Zora Neale Hurston grew up in poverty, lived her life in infamy, and died in obscurity. Her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God disappeared from the face of the Earth due to negative and harmful criticism from Richard Wright and Alain Locke and the fact that she was a black woman in a discriminating culture. It then resurfaced 30 years later thanks to fans and the civil rights, women's rights and black arts movements. Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston is highly praised by most critics today, but it was viewed in a different light when it was first published. Black authors popular during Hurston's era had the utmost disdain for Hurston's novel. Famous writer Richard Wright harshly criticized the book as a “minstrel technique that makes 'white people' laugh. His characters eat, laugh, cry, work and kill; they swing eternally like a pendulum in that safe and narrow orbit in which America likes to see the Negro live: between laughter and tears” (Wright, Between Laughter and Tears). Wright dominated 1940s writing for blacks (Washington, Preface). His review explains that Hurston's book is giving whites more reasons why blacks are the "inferior" race. This was the complete opposite idea of ​​what black people sought to be seen and as such Hurston's novel would not be read by black culture. This made Wright's review the most crippling towards Hurston because it was intensely harsh and his influence strongly pushed readers to reject Their Eyes Were Watching God leading to his demise. Wright's review was just one of the critics who destroyed the reputation of Hurston's novel. Other African-American authors, such as Alain Locke, have provided mutilating reviews similar to Wright's... half of the paper......tannica.com/EBchecked/topic/67472/Black-Arts-movement>." CNN-The civil rights movement." CNN.com - Breaking news, US, world, weather, entertainment and video news. Cable News Network, 1997. Web. December 12, 2011. "The Fight for Women's Suffrage: History.com Articles, Videos, Pictures and Facts." History.com - History Made Every Day - American and World History. A&E television networks. Network. December 12, 2011. Washington, Mary H. "Preface." Preface. Their Eyes Were Watching God: A Novel by Zora Neale Hurston. Ed. Henry Louis Gates. New York: Harper & Row, 1994. Vii-Xiv. Print.Wheeler, Dr. L. Kip. "Black vulgar". Black Vulgar. Dr. L. Kip Wheeler, September 26, 2011. Web. December 19. 2011. .