Probably born in 1901, Zora Neale Hurston was raised in Florida. She moved to New York in 1925, becoming one of the foremost writers during the Harlem Renaissance, the creative outpouring of works by black artists, thinkers, and musicians of the 1920s. In 1927 Hurston took the first of many trips from Harlem, New York, to the South, where her experiences would inspire her to write an assortment of novels, plays, short stories, essays, and collections of folklore over the next twenty years. Midway through this period, she completed her third novel, the partly autobiographical story for which she is best remembered-Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Race colonies. During the late nineteenth century, ex-slaves occasionally established all-black towns and villages. Sometimes referred to as "race colonies," these communities varied greatly in size and importance. The heaviest concentration of race colonies appeared in the Midwest and the South in rural areas on very poor land. They founded their own schools, churches, and local governments.
The all-black town of Eatonville, Florida, where the novel's main character, Janie, and her second husband live, was established in the tradition of such race colonies.
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