The author Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960) has been in fashion for a little while, partly because Oprah Winfrey likes Their Eyes Were Watching God so much. But did you know that this exemplar of the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920s and 1930s was also an anti-New Deal Republican who supported Robert A. Taft for president in 1952?
I learned this a few months ago from Jonathan Bean, when we were discussing a piece that he co-wrote for NRODT on Booker T. Washington. Bean’s new book is now out–an anthology called Race & Liberty in America: The Essential Reader, co-published by the Independent Institute and the University Press of Kentucky. It reproduces everything from excerpts of the Declaration of Independence and the speeches of Frederick Douglass to the modern-day works of Shelby Steele and Clarence Thomas.
My favorite entry may be the one from Hurston, whom Bean introduces this way: “Hurston believed in the power of individual freedom, in both the creative and political realms. She refused to be a ‘race woman’ and criticized those who took pride in group achievements, noting that only individuals merited praise.” Bean also notes: “Her reputation declined in the late 1930s as left-wing writers objected to her apolitical fiction and her classical liberal ideology.”
Her reputation soars today, so it would be wrong to say she needs a revival. But perhaps her repute would benefit from a bit of refining. Conservatives and libertarians know their movement’s history well, but there are still plenty of holes. They should fill one of them by claiming Hurston. A first step would be to publish a collection of her political writings. Any takers?