Member Review

This is the first time that nearly all of Zora Neale Hurston’s work has been collected together and is a great introduction to those like myself who were unaware of her importance within black cultural circles of the time. However, there are some parts of the manuscripts that are missing as they were lost when ‘staff at the nursing home in which she died began burning her belongings’. She wrote during the 30’s ,40’s and up to the ‘50’s and was a playwright, novelist and journalist. Zora was also a mover and shaker and worked with several significant figures in such as the poet Langston Hughes.
The collection covers 35 years of her work and contains, essays, criticisms and articles and the odd strange piece such as ‘Noses.’ She covers many themes: politics, racism, gender and the emerging Civil Rights Movement amongst others in a strong, clear voice. Zora was not afraid to speak her mind even if it went against the prevailing view. For example, when the desegregation of schools was being applauded, she merely said, ‘“How much satisfaction can I get from a court order for somebody to associate with me who does not wish me near them?” In the introduction to the book, her editors say that she felt strongly that integrated education wasn’t always good for black people.
One of the pieces that really stood out for me was ‘The Last Slave Ship’ in which she interviewed a 95 year old man in 1935 who had come into the USA on the last slave ship, in a cargo of ‘black ivory’ as it was described, the Cothilda. It was a piece of oral history as he described how he was captured, the destruction of his village in Africa, the his journey to the US and his life afterwards. I think what impressed me the most was that he was the last living member of his people, the Takkoi, as everyone else in the tribe had died. How must he have felt?
Hurston’s work also comments on the emergence of jazz and blues as a way of articulating the black experience and I wonder what she would make of the creativity and exuberance of rap and hip-hop, two of the most dominant forces in music today.
Another impressive essay was ‘I have seen Negro votes being peddled’ in which black votes were being bought off quite blatantly with gifts such as sheets and towels. She also saw the black person as ‘victim’ label as another and more insidious form of racism. In addition, she criticises colleges for black people that don’t educate anyone and always have the begging bowl out. In ‘My most humiliating Jim Crow Experience’ she recounts visiting a doctor and is examined in which appears to be a side room where they throw their unwashed laundry. She sails out saying airily that she will send a cheque but knows very well that she won’t.
The editors, Henry Louis Gates Jr and Genevieve West have done a sterling job. They also wrote the excellent introduction. But the latter half of the book is concerned with a notorious murder case in 1952. It was the Ruby McCollum case in Little Oak, Florida. A decade earlier a 15 year old black youth had been lynched in Little Oak for sending Christmas cards to co-workers including a white girl. Ruby was an affluent married African American woman who had shot a prominent white doctor and senator 4 times in the back. It was an all white, all male jury as black people were disenfranchised and so could not serve on juries. There was probably a KKK member in the audience as well. Rose and the doctor had been having an affair for years and he had fathered one of her children and she was pregnant again. Sam, her husband, was involved in illegal gambling and died of a heart attack the day after she was arrested. It was expected to be an open and shut case as Ruby was bound for the electric chair. A defence witness was not allowed to speak and Ruby was also denied her chance. Zora’s mounting horror at Judge Adams denying Ruby her chance to speak is shocking. It’s a disturbing read as the murder was assumed to be about a medical bill of $116 which would not have been a problem to someone like Ruby but other facts have come to light since. Zora sensed this in her reports especially from anonymous comments from the local black community who spoke to her. Ruby ended up in the state hospital until she was released in 1974 and died in 1992 still stating that she couldn’t remember the shooting at all.

However, like another reviewer I would have liked dates and publications details beside each entry instead of having to go through the admittedly comprehensive end notes.

This was a great opportunity to discover an author who was new to me with a powerful and authentic voice and not afraid to use it.
My thanks to the publisher and Netgalley for an ARC.