Past TRR Issue
Imagine a time during the late second decade of the twentieth century, you hear and see afar signs of the times…a calm before the storm of the great depression, black families not too far removed from the inglorious days slavery, indentured servitude under the guise of sharecropping, and systemized racism defining itself as the forerunner to Jim Crow. It’s 1928, you remember yourself to Harlem and a solitary figure stand out among the rest – a vexing vociferous woman, resounding and regal. You see her inhaling, absorbing the place building a renaissance of her won, dipping her pen into the ways of black folk. You immediately recognize and think of a colorful enigma, brazenly impious of the Harlem literary avant-garde, and by her admission, someone who has “been in sorrow’s kitchen and licked out all the pots. Wrapped in rainbows if you will, with a harp and a sward in her hands battling the naysayers and carving a niche that is the reason for this expose. You can see her too, because in so many ways both uplifting and confounding she still lives in the lining of our present-day souls. You see Zora Neale Hurston, the legend.
How hard would it be for you not to be enamored with, and admired by the spunk and vivacity that defined this author? Her opinionated and left wing like views on race gave you all you needed to know about a woman creating an island onto herself…and thrived! You’ve seen many references to the quips, quotes, and anecdotes that is associated with various pieces that she wrote, and you may be awed anew when acquiescing “How It Feels To Be Colored Me”, and you embraced her more when she defiantly claimed therein
After reading that, there’s no doubt in your mind that there was more to this woman! You’re thirsty now and feel that if there is a disconnect between the legend and her legacy, it might be temporary because you see right through the façade and biases that have rendered her tragic in the minds of many – because too, you know how white America have always portrayed African-Americans. Temporary again, for culturally speaking in the sense that it can take a generation or two for the future to fully appreciate the past and all of its idiosyncrasies. It’s a relationship not easily defined partly because so much time has passed. But to begin to understand and be appreciative of this literary icon, you first must understand that Zora’s life was much more triumphant than tragic based on her being the recipient of two Guggenheim awards, four novels, a dozen short stories, numerous articles and essays, two musicals, two books on black mythology, and a prize winning autobiography.
You now know why Zora took a back seat to no one. She spoke her mind and wrote like hell! You are mesmerized and aware that time is full circle and give nice pedestals to ancestors that defied status quo. Beaming with pride, the driving force that drove Zora gives you the entire wherewithal needed to revel in the phenomena of us writing books for and about you and us realize that Zora would live on not just in books, but economically. From all that you’ve read, and have researched, you got to know her better…knowing out of will and desire that she pieced together what cannot be taken from her no matter how history looks at her. She played the cards that was dealt her, and trumped. She’s not a myth, nor a figmentation of anyone’s imagination that strive for the real deal. She was about truth – a truth about time and place fair enough, funny enough, unbitter enough, and glad enough to have produced a woman black and truly free. You’d want to share her and her gloried experience but you explicably snatch her back, and hold her ever so close and declare, “Zora is ours!” “Forever”.
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This being the year that she would’ve turned 112, you will witness a slew of books, memoirs, and a festival in her native Florida celebrating its thirteenth year commemorating her memory 
You further attest to her genius, and can prove it by Valerie Boyd and Carla Kaplan. The former has written what may supplant in time Robert Hemmenways’ version of the definitive Hurston biography. The latter, chose a different tact to enhance Zora’s legacy by editing a captivating anthology of missives revealing the complexities and contradictions that make Zora the legend she has become. In this installment, you’ll get a chance to read reviews on both of the aforementioned, plus view