African Americans on Postage Stamps

Zora Neale Hurston

Writer, Folklorist, and Anthropologist

37-cent Zora Neale Hurston stamp
The Zora Neale Hurston stamp was issued on January 24, 2003.

American writer, folklorist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was one of America’s most original and accomplished writers and a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and early 1930s. She studied African-American heritage at a time when African-American culture was not a popular field of study. Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, but moved to Eatonville, Florida, at an early age. Eatonville was the first incorporated all-black town in the United States and the location that influenced the folklore and fiction that Hurston later wrote. As a fiction writer, Hurston is noted for her metaphorical language, her story-telling, and her interest in and celebration of Southern, African-American culture in the United States. Her best known novel is Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937). In the 1970s, a new generation of African-American writers, most notably Alice Walker, rediscovered and republished many of Hurston’s writings.

The Black Experience