“The present was an egg laid by the past that had the future inside its shell.”
– Zora Neale Hurston
This Theme Thursday celebrates the accomplishements and life of civil rights activist Zora Neale Hurston. Zora Neale Hurston was an American novelist, short story write, folklorist, and anthropologist. Of her novels and published short stories, plays, and essays, she is best known for her 1937 
novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.
Her works remained rather obscure during her life and for several years after her death, for a number of cultural and political reasons. Many early readers and critics objected to Hurston’s use of dialect, but more recently critics have praised her use of idiomatic speech.
From the book cover: “One of the most important and enduring books of the twentieth century, Their Eyes Were Watching God brings to life a Southern love story with the wit and pathos found only in the writing of Zora Neale Hurston. Out of print for almost thirty years—due largely to initial audiences’ rejection of its strong black female protagonist—Hurston’s classic has since its 1978 reissue become perhaps the most widely read and highly acclaimed novel in the canon of African-American literature.”