High John de Conquer

by Zora Neale Hurston

"Maybe, now, we used-to-be black African folks can be of some help to our brothers and sisters who have always been white. You will take another look at us and say that we are still black and, ethnologically speaking, you will be right. But nationally and culturally, we are as white as the next one. We have put our labor and our blood into the common causes for a long time. We have given the rest of the nation song and laughter. Maybe now, in this terrible struggle, we can give something else—the source and soul of our laughter and song. We offer you our hope-bringer, High John de Conquer."

Zora Neale Hurston (1891-1960) was an influential author of African-American literature and anthropologist, who portrayed racial struggles in the early 20th century American South, and published research on Haitian voodoo. Of Hurston's four novels and more than 50 published short stories, plays, and essays, her most popular is the 1937 novel Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Originally published in The American Mercury (1943).

16 pages, Kindle Edition

Published April 24, 2019

About the author

Novels, including Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937), and nonfiction writings of American folklorist Zora Neale Hurston give detailed accounts of African American life in the South.

In 1925, Hurston, one of the leaders of the literary renaissance, happening in Harlem, produced the short-lived literary magazine Fire!! alongside Langston Hughes and Wallace Thurman shortly before she entered Barnard College. This literary movement developed into the Harlem renaissance.

Hurston applied her Barnard ethnographic training to document African American folklore in her critically acclaimed book Mules and Men alongside fiction Their Eyes Were Watching God . She also assembled a folk-based performance dance group that recreated her Southern tableau with one performance on Broadway.

People awarded a Guggenheim fellowship to Hurston to travel to Haiti and conduct research on conjure in 1937. Her significant work ably broke into the secret societies and exposed their use of drugs to create the Vodun trance, also a subject of study for fellow dancer-anthropologist Katherine Dunham, then at the University of Chicago.

In 1954, the Pittsburgh Courier assigned Hurston, unable to sell her fiction, to cover the small-town murder trial of Ruby McCollum, the prosperous black wife of the local lottery racketeer, who had killed a racist white doctor. Hurston also contributed to Woman in the Suwanee County Jail , a book by journalist and civil rights advocate William Bradford Huie.

Reviews

[Jorge Corona · Rating 5 out of 5]

High John de Conquerer

High John High John Come thru and don’t pass me by. Loved the story it is a great reminder! Ashe

[Deborah Baskette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wondeful

Zora must have High John de Conquer in her, because this book just makes me happy. I hope John has come back to finish freeing his people.

[Muhammad · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my favorite short stories by one of my favorite writers! Her level of writing and imagination can't be described, only experienced. High John de Conquer is making his way back to drum his people out of their ignorance and I, for one, am grateful he didn't forget about us... although we may have forgotten about him. Somehow from the simplistic and/or low-technological age of late 18th to early 19th century to the digital and fiber optic age of today, we have lost something of ourselves. We worry about things we can't control instead of laughing at them like our ancestors:

"That is what they believe, and so they do not worry. They go on and laugh and sing. Things are bound to come out right tomorrow. That is the secret of Negro song and laughter.

So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures, and laughter. High John de Conquer. If the news from overseas reads bad, and the nation inside seems like it is stuck in the Tar Baby, listen hard, and you will hear John de Conquer treading on his singing drum. You will know then, that no matter how bad things look now, it will be worse for those who seek to oppress us."

I got my ears open because the news overseas definitely reads bad and inside the nation we are stuck!

"John de Conquer was a bottom-fish. He was deep. He had the wisdom tooth of the East in his head. Way over there, where the sun rises a day ahead of time, they say that Heaven arms with love and laughter those it does not wish to see destroyed. He who carries his heart in his sword must perish. So says the ultimate law. High John de Conquer knew a lot of things like that. He who wins from within is in the "Be" class. Be here when the ruthless man comes, and be here when he is gone."

I hear him in the headphones this time around:
We gon' be alright
Do you hear me, do you feel me? We gon' be alright
-Kendrick Lamar, "Alright"

I say woosah and alley-oop the chubby doobie to Judah
Child of Jacob, I know my history, I know we are moors
There's a universe in her afro, hold us back though
There's a power in the black folk, well that's forbidden knowledge
-Raury, "Forbidden Knowledge"

[Sarah Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Without committing the cardinal sin of giving the plot away, this is one of the best stories I have ever read. I was introduced to High John de Conquer by Virginia Hamilton in her story collection "The People Could Fly" and in her novel "The Magical Adventures of Pretty Pearl." And I did think I was rather appropriating him to my own storytelling, me being white and using him as a spring board. But here is this incredibly generous writer saying: "We offer you our hope-bringer, High John de Conquer." Her story is steeped in poetry and music. I really wish I could give it away, but I don't do that with fiction, on principle.

[Rita Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

YOUR POWER IS WITHIN YOU

A reminder that a persons real power is within them. The mind is the driving force of your reality. You can do anything, be anyone , and change any situation using the power of the mind.