Zora Neale Hurston
Mantra: "Drenched In Light"
Our mantra for Zora Neale Hurston comes from one of her very first published short stories “Drenched in Light.” A semi-autobiographical story about a brilliant little Black girl who is already navigating the complexity of white privilege and Black respectability. Zora Neale Hurston beloved by the sun and by her people (and by her people she meant the working class Black people of the US South especially and the global South more broadly) also had to navigate both of those forces her entire life. We celebrate Zora Neale Hurston as a pathmaker whose refusal to internalize bougie Black cultural norms and her mind-opening use of imagery made her the only Black writer at her time who supported herself (sometimes barely) fully from her writing, not from academic affiliations. And what is that light source that embraces you? As we meditate today, allow all of you to receive the light that is yours.
Our mantra for Zora Neale Hurston comes from one of her very first published short stories “Drenched in Light.” A semi-autobiographical story about a brilliant little Black girl who is already navigating the complexity of white privilege and Black respectability. Zora Neale Hurston beloved by the sun and by her people (and by her people she meant the working class Black people of the US South especially and the global South more broadly) also had to navigate both of those forces her entire life. We celebrate Zora Neale Hurston as a pathmaker whose refusal to internalize bougie Black cultural norms and her mind-opening use of imagery made her the only Black writer at her time who supported herself (sometimes barely) fully from her writing, not from academic affiliations. And what is that light source that embraces you? As we meditate today, allow all of you to receive the light that is yours.
3 Lessons