Did You Know that Writer, Anthropologist and ‘Queen of the Harlem Renaissance’ Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was Blackballed by Her Own People Because She was a Republican?
“But Jesus said onto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own people, and in his own house.” — Mark 6:4
*N.B.: Selected Readings & Notes—Yuval Taylor, Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal (2019); When Zora and Langston took a Road Trip, Longreads.com (April 3, 2019); Damon Root, Nora Neale Hurston’s Inconvenient Individualism, Reason.com (June 2022 Issue); 
Christopher J. Scalia, Zora Neale Hurston and the Fate of Black Conservatives (May 15, 2025); Adriana Fraser, The Life and Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston: ‘A Genius of the South’, thedig.howard.edu (Jan. 8, 2026); Ellis Washington, Symposium— The When and the Why of Black Women’s Irresistible Impulse to Disrespect and Hate the Black Man?” EllisWashingtonReport.com (02/11/2024); Ellis Washington, I Remember Dr. Morris Dunbar Professor of Biology on MLK Day, Ellis Washington.com (01/26/2023); Ellis Washington, 8 Open Letters—Reply to President David Meyer on the Apotheosis of President Donald J. Trump, Ellis WashingtonReport.com (Dec. 23, 2023); Ellis Washington, Open Letter to Author and Genealogist Millie L. McGhee and to Yale Historians Beverly Gage & David Blight on the Question—Was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) a Black Man Passing as White and Why it still Matters?, EllisWashington.com (April 24, 2026); Amen2Trump, TikTok, The Mental Illness of Democrats [A Short History of Socialist ‘Intellectuals’], (posted on YouTube by @JeffSquare [05/2026]); The Tyranny of Communism and Socialism by an anonymous Columbia University graduate from China, YouTube.com, posted by @MagnoReport;
“The Obsolete Man” (Season 2, Episode 29 of The Twilight Zone) is a dystopian 1961 episode written by Rod Serling, featuring Burgess Meredith as Romney Werdsworth, a librarian deemed “obsolete” by a totalitarian state. ‘Werdsworth triumphs over his executioner by proving that individual human dignity, faith, and thought cannot be erased by state-mandated logic [i.e., Democide = Government murder of its citizens]’.
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About the Author—Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.—I went to Harvard Law School for 1 year (1988-89) with future POTUS Barack Hussein Obama, (b. 08/04/1961 – d. 09/29/2019), who was a secret descendant of the Rothschild Banking Cartel Family and a blood grandson of the German NAZI dictator, Adolf HITLER! – who was also a Rothschild – but I took the opposite path in Life—New World Order, Communism, Treason, Pedophilia and Satanic Ritual Abuse vs. Christianity, Conservatism, Protecting the Children & America First Nationalism. I repeatedly refused to take the “Satan OATH” which is why I’ve been blacklisted since 1989 – for over 37 years—for my entire legal and academic career, yet I Fight on! Why? To avenge Harvard University’s original 1692 motto—Veritas pro Christo et Ecclesia {= Truth for Christ and the Church}.
* Cui bono?–Who benefits? Why are all national currencies of the world promiscuously printed at will by the Rothschild Central Bankers? Is it to fund perpetual False Flag Wars like—America- Israel vs. Iran, America vs. New World Order, America vs. Venezuela, Israel vs. Gaza, Syria, Iran, Yemen & Lebanon, Russia vs. Ukraine, Taiwan vs. China, Rwanda vs. Democrat Republic of Congo, Cambodia vs. Thailand, Armenia vs. Azerbaijan, Civil war in France, in Yemen, in Laos, in Indonesia, and existential battles all over the world, while keeping the entire world enslaved inside an existential – Birth-School-Labor-Taxes-Debts-Retirement-Death cycle of the Rothschild Khazarian Mafia Matrix (1871-2021[26])? Further answers can be learned by reading, studying and sharing the Truth of my Critical Thinking blog that on 1 March 2026) surpassed 27 million views. See, EllisWashingtonReport.com, Facebook, Twitter/X—#JesusIsGod (Isaiah 9:6) #DCActof1871 |
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Books by Professor Ellis Washington, J.D.
This Essay on Zora Neale Hurston is Dedicated in Memory of Pastor LEVON YUILLE (04/27/1940 – 05/25/2026), a Visionary, Iconoclast, long-time Host of “Joshua’s Trial Radio Show” (WDTK-1400 AM, WAAM-1600 AM) of which I was one of several radio show co-hosts (serving from 2010-16). Pastor Yuille was a Great and Courageous Man of God. And to all the Fathers throughout the World who love the #Truth, teach Righteousness to their Family and Society… Happy Father’s Day–2026!
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“The first battlefield is to rewrite History.” – Karl Marx (The Father of Communism, Socialism & Marxism)
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Prologue I—Did You Know the Real American History about Black People Originally Voted Virtually 100% for Republicans until MLK’s Secret deal with JFK and RFK to get him out of a Georgia Jail (1960) and freed from a Birmingham Jail (1963) in Exchange to Deliver the Black Vote for JFK and the Democrat Party?
“Silence isn’t peace, its permission.” —Zora Neale Hurston
Deep State Democrats and their Cultural Marxist Academy rewrote history regarding Black America’s political allies, voting patterns, and Black America’s original 100% allegiance to the Republican Party? Did you know that virtually all Blacks were Republicans from the founding of the Republican Party in 1854-1965, or until the secret Judas deal MLK’s father made with then Democrat candidate John F. Kennedy and his brother/campaign manager, Robert F. Kennedy to get civil rights leader, Martin Luther King out of a Georgia jail in 1960 if MLK agreed to use his Civil Rights Coalition to make Black Americans to vote for the Democrat Party thus giving JFK one of the closest victories in American presidential history?!? And thus, without the Black vote (and some creative vote “recounting” in states like Illinois and West Virginia) JFK would not have become president of the United States in 1960!
In the Election of 1960 JFK, RFK and the Democrat Party worked tirelessly behind the scenes to threaten the White Georgia judge to let MLK out of jail and in return MLK and his coalition of compromised Black civil rights leaders, preachers, academics and entertainers encouraged Black Americans en masse to give their vote to the Democrat Party and to candidate John F. Kennedy. Also, after JFK was assassinated (Nov. 11, 1963) MLK and his Civil Rights Coalition later gave the Black vote to the Democrat President Lyndon Baines Johnson in the Election of 1964 in support of the Civil Rights Act (1964) and Voting Rights Act (1965).
During the Presidential Elections of 1960 and 1964 Civil Rights icon, Malcolm X was incensed because he understood the political treachery of how Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights movement betrayed Black America into selling out their votes exclusively to the Democrat Socialist Party in the Elections of 1960 & 1964—the Party of Slavery, the Party that created the KKK, Black lynching, Jim Crow institutional discrimination, and later Black Abortion (= Democide).
Yet Malcolm X had the courage and fortitude alone to speak out against this existential treason and so had to be silenced permanently when he was assassinated on Feb. 21, 1965 while giving a speech at the Audubon Ballroom on Broadway at W. 165th St. by Blacks assassins hired, supported and facilitated by the FBI, CIA and the NYPD. But we now know that Malcolm X’s killers were really the federal government committing Democide against Malcolm X under the cover of hidden Deep State forces cited above acting under the direction of the Democrat Socialist Party!
Thus, Years 1935-75 were years of Great Democrat Party Treachery against Black America. It was the era where President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s New Deal programs of the 1930s and 40s through the sin of omission, together with President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society Welfare programs of the 1960s and 70s through the sin of commission , 
together with the legalization of abortion with Roe v. Wade, 410 U.S. 113 (1973), where according to BlackGenocide.org abortions by Black women ages-15-44 (13% of the population) accounted for nearly 3 times the percentage (or 36%) of all abortions, were like a 3-headed Cerberus that systematically destroyed the hopes, the dreams and ultimately the LIVES of millions and millions and millions of Black Americans. Furthermore, 1935-75 was that fateful, treacherous 40 years of Wilderness period of History where Black America collectively embraced the #BigLies of the Democrat Socialist Party—the Party of Slavery, the KKK, Jim Crow, Black Genocide, Black Democide, Black Abortion—Hitlerian programs that killed dozens of millions of Black people, burning their cities to the ground for being more successful than their White neighbors.
Why isn’t this History Taught in the Public & Private Schools, Charter Schools & Colleges?—List of Successful Black Republican Cities and Pogroms against Blacks following Booker T. Washington’s Self-Help Philosophy & Programs Burned to Ash by White Supremacist Democrats
1870s-1970s [2015]—Also, jealous, Supremacists Whites using race baiting and rage baiting tactics against successful Black communities because despite Jim Crow discrimination many Black towns and cities (particularly in the South and West) were economically and functionally
better than their White counterpart neighborhoods and counties, villages, towns and cities throughout America using Christianity, Conservatism, Republican politics and Booker T. Washington’s Self-Help programs and philosophy. *N.B.: Source, Black Massacres in the U.S., DecolonialAtlas.WordPress.com (June 20, 2020).
In a paper in the American Economic Journal: Economic Policy, authors Daniel B. Jones and Ethan Schmick found that Black children exposed to greater educational opportunity during Reconstruction [1865-77] had significantly better economic outcomes as adults, and that those benefits were passed on to their children. The authors’ research suggests that if Reconstruction efforts had continued, the Black–White inequality gap could have been significantly reduced at this point in US history.
See, Tyler Smith, The Long-Term Impact of Reconstruction-Era Education, American Economics Association (Aug. 27, 2025)
According to the research and writings of Dr. Thomas Sowell, Economist and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution demonstrated that Post-Reconstruction-Era Blacks (1880s-mid-1960s) on average had higher education achievements, more likely to get married and stay married, had lower divorce rates, and lower out of wedlock births than Whites. This trend abruptly came to an end when President Lyndon Baines Johnson’s Great Society programs of the mid-1960s and 70s PURPOSELY and SYSTEMATICALLY took the Black man out of the family, got the young Black girls and young women hooked on the drug of Welfare Slavery, Ghetto Struggle, Ghetto Life, and did to the Black Family what 400 years of Chattel Slavery couldn’t do by systematically and effectively killing the Black family in the 1960s and 70s… of which the democidal effects of these Hitlerian programs negatively affects the Black Family to this day! This little-known but critically important information can be found primarily in these 2 classic books by Dr. Thomas Sowell cited below—
However, earlier in the 20th century it was under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s democidal and anti-economic growth New Deal programs of the 1930s and 40s where so-called Black Harlem ‘Gay’ Renaissance “leaders”, Poets, Intellectuals, Professors, Civil Rights figures, systematically re-enslaved Black Americans collectively in a Frankenstein image like what Claude McKay and W.E.B. Bu Bois referred to as “New Negroes” but in reality were herded as “New Slaves” and collectively put us right back onto the Democrat Party Plantation. . . like lambs to the slaughter, until 80 years later when what I refer to as The Apotheosis of President DONALD J. TRUMP (2015-26) came to pass. . .
Did You Know that Between 1870 and 1901, 22 African American men served in the U.S. Congress (2 in the Senate, 20 in the House) = 100% BLACK REPUBLICANS!?!
1870-1965—Not All BLACKS WERE ORIGINALLY DEMOCRATS. In the 1920s-60s notable Blacks like—Poet-Zora Neale Hurston, Intellectual, Satirist & Journalist George Schuyler, Senator Edward Brooke, Rev. George Washington Lee, ‘Father of the Civil Rights Movement’, baseball legend, Jackie Robinson, Rev. Archibald Carey, the iconic Chicago pastor that inspired MLK’s “I Have a Dream” speech, and a few other Black intellectuals and iconoclasts, Christians and Conservatives held on to their Republican History.
Zora remembered that the Republican Party was created in 1854 for the sole purpose of eradicating SLAVERY in America—The first Republican President was Abraham Lincoln in the Election of 1860. Zora remembered that out of 698,000-750,000 deaths during the Civil War (1861-65), 600,000-650,000 were WHITE MEN who gave their lives for BLACK EQUALITY and maintaining the REPUBLIC. Zora remembered how crucial to Black survival and success in America was following Booker T. Washington’s Self-Help Republican philosophy and strategies circa 1880s-onward.
Carefully study my notes at the beginning of this essay to learn more about that forbidden history about Blacks being Republicans originally in America. In fact my maternal grandfather, Theodore Roosevelt Cowser (1902-1987) and his son and my uncle, Theodore “Ted” Roosevelt Cowser, Jr. (b. 1935, born 1 year after my mother, Joan née Cowser [1934-2014] was born) were both named after Republican President Theodore Roosevelt (POTUS 1901-09).
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“I have the nerve to walk my own way, however hard, in my search for reality, rather than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful illusions.”
“Those that don’t got it, can’t show it. Those that got it, can’t hide it.
“If you’re silent about your pain, they’ll kill you and say you enjoyed it.”
– Zora Neale Hurston
[Morpheus to Neo:] “Everything they told you was a [Big] Lie.”
– The Matrix Movie, Part I (1999)—Construct Scene
“There are always more slaves than masters.”
Prologue II—Why is Harlem Renaissance Writer Zora Neale Hurston Still Important Today?
Zora Neale Hurston was a seminal writer, anthropologist, and folklorist. She was vital for championing authentic Black culture in the American South and Caribbean. Rather than focusing on racial struggle, her work celebrated the resilience, rich vernacular, and humanity of everyday African Americans.
Hurston’s importance and legacy can be broken down into a few core areas:
· Pioneering Anthropological Work: She studied under the famous anthropologist Franz Boas at Barnard College, becoming the first Black woman to graduate from the institution. Her fieldwork in the U.S. South, Jamaica, and Haiti helped document and preserve foundational Black folklore, hoodoo, and religious traditions that had previously been ignored by academia.
· Literary Masterpieces: She was a prominent figure during the Harlem Renaissance. Her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, is considered a classic of 20th-century literature. It was revolutionary for centering on the inner life and emotional agency of a Black southern woman.
· Champion of Individualism: She broke racial barriers but also stood out for her fierce individualism. During an era when many Black intellectuals were aligned with rising collectivist movements, Hurston championed the idea that people should be judged entirely on the content of their individual character.
· Cultural Resurgence: Although she died in poverty and obscurity in 1960, her work was famously resurrected in 1975 by author Alice Walker, whose Ms. magazine article prompted the rediscovery of Hurston’s genius.
To explore her biographies, writings, and cultural contributions further, you can read the National Women’s History Museum Biography or delve into Howard University’s piece on The Life and Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston. [1]
According to an important article by Adriana Fraser, Howard University Associate Editor in the Office of University Communications writing on the legacy of Howard Alumni, Zora Neale Hurston who was a 1920 graduate of Howard University, but attended there from 1919-24—
This year marks the 135th birthday of writer, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston (A.A. ’20), born Jan. 7, 1891. The prolific writer cared deeply about Black people and Black culture and was oftentimes referred to as the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance” for her impact and contributions during the time period.
According to the Zora Neale Hurston Trust, Hurston was a student at Howard University from 1919 to 1924, where she majored in English and received her associates degree in 1920. While at Howard, she joined a literary club sponsored by Professors Alain Locke (the intellectual founder and “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance”) and Montgomery Gregory and would go on to publish her first story “John Redding Goes to Sea,” along with the poem “O Night,” in the university’s literary journal Stylus. She’d later attend Barnard College to study anthropology and was the first Black person to graduate from the university in 1928. Hurston’s anthropological and ethnographic work included examining Black folklore and documenting cultural and religious traditions of places such as the U.S. South, Haiti, Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Honduras. Her literary oeuvre included authoring several books — such as her most known work, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” (1937) — and penning more than 50 short stories, plays, and essays.
What I find most perplexing and paradoxical about this great, transcendent Black literary figure is how well her writing is back during the so-called “Harlem Renaissance” which my research and the research of other writers such as my intellectual mentor and the forgotten genius of Black Aesthetics and History I studied under for 30 years (1985-2015)—Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015). LaBrew knew everybody that was anybody in the Harlem Renaissance (or personally knew one person [or generation] removed from them), yet understood as I and other iconoclast writers did including Zora Neale Hurston that this so-called outpouring of Black Art, Writing, Literature and Culture in Harlem during the 1920s-30s was like many historical or literary movements not totally reality, but a False Flag Social Construct, e.g., a Grand Societal Construct.
Zora Neale Hurston, “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” (1928)
{AI Overview} Zora Neale Hurston’s 1928 essay “How It Feels to Be Colored Me” is a celebrated Harlem Renaissance text that explores racial identity, individuality, and cultural pride. Rather than approaching her race with sorrow or anger, Hurston embraces her identity with confidence and a bold sense of self. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The essay is structured into several key thematic pillars, which break down her shifting perspectives on race and identity:
- Life in Eatonville: Growing up in an all-Black town in Florida, Hurston did not think of herself as “colored.” She viewed herself simply as an individual, only becoming aware of her race when she interacted with passing white tourists. [1, 2, 3]
- The “Sea Change”: At age thirteen, she left home for school in Jacksonville. It was in this diverse, white-dominated environment that she was suddenly thrust into the societal role of “a little colored girl” and became sharply aware of the color of her skin. [1, 2]
- Rejection of Victimhood: Hurston explicitly states she is not “tragically colored.” She refuses to view herself as a victim of prejudice, noting that discrimination simply astonishes her rather than making her angry. [1, 2, 3, 4]
- The Jazz Experience: When attending a jazz club in Harlem with a white companion, Hurston vividly describes how the music makes her feel intensely and proudly Black, while her companion remains unmoved and detached from the raw emotion. [1]
- The “Brown Bag” Metaphor: In the essay’s most famous metaphor, she compares herself and all people to a collection of “brown bags” filled with miscellany. She argues that beneath our superficial racial differences, everyone’s interior soul contains a similar jumble of human experiences and desires. [1, 2]
Cultural Marxism Created the Harlem “Gay” Renaissance and the so-called Civil Rights Movement
DID YOU KNOW?—The Harlem Renaissance (and later the so-called “Civil Rights Movement”) was a false flag creation by hidden Socialist, Communist, Globalist and Cultural Marxist forces that always moved behind the shadows, controlling and dictating all of America’s institutions including using perverted artistic expression like Malevolent Machiavellians—chosen, propped up, selected, anointed, and accepted so-called Black Artists, Poets and Writers, Painters and Entertainers, Musicians and Intellectuals.
Why have Black People throughout History allowed the Deep State Democrats to secretly choose our Black “leaders”? To use these chosen Civil Rights leaders and “Black Artists” to lead the majority of Black America into the abyss of a Leftist, hedonist Construct ubiquitously referred to as “Cultural Marxism” that had been formulating in one form or another over all societies and cultures since the American Revolution (1775-83) and the French Revolution (1789-99) namely—Marxism, Communism, Socialism, Progressivism, Liberalism, LGBT-Q+ and without regards to culture, history or necessity, to slavishly give their voting power exclusively to the Democrat Socialist Party.
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Thus, in my view the so-called ‘Harlem Renaissance’ was a False Flag Socialist Construct concocted behind the scenes by Machiavellian Democrat Party Leftists, Cultural Marxists,
and New World Order Globalists to use Bohemian art forms and laissez faire aesthetics to seize control of the voting power of the Black masses to move from the Republican Party to the Democrat Party. Thus, the Harlem Renaissance was in reality the “Harlem ‘Gay’ Renaissance” which culturally and socially was essentially a moral and political coup—A Black American conga-line to Hell. . . Nothing more! Genocidal ‘Gangsta’ Rap music of the 1990s is only its latest iteration designed to corrupt cultural morality, pervert societal cohesion, and to ultimately Democide Black America.
(*N.B.: See generally, Ellis Washington, Professor Arthur LaBrew and the Myth of the American Dream, RenewAmerica.com (Feb. 17, 2015); Ellis Washington, Black Rappers Satanic Deal with the Rothschild Khazarian Mafia to Destroy the Black Family by putting Black Men in Prison for Profit, EllisWashingtonReport.com (March 29, 2021); Ellis Washington, I Remember Rodney Whitaker (on John Coltrane’s 95th Birthday), EllisWashingtonReport.com (Sept. 23, 2021); Ellis Washington, Open Letter to Author and Genealogist Millie L. McGhee and to Yale Historians Beverly Gage & David Blight on the Question—Was FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover (1895-1972) a Black Man Passing as White and Why it still Matters?, EllisWashingtonReport.com (April 24, 2026).
In fact according to my old intellectual Mentor, History teacher and the iconoclast Musicologist, Professor Arthur LaBrew (1930-2015), the Harlem Renaissance was less about improving or acknowledging the highest levels of Black poetry, prose, art, history, intellectualism, entertainment, dance, painting, etc. and more about forcefully reimagining, changing or augmenting the culture’s Republican roots and to remake Black Culture into a generalized, ghettoized Bohemian, LGBTQ+ lifestyle that experimented with and encouraged extra-marital sex, drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and heroine,
and participation in afterhours establishments like bars, clubs, dance halls, full of illicit pills, cigarettes, cigars and strong alcoholic drinks – the complete opposite of the more acceptable to the largely Christian morality of the late Victorian Era of nineteenth century, World War I Era, and leading up to the Prohibition Era of the “The Roaring 20s” in big cities like – New York, Detroit, Newark, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Chicago, Cleveland, Dallas, Houston, San Francisco, Los Angeles. That’s why I call the Harlem Renaissance the “Harlem Gay Renaissance” because all of its most important members were covertly or overtly homosexual. This social construct was not by accident but was concocted as a False Flag Social Constructivism designed to deconstruct Christian America from the inside out and infiltrate every aspect of Black Culture and Society with the poison pill of the 3-headed Cerberus–[1] Drugs and Pills, Cigarettes and Alcohol causing CANCER, Organ failure; [2] Bohemian LGBT-Q+ Agenda & Lifestyle causing Sexually Transmitted Diseases [STDs] like Syphilis, Gonorrhea, Herpes, HIV & AIDS; and [3] Cultural Marxism causing Religious, Cultural and Societal deconstruction and destruction from within. (See, AI Overview below)—
The Harlem Renaissance, flourishing in the 1920s and 30s, was profoundly shaped by the LGBTQ+ community. While many had to conceal their private lives, these queer and gender-nonconforming artists, intellectuals, and performers formed the backbone of the movement’s radical creativity. [1, 2, 3]
Key LGBTQ+ Figures of the Harlem “Gay” Renaissance
- Gladys Bentley (1907-60): A pioneering, gender-nonconforming blues singer and pianist who headlined iconic speakeasies like the Ubangi Club. Bentley famously wore a signature top hat and tuxedo, singing raunchy parodies while openly flirting with women in the audience. [1]
According to a 2021 PBS report, Gladys Bentley faced significant criticism from the Black community during her career. While celebrated in the underground nightlife of the Harlem Renaissance, her unapologetic lesbianism and gender nonconformity drew intense backlash from religious groups who felt her lifestyle and bawdy performances damaged efforts toward racial uplift during the Jim Crow era.
Alain Locke (1885-1954): (L) Known as the “Dean” of the Harlem Renaissance, this philosopher and writer championed Black artists and was a trailblazing gay intellectual of the era. [1,2,3,4,5]
- Langston Hughes (1901-67): (R) The celebrated poet and leading literary figure was widely understood within Harlem’s underground circles to be gay or queer, and his legacy remains a cornerstone of the Black queer canon. [1,2]
Claude McKay (1889-1948): Jamaican American Writer and Poet of his most notable work, If We Must Die (1919). Allegedly British Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill was so moved by McKay’s poem that he read it aloud before the British Parliament, nearly in tears.
Yes, scholars widely document that Claude McKay was bisexual. While he lived in an era when modern labels were rarely used and homosexuality was highly taboo, he pursued and maintained romantic relationships with both men and women throughout his life.
§ Biographical Evidence: According to his biographers—including Wayne Cooper and Tyrone Tillery—McKay had notable affairs and relationships with both men (such as writers Waldo Frank and Edwin Arlington Robinson) and women.
- Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-87): One of the few openly gay Black writers of his time. His short story, Smoke, Lilies and Jade (1926) is considered a seminal queer text for its unapologetic depiction of bisexuality and same-sex relationships. [1]
Harold Jackman (1901-61): Was a British-born teacher, model, and patron of the arts with emphasis on African American art and literature. Raised in Harlem, Jackman was openly gay and known for his involvement in the Harlem Renaissance being a life-long friend of poets—Langston Hughes, Claude McKay and Countee Cullen, and known for his dedication to preserving African American cultural artifacts.[1]
Jackman was also a part of Harlem’s gay community and frequented the Hamilton Lodge Ball, an annual masquerade which attracted thousands of costumed men and women dressed in drag.
- Billy Strayhorn (1915-67): Songwriter/Arranger who ghost wrote many jazz standards under Duke Ellington’s name like—Take the A-Train, Satin Doll, Lotus Blossom, Chelsea Bridge, Day Dream, Something to Live For, and many other Jazz Standards and popular dance compositions.
Why did Strayhorn allow Ellington to own most of his copyrights? Not as AI Overview and conventional history alleges due to existing copyright arrangements between the two men, but according to conversations through the years with my historian teacher and musicologist, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) who knew most of the so-called “Harlem Renaissance artist personally (or one person removed), it was to hide Billy Strayhorn’s name and minimize his celebrity to keep his homosexuality from becoming a public spectacle and thus damaging his prolific musical career.
Paul Robeson (1898-1976): Robeson was not exclusively gay, but historians and biographers have documented that he was bisexual. [1,2] While he was married to his wife, Eslanda “Essie” Goode, for over 40 years, they maintained an open marriage, and he had multiple affairs with both women and men. Notably, this includes an affair with the gay American composer Marc Blitzstein. [1,2,3,4]- Bessie Smith (1894-1937): Bessie Smith was bisexual rather than strictly gay. Known as the “Empress of the Blues,” she was an unapologetic icon of the 1920s and 1930s who had numerous, well-documented romantic relationships and affairs with both men and women. [1,2,3,4]
- Countee Cullen (1903-46): An award-winning poet who navigated his sexuality while publicly marrying Civil Rights icon and Harvard intellectual, W.E.B. Du Bois’s daughter (Yolande)—one of Harlem’s most prominent Black social events of the 1920s, as a cover for his gay lifestyle. Countee Cullen’s so-called “Lavender marriage” was a total disaster and ended 3 years later. [1] *N.B.: See meme below for the definition of the term. For history about how American society dealt with the rising homoeroticism in culture and society from the 1950s-70s, also see, “Lavender Scare”.
- Gertrude “Ma” Rainey (1886–1939): Was an American pioneer and recording artist widely known as the “Mother of the Blues”. She bridged the gap between vaudeville and authentic Southern blues, blending storytelling and traditional moaning styles to influence generations of musicians. [1, 2] A pathbreaker, Ma Rainey was one of America’s first lesbian lyricists as demonstrated in the 1928 song, Prove It On Me—
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They said I do it, ain’t nobody caught me.
Sure got to prove it on me.
Went out last night with a crowd of my friends.
They must’ve been women, ’cause I don’t like no men.
It’s true I wear a collar and tie.
Makes the wind blow all the while.[28]
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- Ethel Waters (1896-1977): A legendary blues and jazz icon who recorded hits like “Stormy Weather” and integrated Broadway. She had highly publicized relationships with women in the 1920s.
- *James Baldwin (1924-87): Writer, Essayist and Civil Rights Activist, James Baldwin was attracted to men and had relationships with men. Although technically due to his late birth in the mid-1920s whereby his most important works were published in the late 1940s, 50s, 60s and 70s after the Harlem Renaissance, thus Baldwin was not an official member of the Harlem Renaissance, yet I consider him to be a de facto member because of his overt New York pedigree, his unapologetic Leftist worldview and Marxist-Gay politics fit perfectly within the Black Zeitgeist (e.g., prevailing culture or intellectual climate) of the period that fomented Cultural Marxism on Black American culture and society especially between 1900-75.
Furthermore, throughout his life and literary career, Baldwin broke barriers by exploring themes of same-sex love, race, and identity. Acknowledged as a pioneering figure in literature, his works—such as the landmark 1956 novel Giovanni’s Room (1956), Another Country (1962), Just Above My Head (1979)—are considered essential texts in LGBTQ+ and Black history.
Notable Black Gay Dancers, Choreographers, Stage Entertainers during the Harlem Renaissance include
- Mabel Hampton (1902-89): A celebrated chorus line dancer in all-Black productions throughout the 1920s. She later became a pivotal LGBTQ+ activist and archivist, preserving much of the history of Black lesbian life during the era. [1, 2]
- Ethel Waters (1896-1977): One of the most famous jazz and blues singers and dancers of the 1920s.
She was bisexual and famously lived with and dated her backup dancer, Ethel Williams, in Harlem—a relationship documented by the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.[1,2]
- Jimmie Daniels (1907-84): An openly gay singer, dancer, and charismatic nightclub host. He frequently performed at popular speakeasies and established himself as a prominent fixture in Harlem’s queer nightlife.[1,2]
- Richard Bruce Nugent (1906-87): An openly gay dancer, writer, and artist. He was deeply immersed in the artistic circle of the movement and is considered one of the few truly “out” men of the era.[1,2]
- Gladys Bentley (1907-60): A powerhouse blues singer and pianist who often wore a men’s tuxedo and top hat. Though known more for her booming vocal performances, she headlined Gladys’s Clam House and later the Ubangi Club with a backup chorus of drag queens.[1,2,3] For those interested about the rise, career and fall of the LGBT-Q heroine, see link, The Fall of Gladys Bentley.
Josephine Baker 1906-75): The iconic international superstar and dancer identified as bisexual. She built a significant portion of her early career performing on the stages of Harlem before finding massive success in Paris with her 12 adoptive children she affectionately called her “Rainbow Tribe”.
Alvin Haley (1931-89): Like writer James Baldwin, this legendary dancer and choreographer, Alvin Haley was part of the greater Harlem Renaissance whose primary contributions came a generation after the Golden Age of the movement. Haley also identified as gay. As a foundational modern dancer and choreographer, he navigated the complex intersections of Blackness and queerness in America.
- *N.B.: See, Alex Bollinger, Meet 4 Historic Icons Who Made the Harlem Renaissance as Gay as it was Black, LGBTQNation.com, (Feb. 19, 2018).
- The McCarthy Era Backlash According to a Facebook post by Capital Pride (Feb. 11, 2026), as the liberal era of the Harlem Renaissance gave way to the deeply conservative 1940s and 1950s, the backlash intensified. Homosexuality was
increasingly viewed as deviant and was aggressively targeted by both the Black church and the government. Fearing for her career and safety under the political purges of the McCarthy era, Bentley dramatically, but in my opinion disingenuously shifted her public image. [1, 2, 3, 4]
As part of Bentley’s comprehensive propaganda make over campaign, she famously wrote a 1952 article for Ebony magazine titled “I Am a Woman Again“, in which she: [1, 2]
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- Renounced her lesbian lifestyle and cross-dressing persona.
- Claimed to have been “cured” of homosexuality through medical operations and female hormones.
- Adopted traditional feminine clothing and briefly married a man.
- Pursued a path to become an ordained minister.
Zora Neale Hurston founded The Hilltop the Nation’s oldest Black Collegiate Newspaper
Adriana Fraser, The Life and Legacy of Zora Neale Hurston: ‘A Genius of the South’, “During her time as a Howard student, Hurston, alongside Louis Eugene King (B.S. ’24), founded The Hilltop, the university’s student newspaper and the oldest Black collegiate paper in the nation. The pair published the first issue of The Hilltop Jan. 22, 1924, and more than a century later, the paper continues to be one of the country’s premiere collegiate news sources.”
The inaugural editorial staff of The Hilltop in 1924. (Photo courtesy of the
Moorland-Spingarn Research Center)
Thus Huston (I believe is pictured 2nd row, 1st person to the left) was literally and physically at Ground Zero as a young Black collegiate writing at the most influential Historic Black College University [HBCU, Howard University] at the very start of the so-called “Harlem Renaissance” which officially began at the genesis of the so-called “Roaring Twenties” in the year 1920 having studied under and mentored by her Professor Alain Locke, the so-called “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance” and Hurston, who would later be known as the “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance. Nevertheless, despite this veritable, mythical Black aesthetic pedigree and placement in Black literary history and her prolific output and literary and scientific gifts, yet she is all but forgotten today except for a college course here and there at an HBCU like Howard University on Black Women Writers.
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This Grand Leftist Conspiracy is not done by chance as I have intimated before but is designed by shadowy power in high places who push democidal agendas surreptitiously. Why? To do as Karl Marx demanded (“… rewrite history”), to dilute the Truth, to deconstruct and to destroy Christianity, Culture and Society from within (#Cultural Marxism) and to have the most prolific Black woman writer in American history be also known as an active Republican and devoted critic of the Democrat Socialist Party, FDR’s New Deal, even criticizing the hypocrisy and racial segregation of White Feminism in favor of later what writer Alice Walker called Womanism.
What are Zora Neale Hurston’s Most Important Works
Zora Neale Hurston’s essential reading list blends brilliant Southern fiction with foundational African American folklore and memoir. Her most iconic works provide a powerful, poetic look at Black culture and independence in the 20th-century American South. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Discover her greatest works below:
1. Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937)
· The Vibe: Southern romance, self-discovery, and literary triumph.
· Why read it: Hurston’s masterpiece follows Janie Crawford through three marriages and a journey of self-actualization. It is widely celebrated as one of the most defining and influential novels in African American literature. [1, 2, 3]
2. Mules and Men (1935)
· The Vibe: Folklore, anthropology, and storytelling.
· Why read it: A groundbreaking collection of African American folklore and hoodoo practices collected directly from the South. It is an indispensable, entertaining look into Black oral traditions. [1, 2, 3, 4]
3. Dust Tracks on a Road (1942)
· The Vibe: Memoir and autobiography.
· Why read it: Hurston’s vibrant, sometimes mythologized autobiography tracing her life from Eatonville, Florida—one of the country’s first incorporated all-Black municipalities—to her rise as a leading Harlem Renaissance intellectual. [1, 2, 3, 4]
4. Barracoon: The Story of the Last “Black Cargo” (2018)
· The Vibe: History and oral history.
· Why read it: Published posthumously, this vital historical work details Hurston’s 1927 interviews with Cudjo Lewis (Oluale Kossola), the last known survivor of the Atlantic slave trade. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
5. Hitting a Straight Lick with a Crooked Stick (2020)
· The Vibe: Short stories.
· Why read it: A collection of 21 short stories written during the height of the Harlem Renaissance, showcasing her sharp humor and deep understanding of gender, race, and class.
If you are wondering where to begin, most literary critics and readers recommend starting with Their Eyes Were Watching God. For a comprehensive look at her entire bibliography and curated starting points, you can explore the Goodreads Best of Zora Neale Hurston List or read The Guardian’s Where to Start Guide.
In critically examining Zora Neale Hurston’s greatest or more important writings one is confronted with the paradoxical understanding that how could a writer of her rank and brilliance, one of the few Black writers at that time that had graduate training in scientific fields of study and integrated that high level of scientific rigor and training into the worldview of her writings not be more popular then and now?
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In short, I can only compare the paradox to my long-time History and Musicology teacher Professor Arthur LaBrew (who wrote about 40 books including his magnum opus—An International Encyclopedic Dictionary of Black Classical Music— (1250 B.C.- 1950s) (2013) and to my own oeuvre of 11 books (see links to all my books at the beginning of this essay) and about 3,000+ essays amounting to about 50 unpublished book manuscripts. I achieved all this alone—Without the backing of a university or literary organization it is nearly impossible to make it or support one’s self as a writer particularly post-21st century when the rise of social media has made people (especially young people like Millennials, Generation X and Generation Z) to be less likely to read books, particularly books on a high academic and intellectual breath.
Take Hurston’s magnum opus, Their Eyes Are Watching God (1937) – Hurston’s masterpiece follows Janie Crawford through three marriages and a journey of self-actualization. It is widely celebrated as one of the most defining and influential novels in African American literature. Like Oscar Wilde’s classic novel, The Picture of Dorian Gray, it is largely biographical in an idealized sense of the word, however, because Hurston is driven by iconoclasm and truth she did not fall into the Cultural Marxist abyss of pushing a lowkey Communist or Socialist agenda on Black American society in the 1920s and 30s. She was above petty politics and allowed the truth of her Art to order her steps and to set her goals. Thus, “Their Eyes Were Watching God,” is a foundational text in 20th-century literature. It is celebrated for centering an independent Black woman’s voice and using rich, authentic African American vernacular. [1, 2]
*N.B.: Mural of Famous Literary Figures including a painting of Zora Neal Hurston (the only Black person delineated) at a Starbucks Coffee Shops that are affiliated with Barnes & Noble Bookstores nationwide.
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Was Zora Neal Hurston a Republican?
Yes, Zora Neale Hurston was a Republican. Though she is most famous as an author and anthropologist of the Harlem Renaissance, her political views were staunchly conservative and libertarian, often putting her at odds with many of her left-leaning contemporaries. [1, 2, 3, 4]
Her specific political positions included:
· Anti-Communism & The Old Right: She vehemently opposed communism and the Soviet Union, and generally supported the non-interventionist and limited-government policies of the Old Right. [1, 2]
· Opposition to the New Deal: She was a vocal critic of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal, disliking the expansion of federal power and state welfare programs. [1, 2]
· Individualism over Identity Politics: She despised the idea of treating Black Americans as a single voting bloc or viewing them as helpless victims, preferring aggressive self-reliance and individualism. [1,2]
· Opposition to Brown v. Board of Education: In a highly controversial 1955 letter to the Orlando Sentinel, she opposed the Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling. She argued that forced integration assumed all-Black schools were inherently inferior and worried that integration would strip Black communities of their autonomy and cause Black culture to fade. [1, 2]
See generally my 2 law review articles (like Zora Neale Hurston) seriously analyzing and critiquing the 50th anniversary of the landmark education desegregation case, Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954) in, Ellis Washington, Brown v. Board of Education: Right Result, Wrong Reasoning, 56 Mercer Law Review, Vol. 2 (2004), pp. 715-27; Ellis Washington, A Voice Crying Out in the Wilderness: A Word about Brown v. Board of Education, 39 Valparaiso Law Review 1 (2004), pp. 87-94.
While modern scholars sometimes debate how to label her legacy, her voting record and written essays place her firmly within the Republican party of her era. You can explore more about her political philosophy and the nuances of her beliefs through the American Enterprise Institute – AEI or by reading the perspective detailed in NPR.
My original title for this essay was–Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960)—The Iconoclast Black Harlem Renaissance Writer and Anthropologist who was also a Republican and Why She is Still Important Today? I changed it to what it is now because I wanted to expose what few writers (especially Black writers) are too cowardly and compromised to say openly about political litmus tests concocted by White Socialists to impose on acceptable Black “elites”. To what end? To order, create and control what “Art” would be acceptable in middle-class and upper middle-class circles of Black America circa 1920s and 1930s. In other words, the so-called “Harlem Renaissance” was like Black Conservative writer and satirist George Schuyler postulated nearly 100 years ago–The Harlem “Gay” Renaissance which was a false flag construct awakening of Black Arts and Writing, Poetry, Music and Culture in 1920, in Harlem, New York. The Harlem Renaissance was Hitlerian Big Lie concocted to foment and to entrench and enslave Cultural Marxism in American Black Culture and Black Society.
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Ellis Washington Report utilizes a “Cultural Marxism” framework to argue that Max Horkheimer and the Frankfurt School developed “Critical Theory” to systematically dismantle Western cultural institutions from the inside particularly be denigrating, deconstructing, and ultimately destroying America’s Christian Culture and Society from within. The platform posits this as an intentional infiltration of universities and media aimed at replacing traditional values with intersectional identity politics. Read more of the essays directly on elliswashingtonreport.com. This statement sets on bold relief what was really going on with the Harlem Renaissance and why it was literally a False Flag literary movement or a Black Literary Construct used to shift the voting population of Black America in the 1920 away from the Republican Party to the Democrat Socialist Party.
Virtually all of the so-called Writers, Artists, Poets and Musicians of the Harlem Renaissance uncritically sold their Souls and embraced the Socialist and Communist undertones and absorbed them into their “Art” without hesitation or critical examination. Why? For several reason—
1) The money their received from behind the scenes from people like the Harmon Foundation, Rosenwald Found, Rockefeller Foundation, Carnegie Foundation, and people like Charlotte Osgood Mason and Carl Van Vechten, and other supporters of the writers and artists of the Harlem Renaissance paid the bills and kept the lights on. See, AI Overview on the Major Patrons of the Harlem Renaissance—
The Harlem Renaissance relied heavily on wealthy white benefactors and institutional fellowships to survive. Key patrons included individual financiers, philanthropic foundations, and influential editors. [1, 2, 3]
Key Individual Patrons
· Charlotte Osgood Mason: Often referred to as “Godmother,” she was an eccentric and controlling philanthropist who extensively funded key figures like Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston, and encouraged their internecine rivalies and arguments. [1, 2,3]
· Carl Van Vechten: A white author and photographer, he used his social influence to connect Black writers with white publishers and introduced the culture of Harlem to a broader white audience and photographed many members of the Harlem Renaissance. [1, 2]
Key Foundations
· The Harmon Foundation: Provided vital fellowship grants and hosted prominent exhibitions for visual artists like Aaron Douglas and Palmer Hayden. [1, 2, 3]
· The Rosenwald Fund: Awarded financial fellowships to writers, artists, and scholars, enabling them to travel, study, and dedicate time to their craft. [1, 2, 3]
Institutional & Media Patrons
· The NAACP & National Urban League: Through their official publications, The Crisis and in the 1940s & 50s Phylon Journal (edited by W.E.B. Du Bois [1940-44]) and Opportunity (edited by Charles S. Johnson), these organizations paid for and published early writings from many Harlem Renaissance figures, musicians and artists. [1, 2, 3, 4]
2) Virtually all of these artist, writers, poets and musicians were either from New York or lived there so they were fellow travelers writing, singing, composing inside the same Marxist-Socialist-Progressive echo chamber of the most Leftist city in America… New York City where virtually all other voices (e.g., Christian, Evangelical, Conservative, Libertarian, etc.) were discriminated against and removed, ignored and blackballed;
3) The fact that Zora Neale Hurston had the courage of her convictions to understand American political history enough to realize that it was the Republican Party that was formed under the explicit goal of eradicating Black Slavery, thus she would not betray these noble historical goals by White America to Black America to receive present day notoriety or celebrity. Hurston was a Woman, an Artist of Singular Principle!
Her vehement opposition to Communism particularly under Soviet Russia (Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, rise of Lenin (1917-24), Rise of Stalin (1924-53) and the Rise of the Chinese Communist Party (Mao Zedong [1935-1976]) and other Communist Revolutions throughout Europe and South America made Huston personally and acutely aware of the dangers of Communism and Socialism and their Leftist derivates here in America—Liberalism, Progressivism, and later LGBT-Q+. Also, Huston was a vocal critical of Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Socialist New Deal policies (1933-45) as being harmful to Blacks to getting them used to government handouts over personal hard work and efforts.
In other words, Hurston placed her faith in individualism over Identity Politics which she boldly stated in her opposition to the Brown v. Board of Education case of 1954 stating In a highly controversial 1955 letter to the Orlando Sentinel, she opposed the Supreme Court’s desegregation ruling. She argued that forced integration assumed all-Black schools were inherently inferior and worried that integration would strip Black communities of their autonomy and cause Black culture to fade. 72 years later in 2026 with the fall of Racial Gerrymandering, DEI and the low-test scores of Blacks children in Democrat-run big cities that she was 100% correct.
Why did Langston Hughes (and the Harlem Renaissance movement) Betray Zora Neale Hurston in the 1930s as She was approaching the Zenith of her Career?
Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston did not simply betray each other; rather, their friendship collapsed in 1930 amid a bitter, ego-driven dispute over the authorship and copyright of their collaborative folk play, Mule Bone. [1, 2, 3, 4]
The breakdown of their relationship stemmed from a complex web of mutual misunderstandings and competing ambitions: [1, 2, 3]
· The Core Dispute: The two wrote a play based on Hurston’s original folklore and unpublished story. After a falling-out during the writing process, Hurston secretly filed for sole copyright of the play. In retaliation—and without Hurston’s knowledge—Hughes filed for a joint copyright under a new script name (The Mule-Bone). Both claimed to be the principal author, leading to an epic, unresolved custody battle over the work. [1, 2, 3]
· The “Godmother” Influence: Their mutual patron, a wealthy white woman named Charlotte Osgood Mason, heavily fueled their rivalry. She controlled their finances, sowed competition between them, and disapproved of their collaboration. [1, 2]
· The Aftermath: The fight permanently severed their bond, and both largely omitted the joyous parts of their friendship from their respective autobiographies. [1, 2]
For a deeper dive into their intense dynamic, the book Zora and Langston: A Story of Friendship and Betrayal by Yuval Taylor offers a thorough look at their rift. You can also read a breakdown of the doomed partnership on Electric Literature or an analysis of their conflicting literary legacies on WashU. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
I truly believe and understand that the answers to this section have roots in the previous analysis. Why? Langston Hughes, being the “Poet Laureate of the Harlem Renaissance” was its most celebrated and vocal figure, but also a man of vainglory, bitterness and jealously who was driven by his Communist, Socialist politics. He was offended that Hurston didn’t acquiesce to the Democrat Socialist Party despite their evil history Slavery, Jim Crow, founding the KKK, Black Genocide of successful Black Cities and Towns and promoting political Plantation-ism in their efforts to as Karl Marx demanded . . .“The first battlefield is to rewrite history”.
I believe politics and an existential servitude and artistic jealously lay at the heart of the fight between Langston Hughes and Zora Neale Hurston — at least on a superficial level. Beneath the politics I believe lay a profound sense on Hughes’s part that Zora had eclipsed not only him but the entire construct, false flag Harlem Renaissance movement and thus neither she nor her true Art could be allowed to stand. Zora “The Queen of the Harlem Renaissance” could not be allowed to exist next to their derivative second-class Black art forms because as Irish-English poet so passionately prophesied of unremarkables attaining unmerited celebrity like Langston Hughes—“She [Langston] lives in poetry she cannot write.” This in my opinion, were some of the reasons why Zora (and by extension) all Black Conservatives, Christians, Intellectuals and Republicans had to be systematically identified, deconstructed and erased from HISTORY!
Why did Zora Neale Hurston Die Poor and Forgotten for Decades?
Zora Neale Hurston died penniless in 1960 primarily because the literary establishment stopped buying her work. During her final decades, she faced changing political and cultural tastes, outlived her patrons, and was largely abandoned by the publishing world, forcing her to work as a maid and librarian to survive. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
Several intersecting factors contributed to her poverty at the end of her life:
· Shifting Cultural Tastes: By the 1950s, the Black arts movement and civil rights era pushed toward highly politicized literature. Hurston’s focus on Black Southern dialect, folklore, and celebration of rural autonomy was dismissed by younger, more politically driven Black intellectuals as too traditional.
· Lack of Mainstream Commercial Success: Although she published more books than any other Black woman in America during her lifetime, her focus on Black female agency and unapologetic cultural anthropology did not translate to widespread mainstream sales.
· Strained Professional Relationships: Hurston often refused to make her work palatable to white or male sensibilities. After the loss of wealthy benefactors like Charlotte Osgood Mason, she struggled to secure consistent publishing contracts.
· Illness and Medical Bills: In 1959, Hurston suffered a debilitating stroke. Without the funds to care for herself, she was forced to move into the St. Lucie County Welfare Home in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she died of heart disease. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
Because her books had fallen completely out of print and her name faded from the public eye, she was buried in a segregated, unmarked grave. Her literary legacy and brilliant catalog of works were not widely recognized until years later, famously championed by author Alice Walker. [1, 2, 3]
For a more comprehensive look at her life and posthumous literary resurgence, you can read the Women & the American Story Biography or the National Women’s History Museum profile.
Finally, in my political, historical and literary review of Black Harlem Renaissance writer and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston I wanted to answer some questions about how a talented, even genius writer of her caliber died in poverty. And how could her works become all but forgotten for decades? This doesn’t make sense to me; however, I see this leitmotif, this Idee Fixe appearing throughout history—I saw it with my intellectual mentor and my Professor of History and Musicology, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) who personally knew virtually all the Harlem Renaissance writers, artists, poets and musicians.
I saw society ignore and marginalize myself for exposing academic frauds like Chief Judge Richard A. Posner, the person who is most cited by SCOTUS and cited more than any other person by law reviews and law journals. Thus, this begs the question—If Ellis Washington exposed the very legal scholar to be a fraud that SCOTUS and all the law journals consider an intellectual giant, then who is correct about Judge Posner—The Mainstream Cultural Marxist Academy or Ellis Washington?
So, to answer the larger question queried above about why did Hurston die in poverty, ignored and ultimate forgotten? AI Overview cites 4 reasons:
1) Shifting Cultural Tastes: “By the 1950s, the Black arts movement and civil rights era pushed toward highly politicized literature. Hurston’s focus on Black Southern dialect, folklore, and celebration of rural autonomy was dismissed by younger, more politically driven Black intellectuals as too traditional.”
I doubt the analysis cited above because the cultural and literary tastes of Black America (like other races) is broad enough to embrace both urban writings and writings like Hurston that largely took place in a rural setting. In other words, Black people can walk and chew gum at the same time. I believe the real answer on why Hurston died in poverty was that she was secretly blackballed by the Black Mainstream Intelligencia, e.g., what W.E.B. DuBois called “The Talented Tenth”.
Zora Neale Hurston and “The Black [H.L.] Mencken”—George S. Schuyler (1895-1977)
What the Democrat Socialist Party Media didn’t tell you about this self-appointed, contrived group of Black intellectuals was that to belong to this group you had to belong to the Democrat Party, a Socialist or even better a Communist or your career would be destroyed. If you doubt my analysis, just look at the Black intellectuals, writers, artists, musicians who were celebrated and wealthy and the Blacks who held on to principle, history and truth (Zora Neale Hurston, “The Black [H.L.] Mencken”—
George Schuyler (1895-1977)(American writer, journalist, social commentator). Think of Frederick Douglass meets Booker T. Washington and you have George Schuyler whose acerbic wit and biting criticism of Black Society and Culture was fearless and merciless. Schuyler took no prisoners when exposing the Big Lies and hypocrisy of so-called Black High Culture. For examplem he had little regard to Alain Locke, the so-called “Dean of the Harlem Renaissance, calling him the “Dean of the Niggerati”.
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Even 100 years ago George Schuyler, like the Biblical prophets of antiquity who tried in vain again, again and again to urge the Israelites to obey God and to keep all of His commandments, but they didn’t listen. This prophetic Black man knew that the so-called Harlem Renaissance was a false and phony Matrix Construct used to keep Black America (and thus Black Culture and Society) enslaved on the Democrat Party Plantation… NOTHING MORE!
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Professor Arthur LaBrew and Philippa Schuyler
As I have written many, many times Historian and Musicologist, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) knew everybody that was anybody in New York (and it cities throughout America) regarding Black classical music performers, Jazz musicians, poets, artists, dancers, entertainers, and Black Aesthetics of all the Humanities including George and Josephine Schuyler’s only child, a daughter, Philippa Schuyler (1931-67), a young pianist (one year younger than LaBrew) whose circles crossed that of LaBrew in New York when LaBrew was a graduate student at the famed Manhattan School of Music (1948-52) while Philippa was struggling to become a concert pianist as an ‘adult prodigy’.
As an expertly trained classical pianist whose pedigree LaBrew could trace back to Ludwig van Beethoven and Franz Liszt, he knew after attending several of her concerts and recitals Phillipa gave that while she was obviously a very talented musician, her background (playing public recitals since age 4 and known as “the Shirley Temple of American Negroes”, demonstrated that she was severely sheltered and thus her musicality and maturity for her age when LaBrew met her when LaBrew as a graduate student at the Manhattan School [1948-52] (when Philippa was between ages 18-22) LaBrew ranked her piano abilities as severely stunted and her aesthetic maturity unremarkable as chronicled in the newspaper review of her Town Hall debut at age 21 in 1952. 
It was perhaps at this very recital and a subsequent reception after this concert that LaBrew offered to tutor her on piano to give her playing the gravitas, aesthetic depth and seriousness it lacked for a pianist of her age being 21 in 1952. Phillipa’s reply to LaBrew was arrogant dismissal and a rude, categorical rejection of needing his help. LaBrew was sad, but didn’t push his help any further upon her. A few years later by 1960 the public had heard enough from Phillipa and as she approached age 30 deemed her abilities to be juvenile and stymied at worst, unremarkable at best.
The Child Abuse Philippa Suffered for over 3 Decades Under her Oppressive ‘Stage Mother’ Josephine and Complicit Father–George Schuyler
However, Philippa’s one-dimensional personality and crippled character wasn’t entirely Phillipa’s fault for I recall reading the Wikipedia article on George Schuyler and found a curious entry cited below (see, The “Social Experiment” Revelation) based on a question I submitted to Google AI in search of a more convincing understanding of the years of psychological abuse Philippa suffered under her slave driver and “Stage Mother” Josephine Schuyler–
Josephine was apparently convinced to raise her only child, Philippa, as a living scientific experiment eating only raw foods (including meat) based on the teachings by the contemporary raw food movement which was founded in Switzerland in the early 20th century and popularized in the early 1930s by the physician and nutritionist Dr. Maximilian Bircher-Benner. [1]
This existential and decades-long child abuse was presumably under the consent and financial support (and SILENCE) of Philippa’s famous father, George Schuyler reminding me of Zora’s aphorism,
“Silence isn’t peace, its permission.” —Zora Neale Hurston
who inexplicably allowed his wife to conduct and allow this horrible and continuous child abuse to happen for decades right under his nose which continued (to my estimation) at least to the early 1960s when Philippa was in her early 30s and was presumably no longer under her mother’s control and was living on her own as an adult. Note particularly the analysis below under “Changing Personas”—
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Why Did Philippa Schuyler (1931-67) Fail to Succeed as a Concert Pianist?
The barriers Philippa Schuyler faced in her efforts to become a concert pianist can be attributed to several key factors:
- Systemic Bias: As a biracial woman of Black and white heritage, Schuyler faced immense resistance from the elite classical music establishment in the U.S. during the 1940s and 1950s. Because major American orchestras and venues frequently closed their doors to her, she was forced to tour internationally in Europe, Latin America, and Africa to find audiences. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]
- The “Prodigy” Curse: Schuyler achieved monumental fame as a child prodigy, but like many such sensations, public fascination waned as she entered adulthood. She struggled to transition her childhood notoriety into sustained, mainstream adult success. [1, 2, 3]
- The “Social Experiment” Revelation: Her self-belief was severely damaged in her teenage years when she discovered her parents had actively raised her as a racial experiment. This realization, combined with an isolated childhood, profoundly affected her psychological development and artistic confidence. [1, 2, 3]
Wikipedia stated the emotional shock by Philippa upon learning the “Realization that she had been conceived and raised, in a sense, as a genetic experiment, robbed the pianist of many of the illusions that had made her earlier youth a happy one.”[15]
- Musical Limitations: Some critics acknowledged her technical prowess but felt her performances lacked emotional depth—a critique sometimes attributed to her highly rigorous, emotionless practice regimens. [1, 2]
- Changing Personas [Self-Hatred]: In a desperate attempt to bypass American prejudice in the 1960s, she briefly relocated and reinvented herself as a white European pianist named “Felipa Monterro,” but the ruse failed to generate the critical acclaim she needed. [1, 2, 3]
Overcompensation Leading to Destruction and Death: Disillusioned by the classical music industry, Schuyler transitioned into a successful career as a political journalist and author, writing for outlets like the Manchester Union Leader. She tragically died in 1967 at the age of 35 in a helicopter crash during a humanitarian mission in Vietnam. [1, 2]
Irony of Ironies–After all of that decades of musical training that kept her in a gilded cage and made Philippa a one-dimensional, psychologically broken, and traumatized by Self-Hatred, after that helicopter was probably shot down during wartime in Da Nang, South Vietnam, Philippa could have survived the crash if she had only been taught to swim. She was 35 years old when she died on May 9, 1967.
George Schuyler, Zora Neale Hurston and the Civil Rights Movement
Conservative writer George Schuyler also exposed the duplicity of Civil Rights Activist, Martin Luther King, Jr., that most people were unaware of regarding the fact that MLK and his father were originally Republicans (like most Black people including–intellectuals, middle class and working class before 1965 from the passage of the 15th Amendment giving Black men the vote in 1870 to the passage of the Voting Rights Act (1965)—nevertheless, Martin Luther King’s father felt that in order to get his son out of an Alabama jail made a secret deal to change his party affiliation and urge Blacks to vote for the Democrat Party. (*N.B.: See, Martin Luther King, Letter from Birmingham Jail (April 1963).
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Also, I was delighted to learn that Hurston and Schuyler knew of one another’s writings and admired each other as outcast Republican Artists during an era when Black America was gradually moving from the Republican Party to the Democrat Party between 1920-1965—
Zora Neale Hurston was a towering literary figure of the Harlem Renaissance who broke norms by centering Black rural life and women’s experiences. In contrast, the prominent satirist and journalist George S. Schuyler wrote critical essays challenging the concept of a distinct “Negro art,” instead viewing Black American culture as fundamentally American. [1, 2,3, 4]
Zora Neale Hurston’s Connection to the Movement
· Focus on Folklore: Unlike many of her contemporaries who focused on urban, middle-class uplift, Hurston embraced the rich cultural heritage and dialect of the rural American South. [1, 2]
· Major Works: Her groundbreaking 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, remains one of the movement’s most celebrated texts. [1, 2, 3, 4]
· Controversy: Hurston’s refusal to write purely political or protest-based literature caused friction with other leading male figures of the Renaissance, such as Richard Wright. [1, 2, 3]
George S. Schuyler’s Perspective on Black Art
· “The Negro-Art Hokum” (1926): Schuyler published this famous essay arguing that Black American artists were entirely products of their American environment and fundamentally no different from white artists. [1, 2, 3] See, AI Overview Synopsis of this landmark essay here.
· Satire: As a journalist, he preferred biting satire that dissected the absurdity of racial categorizations rather than romanticizing them. [1, 2, 3, 4]
· Mutual Respect: Interestingly, despite their differing philosophies, Schuyler held a sincere appreciation for Hurston’s work, praising her ability to write about African Americans simply as Americans.
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2) Lack of Mainstream Commercial Success: “Although she published more books than any other Black woman in America during her lifetime, her focus on Black female agency and unapologetic cultural anthropology did not translate to widespread mainstream sales.”
The reason doesn’t make sense to me because in 2026 that’s all we hear in the media = Black female agency = Girl Power = Black Girl Magic, etc. Thus, if Hurston was a prophetic writer in this sense transversing decades of socio-cultural-political history and to arrive on the right side of history, but a shining example of courage, freedom, honour and Truth, why wouldn’t she have commercial success unless there were those holding power behind the scenes that didn’t want a Black Republican woman to be a role model for young black students (and students of all races) growing up in the 1920s, 30s, 40s, 50s until she died in 1960.
3) Strained Professional Relationships: Hurston often refused to make her work palatable to white or male sensibilities. After the loss of wealthy benefactors like Charlotte Osgood Mason, she struggled to secure consistent publishing contracts.
For what can only be called evil reason Huston’s primary benefactor, Charlotte Osgood Mason derived a perverse pleasure in pitting her against poet Langston Hughes over the royalties of a book they co-authored. This contention led to Hurston being blackballed and her career crippled for decades until she died in poverty.
The lesson here is that people of all races and both genders can be very cruel to one another and that cruelty can have devastating effects upon innocent people who put their trust and confidence if you.
4) Illness and Medical Bills: In 1959, Hurston suffered a debilitating stroke. Without the funds to care for herself, she was forced to move into the St. Lucie County Welfare Home in Fort Pierce, Florida, where she died of heart disease. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6]
This reason out of the 4 cited in this section is the only plausible explanation I can reasonably rely on why Hurston died in poverty, but it leaves me empty because it doesn’t supply the reasons WHY Hurston was forced to live such a miserable existence as a writer, as an academic anthropologist and as an intellectual. As if being the most prolific Black women writer in history was a sufficient literary feat in and of itself, Hurston literally died of a broken heart which is a fate that I nearly suffered the day after America’s 246 birthday and the day before my wife’s birthday. On July 5, 2022, I suffered an almost fatal heart attack while pulling weeds in my backyard. After publishing 11 books, 36 scholarly articles and over 3,000 essays and Socratic Dialectical works I still was unable to get a tenured faculty position in the American Academy and almost died like Zora Neale Huston literally of a broken heart.
*N.B.: Ashley Brasfield, Supreme Court Strikes Down Institutionalized Racism (April 29, 2026); Amy Howe, In major Voting Rights Act case, Supreme Court strikes down redistricting map challenged as racially discriminatory, SCOTUS.Blog.com (April 29, 2026); See generally, Ellis Washington, NIGGER MANIFESTO: Institutional, Intellectual and Ideological Racism Inside the American Academy (2018).
Epilogue I—Courage, Sacrifice, Honour, Discipline, Veritas (Truth)—The Reasons Why I taught myself a Classical Education and gave it to my Son, Stone Allen Washington
@CLT_Exam · May 31, 2026
One reason classical education produces more mature young people is because it introduces them to greatness early.
Students spend years around saints, philosophers, statesmen, poets, generals, and missionaries.
They grow up reading about courage, sacrifice, honor, discipline, truth.
Modern education tries to protect students from greatness because greatness creates objective standards. But young people desperately want standards.
They want something higher than themselves to admire and live up to.
*N.B.: See generally, Ellis Washington, Letter of Dr. Mortimer J. Adler Exposing the Big Lies of Darwinian Evolution and List of other Prominent Jewish Scholars who Rejected Darwinism on Scientific and Religious Grounds (Aug. 4, 2025).
Epilogue—Zora Neale Hurston was an Intellectual, Writer, Poet and Scientist of Singular Genius Who existed a Century before (or after) her Time
Over the past 8 or 9 years I’ve used as a head quote to many of my psychological essays words that seems to encapsulate all of the Big Lies, political duplicity and historical revisionism society has been bombarded with on a daily basis since the Socialist Revolution of the 1960s, but particularly since the creation of the D.C. Act of 1871 that started the Globalist infiltration by the Rothschild Khazarian Mafia (e.g., the Central Bankers) to takeover America by hijacking their monetary supply and order America’s monetary policy for as the old saying goes regarding ‘The Golden Rule’ = “He that has the gold makes the rules.”
Except with the Rothschild Central Bankers there was a treacherous twist—they didn’t have to steal our gold and silver (which our monetary system was attached to, but they separated the U.S. from the gold standard and based U.S. monetary policy not on gold or silver but on nothing (e.g., fiat or paper currency). All they needed to do was to own the counterfeit printing presses, perpetually raise interest rates and charge We the People increasing interest to buy their fake paper money into perpetuity while the Central Bankers made TRILLIONS!
As we will see in this review and analysis of an AMG_News.org article by Medeea Greere, the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913 was just the beginning. The treachery by the Democrat Socialist Party was so comprehensive and complete that it would take the next 100+ years just to begin the process of dismantling their Hitlerian Big Lies and Treason writ large with the legions of NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) the foot soldiers of Gestapo of the Progressive Deep State used to enslave every aspect of culture and society including the subject of this essay Black Harlem Renaissance Writer and Anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston, and weaponize against the Natural Law and Natural Rights of We the People contained in American Common Law, the Bill of Rights and enshrined in the U.S. Constitution. The head quote is from a famous scene from the 1999 Sci-Fi Thriller Trilogy The Matrix—
[Morpheus to Neo:] “Everything they told you was a [Big] Lie.”
– The Matrix Movie, Part I (1999)–Construct Scene
*N.B.: See generally, Medeea Greere, Case Closed: JFK Killed After Shutting Down Rothschilds Federal Reserve – List of US Presidents Murdered by the Rothschild Banking Cartel (Feb. 25, 2025).
Since the Garden of Eden when our fore-parents, Adam and Evil first encountered the tautology of Hegelian Dialectic thousands of years before the birth of the German philosopher, Georg Hegel whose name bears that Machiavellian but effective circular reasoning that kills all logic, morality and reasoning every time it is applied. So has the piteous, lonely life of that iconoclastic Harlem Renaissance writer Zora Neale Hurston reminded me of a dystopian episode (they were all dystopian) of the 1960s TV drama The Twilight Zone—
“The Obsolete Man” (Season 2, Episode 29 of The Twilight Zone) is a dystopian 1961 episode written by Rod Serling, featuring Burgess Meredith as Romney Werdsworth, a librarian deemed “obsolete” by a totalitarian state. ‘Werdsworth triumphs over his executioner by proving that individual human dignity, faith, and thought cannot be erased by state-mandated logic [i.e., Democide = Government murder of its citizens]’;.
Like humanity huddled underground in the movie The Matrix, Neo was it’s Messiah, the Savior of Humanity which he eventually was able to save but at the cost of his Life. Like in the Twilight Zone episode “The Obsolete Man” where a seemingly unremarkable librarian is scheduled to be murdered simply because his position is no longer valued by society. This is the anti-tautology Hurston, Professor LaBrew and I found ourselves in the generations we lived, existed and struggled unsuccessfully to “make it” in.
However, we didn’t realize that culture and society for thousands of years have been a controlled Construct manipulated behind the scenes by ubiquitous and wealthy, malevolent and Machiavellian forces pulling the strings behind the shadows. Why? To keep Society to be at war with itself or what Enlightenment English writer and philosopher Thomas Hobbes (1588 – 1679)—Bellum omnium contra omnes (The war of all against all). An to achieve and ferment their evil Agenda that was first launched by Satan against Humanity in the Garden of Eden.
Thus, if Hurston was born in 1790, she could have been General George Washington’s slave (that’s bad) but freed 1 year after he died in 1799 (that’s good). She would have predated White Feminism which would occur at the White Woman’s Rights Conference at Seneca Falls, NY (July 1848). She doubtless would have befriended Frederick Douglass and helped him get the vote in 1870 with the help of the newly created Republican Party.
If Hurston was born in 1990, she would have been part of the Millennials Generation and would have been more conservative than the previous generations like the Baby Boomers and Generation X. She probably would be something like Candace Owens without the treachery and self-aggrandizement which is exhausting.
Epilogue II—How my History Teacher, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015) Taught Me the Reality of Truth about the so-called “Harlem ‘Gay’ Renaissance”
“But Jesus said onto them, A prophet is not without honour, but in his own country, and among his own people, and in his own house.”
~ Mark 6:4
*
DID YOU KNOW. . .? Iconoclast Writer, Anthropologist & “Queen of the Harlem Renaissance”—ZORA NEALE HURSTON (1891-1960) was Blackballed by Her Own People? But WHY?!? Because she was a Conservative and a 100% #BookerTWashington (1856-1915) Republican.
Secondly, because of her superior level of Literary, Artistic and SCIENTIFIC rigor placed her heads and shoulders above the other derivative, second-rate and third-rate writers, poets and artists like her Howard University Professor–“The Dean of the Harlem Renaissance,” ALAIN LOCKE and his lover poet, LANGSTON HUGHES. {Google it!}
*
I learned much of this hidden information about Black culture and society over the 30 years I was a student of the late, great Historian and Musicologist, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015). Professor LaBrew didn’t get his information about Black Artists second-hand. LaBrew knew these famous people personally having attended the respected Manhattan School of Music (1948-52) and living and working in New York as a classical pianist, accompanist, and researcher when he began his first investigations into compiling some of his earliest musicological works on Blacks Classical Musicians before 1900. Below is an excerpt of the wisdom and knowledge Professor LaBrew gave to me (and later in 2012-15 to my then 15-year-old son Stone)—
{Essay Excerpt} Professor Arthur LaBrew (1950-2015): 65 years waiting for the American Dream
*Professor Arthur R. Labrew, 2013 Kresge Literary Arts Fellow
To the Detroit Opera House: For far too long Detroit has ignored one of its greatest home-born treasures, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (b. 1930 – Feb. 19, 2015), historian extraordinaire, concert pianist, professor, my history and languages teacher and intellectual mentor who so elevated my cognitive worldview that in only a year under his tutelage Professor Labrew got me a full scholarship to Harvard’s Graduate School in 1988 (the year Barack Obama came to Harvard). I consider Professor LaBrew (Founder & Editor-in-Chief of the Michigan Music Research Center) – (B.A. Piano Performance, 1948, Oberlin Conservatory; M.M., Musicology, 1952, Manhattan School of Music) to be the greatest living historian in Michigan and one of the greatest music historians in America and perhaps even the world.
Since 1950 when he first entered graduate school in musicology at the Manhattan School under the eminent Medieval/Renaissance scholar, Gustave Reese, in 1952 Labrew would publish of his two-volume master’s dissertation on the little known Renaissance composer Metre Jan (which for the level of intellectual detail and historical innovation, he should have been given his PhD), nevertheless, Professor Labrew has contributed 65 years of outstanding, groundbreaking and essential historical research and intellectual writings on a variety of subject matter and intellectual disciplines which in my opinion is second to none.
For example, his latest works include a 5 volume International Dictionary of Black Music and Musicians from Antiquity (1500 B.C.-1950s) and a working manuscript on the great 18th/19th century Black violin prodigy, composer and friend of Ludwig van Beethoven, George Polgren Bridgetower (1778-1860), to whom Beethoven originally composed for and dedicated to his immortal Violin Sonata No. 9 (now called the “Kreutzer Sonata”). Professor Labrew has written that historically Beethoven’s greatest violin sonata must be called by its rightful and original title, “The Bridgetower Sonata” – in honor of the great, unsung Black violin virtuoso who when he died in 1860 had a string quartet of instruments including not one, but two Stradivarius violins, a viola and cello among his personal effects. (*N.B.: See LaBrew’s manuscript on Bridgetower for more on this subject).
If you listen to the link I’ve included of this masterpiece of the ‘Bridgetower’ Sonata above, pay particular attention to the development section at section: 8:36-9:38, it’s pure genius and is demonstrable of the excellent technique Bridgetower had to possess to impress Beethoven, a legendary curmudgeon! An excerpt of Professor LaBrew’s International Dictionary and can also be found here under “Professor Arthur Labrew” at my website. Since Professor LaBrew was a 2013 Kresge Literary Artist Fellow, a working website of some of his other magnificent historical aesthetic works can be found at this link. See, Ellis Washington, Professor Arthur R. LaBrew and the Myth of the American Dream, RenewAmerica.com (Feb. 17, 2015).
Selected Writings by Professor Arthur R. LaBrew (1930-2015):
Just like the Black Judases of today–Barack & Michelle Obama, V.P. Kamala Harris, JayZ, Beyonce, P-Diddy, Al Sharpton, Cornel West, Van Jones, Michael Eric Dyson, Democrat Minority Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, Rep. Jim Clyburn, Rep. Maxine Waters, Congressional Black Caucus, NAACP, Black Lives Matter, Congressional Black Caucus, Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Atty Ben Crump, Oprah, Tyler Perry, etc…
MOST HISTORY IS A #BigLie…. At the behest of the #DeepState 100 years ago selected Black “elites” willingly compromised their Christian religion, their Black race, Politics, Morals, Principles for $$$, Career advancement, Celebrity, and acceptance by the
Democrat Party, by Hollywood, by the Leftist Marxist Media, and by Cultural Marxists under the False Flag Matrix and Contrived Construct of “The Harlem ‘Gay’ Renaissance” which was the Black branch of infiltrating American Culture and Society with the poison pill of living a #LGBTQ+ Bohemian lifestyle while being controlled and enslaved to #CulturalMarxism
Thank God iconoclast Intellectual, Writer and Scientist, ZORA NEALE HURSTON stood on Business, stood on History, and stood on her intellectual, moral, Christian and Republican principles which is why We the People Celebrate you and your legacy of Poetry and Prose today 100 years later.
#ProfessorArthurRLaBrew (1930-2015)
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