Zora Neale Hurston: The American Voice

Change Through Color The people that contribute to the American voice are the ones who aren’t afraid of who they are and express themselves as well as create a new identity for themselves and others. The American voice is a unique collection of authors that created a new idea of what it means to be an American. Zora Neale Hurston contributes to the American voice by using her experiences growing up to influence her novels as well as the fact that she helped pave the way for black people everywhere as she was one of the most unparalleled women during the Harlem Renaissance and is still notorious to this day. Hurston’s life growing up helps her contribute to the American voice by influencing her writing to be very personal and to reflect real things that happened that affected her personally. Hurston grew up in Eatonville Florida and it was “her unique subject, and she was encouraged to make it her source of art” (Hurston 1). Eatonville was the first all-black city in America that gave blacks pride in being who they really are. Zora uses her experiences in this

She has impacted a number of people through her unique and personal stories and continues to do so to this day. Alice Walker, another African American living around Hurson’s time was immensely impacted by her work. To Walker, “There is no book more important to [her] than this one” (Hurston 4) as she talks about Hurston’s Their Eyes were Watching God. Alice Walker is a novelist as well and was profoundly impacted by Hurston’s book. Being colored, she related to Hurston’s personal stories of growing up in a black community and related to the novel on a deeper level. This shows how much of an impact Hurston has had not only on regular people but on other writers. “She became the most published black female author in her time” (Hurston 1) is another example of how colossal her significance on the world