The American Dream: In All Races

     In most classes students are only taught two things in African American history, one being slavery and the other being the civil rights movement of the sixties and seventies.  Until recently, I had never given the twenties a thought when it came to African history. I guess, in my mind, there was just a void space between slavery and the great movement; a space where Blacks just existed and had no impact. Now, I know the Harlem Renaissance was a major period in history, not only for the blacks, but for people of all races.  These writers and poets were the ones who inspired legends such as Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, and Martin Luther King Jr.  They paved the way for Africans in America and fought the stereotype of being poor and uneducated. 
     In a sense, some writers did obtain the American dream that they so desperately wished for. Zora Neale Hurston, the author of How it Feels to Be Colored Me, grew up being told to "follow her dreams no matter how impossible they seemed"(McDougal 858).  She worked tough jobs to pay for high school and finally completed it after twelve long years.  Hurston set off to New York "with $1.50, no job, no friends, and a lot of hope"(McDougal 858). She put herself through college and became one of the first blacks to graduate from Barnard. By the 1930's Hurston had published many great pieces, including Mules and Men and Their Eyes Were Watching God.  Though she had success, it was short lived.  By the 1940's she had lost popularity and reverted back to doing meager jobs until her death in 1960; Zora Hurston was buried in an unmarked grave.  Her story embodies the American dream. She came from nothing, found great success, and then was stripped of her nobility.  Hurston never stopped believing in her dream much like Jay Gatsby.  Hurston lived the American dream, where the hard working rose quickly to the top and were brought tumbling down just as fast. The blacks envied the whites, pushing for the ideal American life, but when looking at Jay Gatsby’s life compared to Zora Hurston’s life we notice a pattern. They both had wonderful beginnings and they both had tragic ends.  That was the American Dream.