“Such Friends”: 100 years ago, May, 1921, Howard University, Washington, D. C.

The May issue of the Howard University magazine, The Stylus, is out and Zora Neale Hurston, 30, is feeling so proud.

Zora Neale Hurston at Howard University

Zora never even thought she would get into Howard, let alone finish her associate degree last year. She was one of the first women chosen for the new sorority, Zeta Phi Beta, and her grades have been strong.

She not only has a poem published in this issue, but also her first short story, “John Redding Goes to Sea.” That means she is now accepted into the university’s prestigious literary club, also called The Stylus. Quite a coup. The professor who founded the group, Dr. Alain Locke, 35, chair of the philosophy department, is the only African-American ever chosen to be a Rhodes Scholar.

Her story is about African-Americans in the small, all-Black town where she grew up, Eatonville in Orange County, Florida. Zora feels that this is a community few authors write about. She’s starting to think that she might pursue writing rather than anthropology as a career.

“Such Friends”:  100 Years Ago… is the basis for the series, “Such Friends”:  The Literary 1920s. Volume I covering 1920 is available on Amazon in print and e-book formats. For more information, email me at kaydee@gypsyteacher.com.

This summer I will be talking about The Literary 1920s in the Osher Lifelong Learning programs at Carnegie-Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh.

Manager as Muse, about Scribner’s editor Maxwell Perkins’ relationships with F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway and Thomas Wolfe, is available on Amazon in both print and Kindle versions.

If you want to walk with me through Bloomsbury, you can download my audio walking tour, “Such Friends”: Virginia Woolf and the Bloomsbury Group.