Zora Neale Hurston, Freethought, and African American Religion

This article explores the contributions of Zora Neale Hurston to African American freethought during the early to mid-twentieth century. Focusing on her personal (ir)religious development as well as her anthropological studies of Black religion, it demonstrates that she was a central figure in a burgeoning secular movement of this era, especially in the close ties she posits between Black feminism and Black freethought. The presence and growth of Black secularism, as indicated in Hurston's work, should push scholars to further reexamine the importance of the conversion moment in Black religion and the boundaries of African American religious studies.