We are all here for a purpose.
The specific tasks will change over your lifetime, but the goals and aims will remain. Hurston did many things, but she was faithful in telling the stories of our people. She wrote short stories and books. She danced and performed. She was able to express your purpose in many ways.
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, an autobiography, ethnographies, and many essays.
Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. In her early career, Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic research as a scholar at Barnard College and Columbia University. She had an interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore, and how these contributed to the community’s identity.
She also wrote about contemporary issues in the black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her short satires, drawing from the African-American experience and racial division, were published in anthologies such as The New Negro and Fire!! After moving back to Florida, Hurston wrote and published her literary anthology on African-American folklore in North Florida, Mules and Men (1935), and her first three novels: Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934); Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939). Also published during this time was Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938), documenting her research on rituals in Jamaica and Haiti.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston
Zora Neale Hurston wrote about issues in the African American community during her lifetime. As a writer and ethnographer, she captured the African American experience during a time of racial division, but also a lot of growth in the community. Hurston worked within her purpose. She was a storyteller who told wonderful stories about the people she met and all that she experienced.
Zora Neale Hurston (January 7, 1891 – January 28, 1960) was an American writer, anthropologist, folklorist, and documentary filmmaker. She portrayed racial struggles in the early-20th-century American South and published research on Hoodoo and Caribbean Vodou. The most popular of her four novels is Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. She also wrote more than 50 short stories, plays, an autobiography, ethnographies, and many essays.
Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, and moved with her family to Eatonville, Florida in 1894. She later used Eatonville as the setting for many of her stories. In her early career, Hurston conducted anthropological and ethnographic research as a scholar at Barnard College and Columbia University. She had an interest in African-American and Caribbean folklore, and how these contributed to the community’s identity.
She also wrote about contemporary issues in the black community and became a central figure of the Harlem Renaissance. Her short satires, drawing from the African-American experience and racial division, were published in anthologies such as The New Negro and Fire!! After moving back to Florida, Hurston wrote and published her literary anthology on African-American folklore in North Florida, Mules and Men (1935), and her first three novels: Jonah’s Gourd Vine (1934); Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937); and Moses, Man of the Mountain (1939). Also published during this time was Tell My Horse: Voodoo and Life in Haiti and Jamaica (1938), documenting her research on rituals in Jamaica and Haiti.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston
This month the word is Purpose. This can be defined as a reason for something, feeling of determination or a goal or aim. We are all here for a purpose.
Annie Minerva Turnbo Malone (August 9, 1877 – May 10, 1957) was an American businesswoman, inventor and philanthropist. She is considered to be one of the first African American women to become a millionaire. In the first three decades of the 20th century, she founded and developed a large and prominent commercial and educational enterprise centered on cosmetics for African-American women.
She was born in Metropolis, Illinois, the daughter of Robert and Isabella Turnbo, who had formerly been enslaved. Orphaned at a young age, Annie attended a public school in Metropolis, before moving in 1896 to live with her older sister Ada Moody in Peoria. There Turnbo attended high school, taking a particular interest in chemistry. However, due to frequent illness, she was forced to withdraw from classes.
While out of school, Turnbo grew so fascinated with hair and hair care that she often practiced hairdressing with her sister. With expertise in both chemistry and hair care, Turnbo began to develop her own hair-care products.
While experimenting with hair and different hair-care products, she developed and manufactured her own line of non-damaging hair straighteners, special oils, and hair-stimulant products for African-American women. She named her new product “Wonderful Hair Grower”. To promote her new product, Turnbo sold the Wonderful Hair Grower in bottles door-to-door. Her products and sales began to revolutionize hair-care methods for all African Americans.
In 1918 she created Poro College in St Louis which held the company’s business offices, manufacturing operations and training centers. People would learn cosmetology and sales training for women who wanted to sell Poro products. This place was valued at more than a million dollars and included classrooms, barber shops, laboratories, an auditorium, dining facilities, a theater, gymnasium, chapel and roof garden.
1926 there were 175 college employees and more than 75,000 women across North and South America, Africa and the Philippines.
Annie lived modestly and gave away most her income. She supported African American colleges, YWCA, orphan homes and many other charities. She was at her peak, but trouble brewed on the horizon for her.
In 1927, her husband filed for divorce and wanted half of everything. He had been trying to take over the entire company, but found she was a better fighter than he thought. In a public divorce where he had black male politicians on his side, she had all of the communities and charities she had supported on her side. She settled with him for much less.
In 1930 she moved the business to Chicago, Illinois. And again found herself in a legal battle from other people who wanted to take credit for her business. Annie’s business made it through the Depression and World War II.
But by the 1950s, when she had 32 branches of the Poro school, the government seized the school for back taxes.
Annie died of a stroke in 1957 at the age of 87 years old. Her estate was only worth 100,000 but her legacy was invaluable. She had taught generations of women how to be beautiful. You can’t put a price on that.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annie_Turnbo_Malone
This undereducated woman learned her skills in the classroom of life. She took what she knew and created a university where women could learn her skills and manage their own businesses. In 1918, Anna Turnbo Malone started Poro College, a cosmetology school which also held a manufacturing plant, a retail store, business offices, a 500 seat auditorium, dining and meeting rooms, a roof garden, dormitory, gymnasium, bakery and chapel.
She believed she could do it. She did it.
Without there being an established market, Anna Turnbo Malone created products on a scale to distribute them across the country and parts of South America.
She had to believe in herself and products enough to teach women how to use them. She had to believe it would make them feel beautiful about themselves. She had to believe in her own abilities in order to help others.
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