Trudell is a freelance writer with a bachelor's degree in English literature. In the following essay, Trudell examines the place of "Sweat" within the political climate of theHarlem Renaissance.

"Sweat" is an intriguing story in terms of what it is "supposed" to be about, especially in its treatment of racial issues. The key piece of a magazine eager to defy the Harlem Renaissance artistic agenda, the story would have been expected to exercise its artistic freedom and break the taboos of leaders such as W. E. B. Du Bois. Hurston had certainly grown irritated with the pressure from Du Bois and Alain Locke, her former mentor, to write with politics in mind. As she later wrote in Dust Tracks on a Road, "from what I had read and heard, Negroes were supposed to write about the Race Problem. I was and am thoroughly sick of the subject...