Throughout her life, Zora developed a peer network consisting of several notable figures within the realms of academia, literature, anthropology, and the arts. This interactive peer map helps visualize the connections Zora had to more than 30 of her contemporaries, as well as the overlapping connections they shared with one another. Click the dot next to each name to see who knew who!
Langston Hughes (1901-1967) was a central figure in the Harlem Renaissance, the flowering of black intellectual, literary, and artistic life that took place in the 1920s in a number of American cities, particularly Harlem. A major poet, Hughes also wrote novels, short stories, essays, and plays. He sought to honestly portray the joys and hardships of working-class black lives, avoiding both sentimental idealization and negative stereotypes. - The Poetry Foundation
Hurston met Hughes in New York City during the Harlem Renaissance, and the two would become close friends and collaborators on the literary magazine Fire!!. Both received financial support from Charlotte Osgood Mason, a white literary patron. However, their friendship would become strained and eventually fall apart, when in 1930, they would make a failed attempt at collaborating on Mule Bone: A Comedy of Negro Life, a play based on Hurston’s anthropological field work in the South.
Countee Cullen (1903-1946) was a novelist, children's writer, and playwright, as well as one of the leading poets of the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston and Cullen befriended each other whilst Hurston was living in Harlem during the Harlem Renaissance. In 1943, she would pen a letter to Cullen that shared her views on segregation, which differed from the liberal viewpoints of her peers: "Now, as to segregation, I have no viewpoint on the subject particularly, other than a fierce desire for human justice. The rest of it is up to the individual. Personally, I have no desire for white association except where I am sought and the pleasure is mutual. That feeling grows out of my own self-respect. However blue the eye or yellow the hair, I see no glory to myself in the contact unless there is something more than the accident of race. Any other viewpoint would be giving too much value to a mere white hide."
Margaret Mead (1901-1978) was an author and cultural anthropologist. She earned her bachelor's degree at Barnard College (C.O. 1923) and her M.A. and Ph.D. degrees from Columbia.
Mead, whose research often focused on cultures outside of the West, studied anthropology with Hurston under Franz Boas at Columbia.
Alain Locke (1885-1954) was a philosopher, writer, educator, and critic of Black literature and art, largely known for being one of the leading figures of the Harlem Renaissance, as well as the first African American Rhodes Scholar.
Alain Locke founded Stylus, a literary club at Howard University, in 1916. In 1921, whilst Hurston was a student at Howard, Locke published Hurston's first short story, “John Redding Goes to Sea,” in the club's literary magazine, resulting in Hurston joining the club. When Hurston moved to New York, Locke recommended her to literary patron Charlotte Osgood Mason, whose philanthrophy would support Black authors including Locke, Hurston, and Langston Hughes.
W.E.B. Du Bois (1868-1963) was a sociologist, historian, and pan-African activist. Known for his collection of essays, The Souls of Black Folk, cofounding the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), and creating the NAACP's official magazine, The Crisis, Du Bois is regarded as one of the most important figures in the civil rights movement.
In 1945, Hurston wrote a letter to Du Bois suggesting the establishment of a cemetery for the "illustrious Negro dead", arguing that they "“Let no Negro celebrity, no matter what financial condition they might be in at death, lie in inconspicuous forgetfulness". Du Bois, in response, believed the initiative had too many practical complications to be viable.
Ralph Ellison (1913-1994) was a writer, scholar, and literary critic known for his first novel, Invisible Man (1952).
Ellison and Hurston shared several mutual friendships—most notably Langston Hughes. Ellison was one of many Black critics who derided Hurston's There Eyes Were Watching God for its perceived stereotypical portrayal of Back people, with Ellison calling the novel a “blight of calculated burlesque”.
Richard Wright (1908-1960) is recognized as one of the preeminent novelists and essayists of the 20th century. He is most famous for writings depicting the harsh realities of life for Black Americans in the Jim Crow–era South: the short story collection Uncle Tom’s Children (1938); the novel Native Son (1940); and his autobiography, Black Boy (1945). - The Poetry Foundation
Hurston and Wright had a contentious relationship—both were vocally critical of each other's works. Wright described Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God as "sensory sweep," which "carries no theme, no message, no thought," because "her novel is not addressed to the Negro, but to a white audience whose chauvinistic tastes she knows how to satisfy". In response, Hurston critiqued Wright's Uncle Tom's Children for being "a book about hatreds," full of "stories so grim that the Dismal Swamp of race hatred must be where they live".
Georgia Douglas Johnson (1880-1966) was a literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance known for her plays, a syndicated newspaper column, and four collections of poetry: The Heart of a Woman (1918), Bronze (1922), An Autumn Love Cycle (1928), and Share My World (1962).
Johnson would host many creatives of the Renaissance in her salon, including Zora Neale Hurston. It was in this salon where where Hurston would meet several other writers, including Jean Toomer, Marita Bonner, Alice Dunbar–Nelson, Jessie Fauset, and Angelina Grimké.
Alice Dunbar-Nelson (1875-1935) was a a poet, author, activist, educator, and journalist involved in the Harlem Renaissance.
Hurston was introduced to Dunbar-Nelson and several other Harlem Renaissance writers during gatherings held at Georgia Douglas Johnson's salon.
Fannie Hurst (1889-1968) was a novelist and short-story writer whose works combines romantic themes with social commentary surrounding women's rights and race relations.
Hurston met Hurst during her time at Barnard, where she worked as Hurst's secretary and later traveled with her. Hurst would become a close friend and patron of Zora. Hurst's most well-known novel Imitation of Life (1933), which focuses on the relationship of two single mothers, one Black and one white, is inspired by the author's own friendship with Zora, although the novel faced much critique for its stereotypical representation of Black characters.