Abstract
In my “Introduction To African and African American Studies'' class we were each given the opportunity to pick a photograph from the Carl Van Vechten archive located in the Brandeis Library’s Robert D. Farber University Archives and Special Collections in order to create a final paper exploring themes, experiences, and knowledge that the prominent figures we chose could inform us about the State of Blackness in the present. My eyes drew to Zora Neale Hurston’s photograph because I enjoyed her boldness and authenticity as a writer through exploring her multiple mediums of work such as: How It Feels To Be Colored Me, Crazy For This Democracy, and her most well known work: Their Eyes Were Watching God. Through these works I was eager to learn more about how exploring the multiple experiences and complexities of Hurston’s life we could learn more about ways Black women could achieve freedom in the present.