Zora Neale Hurston (c.1901–1960), writer and folklorist, was born and raised in the African-American town of Eatonville, Florida. Educated at Howard University, Barnard College, and Columbia University, Hurston began her career as a folklorist. Mules and Men (1935), one of her best-known folklore collections, was based on her field research in the American South. Tell My Horse (1938) describes folk customs in Haiti and Jamaica.

As a novelist, Hurston is noted for her storytelling abilities, use of metaphoric language, and celebration of Southern African-American culture. Her writing influenced the Harlem Renaissance writers of the 1930s, as well as later African-American writers, such as Ralph Ellison, Alice Walker, and Toni Morrison. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), her most famous novel, is widely read in college classes. Other novels include Jonah's Gourd Vine (1934); Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939); and Seraph on the Suwanee (1948). A prolific writer, Hurston also wrote short stories, plays, journal articles, and an autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road (1942).

Hurston died in a county welfare home and was buried in an unmarked grave. Interest in her has only recently been revived after decades of neglect by the literary community. A new generation of African-American writers is recognizing her contributions to African-American literature. Many of Hurston's writings were republished in the 1970s, and in 1995 a two-volume set of her work, some previously unpublished, was released. In 1999 her writing from the 1930s Florida Federal Writer's Project was published in Go Gator and Muddy the Water, edited by Pamela Bordelon.