When Benny Russell was told that that the world wasn't ready to hear that one of the Incredible Tales writers was a Negro, he mentioned Hurston, along with Langston Hughes and Richard Wright, as examples of such writers. (DS9: "Far Beyond the Stars") According to the Star Trek Encyclopedia (4th ed., vol. 1, p. 352) , the birth and death years of Zora Neale Hurston were 1903 and 1960, respectively. She was associated with the Harlem Renaissance, which celebrated African-American culture in the voice of the rural South.