W.E.B. Dubois & Zora Neale Hurston

(1868- 1963) William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was a noted scholar, editor, and African American activist. Du Bois was a founding member of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP -- the largest and oldest civil rights organization in America). Throughout his life Du Bois fought discrimination and racism. He made significant contributions to debates about race, politics, and history in the United States in the first half of the 20th century, primarily through his writing and impassioned speaking on race relations. 
Criteria of Negro Art

Such is Beauty. Its variety is infinite, its possibility is endless. In normal life all may have it and have it yet again. The world is full of it; and yet today the mass of human beings are choked away from it, and their lives distorted and made ugly. This is not only wrong, it is silly. 

...especially those who are weary of the eternal struggle along the color line, who are afraid to fight and to whom the money of philanthropists and the alluring publicity are subtle and deadly bribes.

Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most prolific African-American female writers of her day. Between 1934 and 1948, Hurston published seven books including her autobiographyDust Tracks on a Road.  Perhaps her most well received publication was Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Inaddition to her major publications, she also wrote many short stories, plays, biographies, newspaper and magazine articles.
     Hurston was born in the all-black town of Eatonville, Florida.  Eatonville was the setting for many of her stories of folklore and probably shaped many of her political views.


Characteristics of Negro Expression

• The Negro's universal mimicry is not so much a thing in itself as an evidence of something that permeates his entire sel. And that thing is drama. 
• The will to adorn is the second most notable characteristic in Negro expresssion. Perhaps his idea of ornament does not attempt to meet conventional standards, but it satisfies the soul of its creator. 
• Asymmetry is a definite feature of Negro art... but the sculpture and carvings are full of this beauty and lack of symmetry. 
• Imitation----The Negro, the world over, is famous as a mimic.  
• Mimicry is an art in itself.

http://www.howard.edu/library/reference/guides/hurston/