughes to Van Vechten, February 4, 1931. Hurston Papers, Yale.
215 “I had to get up”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 333.
215 “smashed them all”: ZNH to Mason, February 3, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
215 “fresh and amusing”: Van Vechten to Hughes, January 19, 1931. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
215 “The whole thing”: Hughes to Thompson, February 7, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
215 “had the astounding nerve”: Ibid.
216 “In view of the fact”: ZNH to Hughes, February 14, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
216 “there was no possible chance”: Spingarn to Hughes, March 5, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
216 “just as well”: Hughes to Spingarn, March 6, 1931, and March 15, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
216 Mule Bone would remain: Mule Bone was finally produced in 1991 at New York’s Lincoln Center.
216 Though he never publicly admitted: ZNH to Mason, May 17, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University. Hurston wrote: “I have a most ungracious letter from Langston in which he renounces his claim upon the play.”
216 “I gave up to Zora”: Hughes to Van Vechten, March 5, 1934, quoted in Bernard, p. 121.
216 “the cross of her life”: Bontemps to Hughes, November 24, 1939. Arna Bontemps–Langston Hughes Letters, 1925–1967, edited by Charles H. Nichols (New York: Paragon House, 1990), p. 44.
218 their “art was broken”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 334.
218 “liked to laugh together”: John Henrik Clarke, in an interview with the author, May 28, 1997. Clarke’s assessment is confirmed by several letters from 1931 and 1932 in which Hurston tells Mason she has heard from Hughes. On January 21, 1932, for instance, she mentioned that Hughes had written her from Jacksonville, FL, where he’d been hosted “magnificently” by Hurston’s brother and sister-in-law. This letter, and others mentioning Hurston’s post-Mule Bone contact with Hughes, are in the Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
218 unemployment in Harlem: Lewis, p. 240.
218 “I hear almost no news”: Locke to Mason, March 29, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
218 “I know that Langston says”: ZNH to Mason, April 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
219 “That spring for me”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 334.
219 In an erratically spelled rant: Wallace Thurman to Langston Hughes, undated, Langston Hughes Papers, Yale University.
219 Paying no mind: Bundles, pp. 290–91.
220 “they swung it slightly”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 246.
220 “brought everybody down”: Hughes, The Big Sea, p. 247.
220 Even tough-minded black critic: Sterling Brown, quoted in Lewis, p. 246.
220 “The Negro’s idea of heaven”: ZNH, “You Don’t Know Us Negroes,” an unpublished article written in 1934. Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
220 “duplicate the success”: Van Vechten to Hughes, January 20, 1931. Langston Hughes Papers, Yale.
221 Knopf editor Harry Block: ZNH to Mason, March 10, 1931, April 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
221 “tearing up 66th Street”: ZNH to Mason, June 4, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
221 Early on the morning of: ZNH, “Fannie Hurst By Her Ex-Amanuensis,” Saturday Review, October 9, 1937.
221 “one of her bizarre frocks”: Fannie Hurst, “Zora Hurston: A Personality Sketch,” Library Gazette, Yale University, no. 35, 1961.
222 “Zora’s attitude”: Ibid.
222 “so we pointed the nose”: ZNH, “Fannie Hurst By Her Ex-Amanuensis,” Saturday Review, October 9, 1937. Also, Kroeger, p. 167.
222 Zora dropped Fannie off: For further details of the Zora-Fannie trip, see Kroeger, pp. 166–69.
223 “I don’t see”: ZNH to Mason, June 4, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
223 “sun-burnt child”: Hurston used this term to describe herself, in ZNH to Mason, November 25, 1930. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
223 Received June 23: ZNH expense sheets, June 1931 and July 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
223 “Under any other circumstances”: ZNH, “My Most Humiliating Jim Crow Experience,” Negro Digest, June 1944.
224 she secured copyrights: Library of Congress Copyright Deposit Collections. Plays are registered as unpublished dramas in the Manuscript Division.
224 “I do not consider”: ZNH to Mason, July 23, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
224 “I hear that my husband”: Ibid. The divorce decree was issued July 7, 1931, County Court Records, St. Louis County, MO.
224 “she was a little too accommodating”: Herbert Sheen interview, REH Files.
224 “Marriage and social laws”: ZNH to Herbert Sheen, March 13, 1953, May 7, 1953. REH Files.
225 “God knows you are”: Mason to ZNH, July 28, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
225 “stupid and trite”: ZNH to Mason, September 25, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
225 “mediocre entertainment”: Richard Lockridge, “Negro Revue Offered,” New York Sun, September 16, 1931.
225 “It is fast, furious and rather tiresome”: J. Brooks Atkinson, “Harlem Fandango,” The New York Times, September 16, 1931.
225 Even talented actors: John Mason Brown, “‘Fast and Furious,’ a Colored Review in Thirty-seven Scenes, Is Put On at the New Yorker,” New York Evening Post, September 16, 1931.
225 “squeezed all the Negro-ness”: ZNH to Mason, September 25, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
226 “the most stolen-from Negro”: ZNH to Mason, September 25, 1931, and October 15, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
226 “I firmly believe”: ZNH to Mason, September 25, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
226 “Outside of getting”: Ibid.
227 “The Negro material”: ZNH to Thomas Jones, October 12, 1934. Fisk University; copy in Hurston Papers at Tulane. Also ZNH in application for Julius Rosenwald Foundation fellowship, December 14, 1934. Rosenwald Fund Papers, Fisk University.
227 “Sitting around”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 280.
227 “the world was not ready”: ZNH to Thomas Jones, October 12, 1934. Fisk University; copy in Hurston Papers at Tulane.
227 “a determined effort”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 280.
228 An unfortunate incident in the studio: ZNH to Thomas Jones, October 12, 1934. Fisk University; copy in Hurston Papers at Tulane. Also, ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 282.
228 “a fine black girl”: ZNH to Mason, October 15, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
228 Zora did not have “any hang-ups”: Richard Bruce Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files. Also Nugent quoted in Watson, p. 88.
228 “a complexion as charming”: 1930s-era newspaper ad from the Baltimore Afro-American, reproduced in Avonie Brown and Laura Lieberson, “Black or White,” an article available online at www.afro.com.
228 “No mulattoes at all”: ZNH to Mason, October 15, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
228 “no diluted ones”: Mason to ZNH, draft, October 18, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
228 “never known the common run”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 282.
229 Zora was too busy: ZNH to Mason, September 25, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
229 “café au lait-learned”: Kroeger, p. 212.
229 “I am on the brink”: ZNH to Mason, December 16, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
229 “with high hopes”: ZNH to Mason, December 21, 1931. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
230 “The dances have not been influenced”: Advertisement for The Great Day, Hurston Papers, Yale University.
230 Zora had “given her word”: Mason to Locke, notes for conversation, January 10, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University. Also theater critic Arthur Ruhl, reporting on the show and the last-minute removal of the conjure ritual in “Second Nights,” New York Herald Tribune, January 17, 1932.
230 “From the lifting of the curtain”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 283.
230 “intimate living”: The Great Day, program notes by Alain Locke, reprinted in Lynda Marion Hill, Social Rituals and the Verbal Art of Zora Neale Hurston (Washington, D.C.: Howard University Press, 1996).
230 “Cap’n got a pistol”: The Great Day, program notes. Hurston sings this song, which is also sometimes called “Shove It Over,” in a WPA recording session in Jacksonville, FL, in June 1939. Recording available at the Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Song. Transcription by author.
231 “You may leave”: Hurston also had a character sing some of the lyrics of this song in her 1926 short story “Muttsy.” Also, Hurston sings it on WPA recording, June 1939. Library of Congress, Archive of Folk Song. This song, as recorded by Hurston, has been reproduced on the accompanying CD for The Norton Anthology of African American Literature.
231 Part of the cast sang “Deep River”: Hemenway, p. 180, based on interviews with performers and audience members.
231 “simply one of the crowd”: Arthur Ruhl, “Second Nights,” New York Herald Tribune, January 17, 1932.
231 “I really came”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 284.
231 In March 1933: Comparison of Hurston’s program notes with a program from Run, Little Chillun, staged at the Lyric Theatre. Also, see ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 284.
231 “The evening was altogether successful”: Arthur Ruhl, “Second Nights,” New York Herald Tribune, January 17, 1932.
231 “no feeling of glory”: ZNH to Mason, January 14, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
232 Hurston now owed Godmother: “Box Office Statement,” John Golden Theatre, January 10, 1932. Also, Economic History Resources “How Much Is That?” Online Calculator.
232 “I know it is yours”: ZNH to Mason, January 14, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
232 “trading on Godmother’s big heart”: Mason to ZNH, notes, January 17, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
232 Mason drafted a legally binding letter: Mason to ZNH, January 20, 1932, typed legal agreement. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
233 Hurston immediately began plotting: Hurston likely changed the production’s name to avoid confusion with Great Day, an unsuccessful blackface musical from 1929.
233 “Your black gal”: ZNH to Mason, March 19, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
233 The Fiery Chariot: The program notes for From Sun to Sun make it clear that The Fiery Chariot premiered at the New School concert—not in a later concert at Rollins College, as reported in previous accounts of Hurston’s theatrical career.
233 “It was good”: ZNH, Dust Tracks, p. 284.
233 Locke fomented the old lady’s resentment: Mason to ZNH, draft, April 8, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
234 “patronizingly fond”: Richard Bruce Nugent interview, May 1971. REH Files.
234 “I understand that both you and Alain”: ZNH to Mason, April 4, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
234 “You do not seem to realize”: Mason to ZNH, draft, April 8, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
235 “I know that my bills”: ZNH to Mason, April 27, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
235 “I look very beautiful”: ZNH to Cornelia Chapin, February 29, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.
235 “Somehow a great weight”: ZNH to Mason, April 27, 1932. Alain Locke Papers, Howard University.