American woman to graduate from the HOWARD
UNIVERSITYLaw School.
Moryck, who graduated from Wellesley Col-
lege in 1916, married Lucius Lee Jordan one year
later. Following her marriage, she began working
in the Newark Bureau of Associated Charities.
By 1925 she was teaching in WASHINGTON,
D.C., at the Armstrong Technical High School.
While there, she collaborated with playwright
and Howard University graduate MAY MILLER
SULLIVAN.
She married again in 1930. Her second hus-
band, Robert Francke, was an attorney and mem-
ber of the Haitian legation in Paris. The couple
had one child, Betty Osborne.
Moryck, an avid reader who had long cher-
ished the idea of writing, made an impressive
debut in OPPORTUNITY,the magazine edited by
CHARLESS. JOHNSONand affiliated with the NA-
TIONALURBANLEAGUE. In 1925 she won second
prize for “A Man I Know,” an essay evaluated by
judges BENJAMINBRAWLEY,VANWYCKBROOKS,
and Henry Goddard Leach. She earned a second-
place honorable mention in the 1926–27 Oppor-
tunity contest for her essay “When A Negro
Sings.” In 1927 she placed second, behind
MARITABONNER, in the Literary Art and Expres-
sion Division of the contest sponsored by THE
CRISIS, the journal of the NATIONALASSOCIA-
TION FOR THEADVANCEMENT OFCOLOREDPEO-
PLE (NAACP) that was edited by W. E. B.
DUBOIS. Moryck was recognized for three short
stories, “Old Days and New,” “Days,” and “Her
Little Brother.” Her essay “I, Too, Have Lived in
Washington,” published in the August 1927 issue
of Opportunity,was a glowing testimonial of her
experiences in Washington, D.C., and offered a
direct contrast to the less favorable depictions of
the city published by LANGSTONHUGHESin the
same issue.
Moryck’s work reflected her long-standing
interest in social hierarchies, racial identity, and
culture. Before her death from pneumonia in
1949, Moryck was rumored to have completed a
novel. It was unpublished, however. She was an
energetic presence in New York and in Washing-
ton, D.C. A member of the NAACP, she also par-
ticipated in the NATIONALCOUNCIL OFNEGRO
WOMEN.
Bibliography
Brown, Hallie Quinn, comp. Homespun Heroines and
Other Women of Distinction.1926, reprint, New
York: Oxford University Press, 1988.Moses, Man of the MountainZora Neale
Hurston(1939)
The second of three novels that ZORA NEALE
HURSTONpublished during the Harlem Renais-
sance. Her last novel, Seraph on the Sewanee,ap-
peared in 1948. Published by the PHILADELPHIA
company J. B. LIPPINCOTT, the novel was a racial-
ized version of the Old Testament story of Moses
and the Israelites. Hurston used dialect, colloquial
phrases, folk humor, and elements of black reli-
gious thought in her novel about emancipation
from bondage, caste, and racial prejudice, and
faith. Her short story “THEFIRE AND THECLOUD,”
published in 1934 in CHALLENGE,the ambitious
but short-lived journal that DOROTHYWESTes-
tablished, was a precursor to the novel. Five years
later—after having worked on other projects, trav-
eled in HAITI, and gained employment with the
Florida Federal Writers’ Project—Hurston finally
returned to her hometown of EATONVILLE, Florida,
and completed the novel.
Moses, Man of the Mountainoffers stirring cri-
tiques of oppression, victimization, and assimila-
tion. Hurston’s portraits of a community besieged
by Pharaoh and his soldiers are powerful and stark.
Hurston offers a pointed commentary on the poli-
tics and potential revolutionary dimensions of re-
production and childbirth. In her foreword to the
work, Hurston underscores the universal familiar-
ity with Moses, a figure at the heart of legends in
such diverse regions as Asia, the Near East, Eu-
rope, Africa, and the West Indies. She successfully
contextualizes the Christian concept of Moses by
narrating first in staccato fashion and including
traditional, simplistic details such as “Moses was an
old man with a beard” and “He died on Mount
Nebo and the angels buried him there.” Drawing
on her own anthropological expertise, she reminds
readers of his centrality in diverse cultures, includ-
ing that of Haiti. There, states Hurston, “the high-
est god in the Haitian pantheon is Damballa
Ouedo Ouedo Tocan Freda Dahomey and he is
identified as Moses, the serpent god.” She goes on,352 Moses, Man of the Mountain