How It Feels to be Colored Me

The acclaimed author of Their Eyes Were Watching God relates her experiences as an African American woman in early-twentieth-century America.

In this autobiographical essay, author Zora Neale Hurston recounts episodes from her childhood in different communities in Florida: Eatonville and Jacksonville. She reflects on what those experiences showed her about race, identity, and feeling different.

“How It Feels to Be Colored Me” was originally published in 1928 in the magazine The World Tomorrow.