Zora Neale Hurston was born January 7, 1903, in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida. She was the daughter of John and Lucy Hurston. Her father worked as a preacher and a carpenter and also served as Eatonville's mayor. Her mother, a seam stress, was a powerful and positive influence in Hurston's life, encouraging her daughter to "jump at de sun." She died when Hurston was nine, her father quickly remarried, and Hurston was sent to boarding school. While still a child, Hurston worked at many odd jobs. A white employer eventually arranged for her to attend high school at Morgan Preparatory School in Baltimore, Maryland, where she graduated in 1918. Biographer Robert E. Hemenway writes that "the sources of the Hurston self-confidence were her home town, her family, and the self-sufficiency demanded of her after she left home for the world."

Hurston went on to Howard University, publishing...