The Voice of Eatonville

In 1987, the government in Orange County, Florida proposed widening Kennedy Boulevard in Eatonville from two lanes to five to provide a shortcut for commuters traveling to nearby Orlando. The spirit of a local author, who died nearly thirty years prior to their proposition, and an organization she inspired, stopped them. Zora Neale Hurston became the cause celeb for keeping Kennedy Boulevard a two-lane highway, thus, preserving Eatonville, a tiny town less than ten miles north of Orlando, which would have disappeared with the addition of three extra lanes. With the formation of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. and its emphasis on her legacy, Hurston's hometown won the battle against the Orange County government. Kennedy Boulevard remained a two-lane street, where locals still gather to watch the cars go by and wonder about where the passengers inside are headed. Eatonville not only remained intact but also became a site for Hurston scholars and fans alike to pay homage to the once-forgotten author.

The first African-American incorporated community in the United States, Eatonville is the backdrop for much of Hurston's work. Her expression of her rather harmonious and magical experience there has garnered much criticism from strong black voices, like that of Native Son author Richard Wright, who argued that Hurston ignored political issues in her writing. These criticisms were especially significant because race relations outside of Eatonville were not as peaceful. According to data reported by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, for example, 79.8 blacks per every 100,000 were lynched in Florida between 1882 -1930.

Others have appreciated her unique point of view. Since the revival of interest in her, catalyzed by Alice Walker's 1973 discovery of her work and her final resting place, she has become a heroine for both Eatonville and the neighboring Fort Pierce, where she lived out her final years. She is celebrated as an educator, a voice for minorities, a muse for writers, a cultural icon, a tourist attraction, and a reason for a field trip. As evidenced by the triumph over the Orange County government's proposal in 1987, she is also a posthumous champion for the place where she was raised, which, by most accounts, hasn't changed much in the past one hundred years.

This paper explores the Eatonville that was, the Eatonville seen through Hurston's eyes as she described in her writings, and the Eatonville that currently is, according to sources who live there, with a focus on Hurston's perception of race issues. The purpose of this study is to understand not only her impact on the South-Florida community, but also to investigate the influences that inspired her. This work also includes a tour of Fort Pierce and the recently-opened Zora Neale Hurston Branch Library, which local tourism officials hope will also become a stopping point for Hurston-enthusiasts. Perhaps following Hurston's dust tracks will help further appreciation and understanding of the author and her work.
Eatonville Past

In Dust Tracks on a Road, Hurston described Eatonville, as "what you might call hitting a straight lick with a crooked stick. The town was not in the original plan. It is a by-product of something else '(1). That something else, as Hurston told it, was the vision of three wealthy, white Civil War veterans who settled on the northern end of Lake Maitland and started an upscale community on its banks after the war's end. Those three men were Louis F. Lawrence, E.L. Hungerford and Captain Josiah Eaton, all soldiers in the Union Army. When their reports of Florida's warm climate spread northward, their friends and relatives joined them, eventually forming the town of Maitland. These affluent white settlers treated the African-American communities they encountered with far more respect than slave-owners had in the past (Lambert, 2). They hired many African-Americans to clear land, build houses and plant citrus groves. By 1884, Maitland became an incorporated town, with both white and African-American elected officials. Joe Clarke, was once described as "a 200-pould, dark complexioned Georgia Negro" for example, became the town marshal (Boyd 21).

The neighboring Eatonville was a spin-off of Maitland, located less than two miles away. The town was envisioned in 1883 by Clarke and Allen Ricket, who sought to build an all African-American community. As Hurston biographer Valerie Boyd explained, the official records of the period do not indicate why these black settlers wanted to break away from Maitland, which she called an "economically stable and racially harmonious town" (21). After extensive research, Boyd speculated that race relations had become unstable or that the black communities had become suspicious that their white neighbors might eventually try to oppress their efforts. She aptly concluded that enterprising men like Clarke "clearly wanted to give a big voice not for a one year term, but for a lifetime. Given the realities of racism, an all-black town was more likely to provide them with a consistent and level playing field for their dreams" (21). Eatonville's official Web site supports Boyd's claim. Authors of the site state that African-Americans in Maitland were domestic servants who were "building shanties and doing their wash in Lake Lily (St. John's Hole), which was not conducive to the establishment of an upscale town."

Whatever his reasoning for breaking away from Maitland, Clarke purchased twelve acres of land from Lewis Lawrence, a New York philanthropist who'd previously donated ten acres for the construction of an African Methodist Church. This sale to Clarke came after several failed attempts by other black pioneers, according to Eatonville's Web site, which states that white landowners would not or could not sell African-Americans enough land to start their own community. The twelve acres Clarke was able to purchase from Lawrence became Eatonville's foundation. Other black leaders followed suit, and coupled with Clarke's acquisitions, they all bought a total of one hundred acres from Eaton and Lawrence. Clarke then resold the 44-by-100 plots of land to black settlers for $35 to $50 a piece (Eyman 1D). By 1887, Eatonville was born.

Three years later, John Hurston and his family moved to town. Zora Neale Hurston's 1934 novel, Jonah's Gourd Vine tells the story of John Hurston's encounter with a fellow traveler and his ensuing decision to settle in Eatonville:

"You mean uh whole town uh nothin' but colored folks?" (John) asked his friend. "Who bosses it, den?"

'Dey bosses it deyself."

"You mean dey runnin' de town 'thout de white folks?"

"Sho is. Eben got a mayor and corporation."

"Ah sho wants tuh see dat sight�" (Boyd 19).

Hurston and his wife, Lucy, carrying only a feather bed, a tin trunk and some hand-sewn quilts, spent their first night in town in a small cabin, with their children sleeping on burlap bags filled with Spanish moss. He soon took a job as a carpenter, earning him enough money pay a visit to Joe Clarke's grocery store, where he bought five acres of land from Clarke. He then built the family's eight-room house, complete with chinaberry trees in the front yard. Lucy Hurston worked as a seamstress. The family attended Macedonia Baptist Church and the older children frequented Hungerford School, one of the only Negro schools in the state (Boyd 21-25).

John Hurston's second daughter, Zora Neale, was born in 1891, right before their move to Florida. Hurston seemingly disregarded this autobiographical fact throughout her life and work, often listing Eatonville as her birthplace. Her entrance into the world signaled the beginning of the life of a woman who would go on to both place the town on an international stage and to give it a voice. It was in Eatonville that she learned the folk wisdom that resonates throughout her writing, particularly the idea that "wherever you go, you must never forget your way home" (Boyd 25). She also experienced an environment where achievement was judged truly by character and hard work, not race. For that reason, Hurston came to reject the notion of "race achievement," writing, "Races have never done anything. What seems race achievement is the work of individuals, all clumps of people turn out to be individuals on close inspection." (Boyd 25). That opinion would afford her a unique perspective in her writing, and one that would lead to much controversy.

Hurston stayed in Eatonville until 1917, when she moved to Baltimore to attend Morgan Academy. She did return to Florida several times throughout her career, moving back to Eatonville in 1932 for a brief period and then residing in various locations throughout the state. She moved back to New York to study anthropology at Columbia University in 1934. She retuned to Florida again from 1938 to 1939, when she joined the Federal Writers Project and married her second husband, Albert Price III. She moved permanently back to the Sunshine State in 1950, living first in Rivo Island, where she worked as a maid in a hotel, and later in Belle Glade. She died in St. Lucie County Welfare Home in Fort Pierce, 125 miles south of Eatonville, in 1960.
Eatonville Through Hurston's Eyes

Hurston once wrote, "I've got the map of Florida on my tongue" (Famous Floridians). While other locales were significant in Hurston's life, it is clear that none were as important to her writing and her creativity as that of Eatonville. Whether she was living in Manhattan or Haiti, her mind seemed to be on her home and the experiences there that formed who she was, both as a person and as an artist. Her love for Florida is particularly evident in her series of articles, "The Eatonville Anthology" 1926), and in her novels Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937) and Dust Tracks on a Road (1942).

Contrary to other contemporary novels about the South, Hurston's books described a place where she and her fictional characters could grow freely, far from the oppressive shadow of bigotry, " a controversial viewpoint of a South tainted by strained race relations and violence against blacks. The brutal torture of slaves, viscerally explained in novels like Toni Morrison's Beloved (1987) and Charles Johnson's Middle Passage (1998) and the insurmountable odds other protagonists like Bigger Thomas in Native Son (1940) and Lutie Johnson in The Street (1946) had to overcome, are noticeably absent from Hurston's work. Her accounts of growing up are full of magic and imagination, including her dream to chase the horizon or to own a black horse. Eatonville was simply the "city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three hundred brown skins, three hundred good swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools and no jail house," though African Americans in other Florida communities, like Jacksonville and St. Augustine, were still dealing with the ramifications of racial inequality (Boyd 22).

Take The Eatonville Anthology, for instance. Published in the fall of 1926 in The Messenger, the articles are a collage of stories about Eatonville's citizens, told as though Hurston was relaying them at a dinner table or at a party. Funny and outlandish, the short tales recount the antics of people like the toothless wife of Jim Merchant, who suffered periodical fits until her mother cured her by pouring turpentine in her eye; Tippy, the invincible dog who sucked eggs, stole meat and survived all attempts Eatonville residents made on his life; and silent Sister Caline Potts, who "did all her laughing down inside" (69). Store owner Joe Clarke and his wife also make an appearance in the articles. The victim of frequent melon thefts, Hurston described Clarke as tired. "It is hard work being mayor, postmaster, storekeeper and everything" (62). Perhaps exaggerated versions of the Eatonville townspeople, the anthology reveals the home that Hurston remembered, full of fantasy. The only hint at intolerance appeared in the story of Becky Moore. The mother of eleven children of all colors and sizes, Moore was never married (60). Hurston claimed Moore's status as an unwed mother was not her fault, simply because the fathers of her children never proposed to her. The other citizens of Eatonville, however, saw Moore differently. They refused to let their own children anywhere near hers because they feared that "it was catching"(61).

Their Eyes Were Watching God is another example of Hurston's fantastical view of Eatonville and her view of race relations. Janie Killicks Starks, the novel's protagonist, roamed about the state, finding and leaving love, surviving hurricanes, and searching for her own identity without a care other than for her own personal growth. She resided in Eatonville for a good portion of the novel, having escaped from the domestic life she lived with her first husband, Logan Killicks.
Upon Janie's return to Eatonville at the end of the story, Hurston exclaimed: "Here was peace. She pulled in the horizon like a great fish net. Pulled it from the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder. So much life in its meshes! She called her soul to come and see" (193). It could be argued that this was not only the fictional Janie's resolution, but Hurston's, too, especially considering the folk wisdom she relied on and that, not long after the book's publication, she, returned to Florida for several years. By having Janie return to Eatonville, it's as if Hurston has let her readers in on the secret that, she, too, drew her strength from her hometown, regardless of the race problems that existed outside of it.

An interesting paradox to note is that Janie's skin tone was almost white, questioning whether her identity as an African-American actually could have hindered her if, at first glance, she seemed Caucasian. Her grandmother, Nanny Crawford, on the other hand, grew up as a slave and considered her African-American heritage a burden. Perhaps Hurston meant her to represent the oppressive side of Florida not explored in the novel.

Jody Starks, Janie's second husband who was modeled after the real Joe Clarke, arguably founded the fictionalized Eatonville as a black utopia. He was a shrewd businessman who objectified Janie and prevented her from asserting her own voice. He had high hopes for Eatonville, as he explained at a meeting of the newly-formed community:

Ah means tuh put mah hands tuh plow heah, and strain every nerve tah make dis our

town de metropolis uh de state. So maybe Ah better tell uyh in case you don't know dat if

we expect tuh move on, us got tuh incorporate lak every other town (42-43).

It is possible that Starks's vision of Eatonville was based on what he had seen in other white communities. Furthermore, he married a woman whose skin was much closer to white than it was black. Taking these notions into consideration, it could be argued that Hurston was trying to exemplify the pitfalls of one race trying too hard to be like another instead of just accepting themselves. Perhaps that is why their marriage failed.

Janie's third husband, Tea Cake, was her first true love. He embodied the Eatonville folklore that so greatly influenced Hurston's work. He wore overalls, gambled, reveled in fun, and, most importantly, allowed Janie to be herself. If Joe Starks's main shortcoming was that he worked to hard to emulate white society, then Tea Cake's acceptance of himself as an African- American rendered his life and relationship with Janie a triumphant success. In my opinion, even though Joe Starks built Eatonville, Tea Cake represented the spirit of the town that Hurston carried with her throughout her life.

Her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road also exemplifies the Eatonville Hurston knew, full of folk wisdom and free of rigid color lines and exposes the veins that run through the town straight to Hurston's heart. The story of her ascension from poverty to her successes as an artist and intellectual, Dust Tracks offers a perspective of Hurston's child-like imagination, where attention to detail is key. Even her telling of the founding of the town has a touch of magic to it: "White Maitland and Negro Eatonville have lived side by side for fifty-five years without a single instance of enmity. The spirit of the founders has reached beyond the grave" (6). It's hard to imagine Bigger Thomas or Lutie Johnson describing their homes in such a way, given the odds they faced. Often compared to a sermon, the sixteen-chapter novel not only covers the events in her life but also her perceptions of love, religion and education.

While such renowned writers as Henry Louis Gates, Jr., Mary Helen Washington and Sterling Brown celebrated Hurston, critics also scorned her for not addressing race issues head-on in her work. As reviewer Anna Bontemps wrote of Dust Tracks in the New York Herald Tribune in 1972: "Miss Hurston deals very simply with the more serious aspects of Negro Life in America; she ignores them" (Boyd, 359). Likewise, Richard Wright dismissed Their Eyes Were Watching God as unserious fiction:

Miss Hurston can write her that characters eat and laugh and cry and work and kill; they
swing like a pendulum eternally in that safe and narrow orbit in which American like to
see the Negro live: between laughter and tears. The sensory sweep of her novel carries
no theme, no message, no thought (Boyd, 306).

Hurston's political views also brought detractors. She opposed the Supreme Court's Brown v. the Board of Education decision in 1954, maintaining her favor of segregated schools. According to Andrew Delbanco, Hurston perceived integration as a means of embarrassing blacks. She also blurted out opinions that she later retracted but that tarnished her reputation nonetheless. She told a reporter in 1943, for example, that "the Jim Crow System works," a comment which drew harsh responses from black leaders like Roy Wilkins (106).

Hurston did not take her critic's words to heart, holding to her resolve not to allow racism or oppression to control her and not following the lead of her contemporaries, like Wright, in discussing them explicitly in her work (Boyd 359). In a passage that was cut from Dust Tracks, she explained:
I know there is race prejudice, not only in America, but also wherever two races meet

together in numbers. I have met it in the flesh, but I do not give it heart room because it

seems to me to be the last refuge of the weak (Boyd 359-60).

Boyd attributes this stance to Hurston's upbringing in Eatonville, where racism was an outside force that did not confine her. Her unique experience positioned her to perform a type of experiment, Boyd claimed, one in which black people behaved as if they were not affected by race. Boyd reasoned that Hurston's experiment was a success, as evidenced in Dust Tracks, where Hurston claimed: "have no race prejudice of any kind" (360).

Pierre A. Walker expressed a complementing view in his essay, "Zora Neale Hurston and the Post-Modern Self in Dust Tracks on a Road," arguing that the inconsistencies Hurston is criticized for " including her stance (or lack therof) on racial politics" actually bring her work closer to the truth. He explained that these inconsistencies create a vibrant, complex picture which cannot be reduced into terms of black and white, which, he argues is an accurate description of the author herself. Perhaps, as Boyd suggested, Hurston's experience in Eatonville helped her to view the world, not in shades, but through this patchwork of colors because she was not deeply scarred by the oppressive sting of racism during her youth.

The results of Hurston's "experiment" are significant in that she could have learned the opposite lesson from her youth in Eatonville. Concentration of one racial, ethnic, social, financial, etc. group can often lead to mass feelings of supremacy, resulting in contempt for the "other." Consider Hurston's experience at the University of North Carolina in 1939, for example. Some students at the then all-white school did not receive her with the courtesy she deserved. One student in particular called her a "nigger" as she drove onto campus (Boyd 328). It could be argued that the offending student felt justified in insulting Hurston because he was constantly around students with the same skin color as him. Though this is no excuse for his behavior, it is both a potential explanation for it and a compliment to Hurston's character that, even though she grew up in an all-black town, she did not display the supremacist attitude that the UNC student did.

It is also worth noting that in 2004, locals seem to agree with Hurston's view of her hometown, evidenced by their outpouring celebration of her life in the forms of landmarks and festivals. According to a recent phone interview with John Ward, Cultural Affairs Officer in Fort Pierce, the Eatonville that Hurston described was the Eatonville that existed in the minds of South Floridians. "Eatonville was a cradle of black society that was not affected by the outside world," he said. "Zora grew up in an insular society that had very little contact with whites. She had an accurate view of Eatonville, but it was by far and away a special community."

Eatonville Present
If Hurston could return to Eatonville today, she would find that the one-square mile town she left hasn't grown much since her time, according to most accounts. The weather in remains between 60 and 90 degrees Fahrenheit year-round and most days are sunny (City-data). It is also still predominantly black. The 2000 U.S. Census reported that of 2,432 Eatonville residents, 2,172 identified themselves as African-American or black, representing 83.9 percent of the total population. That figure is significantly higher than state averages. The town has three schools, two public and one private. All restaurants, bars, taverns and nightclubs are listed in nearby Maitland, including one McDonald's, three Asian locales and 13 cafes. There are no movie theatres, video rental stores or sports recreation clubs within Eatonville proper. There aren't even any churches within the town's limits (Yellow Pages). As one reporter for the Minneapolis Star Tribune wrote in 1997:

Eatonville isn't much to look at except during festival time. But if you don't want to

delay seeing Hurston's girlhood hometown, it's best to fold the visit into a trip to the

Orlando, Fla./Disney World area. Unless you have family in Eatonville, you might not

find a place to sleep in the town (6G).

There are, however, some changes that would be significant to Hurston. Joe Clarke's grocery store is no longer there, having been replaced by two smaller stores. Old Cemetery, the resting place of Clarke and John Hurston, has been covered by a housing development. John Hurston's Macedonia Missonary Baptist Church has been torn down and moved to another location (Long 1). Yet, Hurston's legacy still seems to be the main attraction. Her house still stands, now a landmark. A library bearing her name opened on January 31, 2004. Locals sit and watch the traffic go by on Kennedy Boulevard, which, thanks to her spirit, is still a modest highway. They discuss Hurston as though she is still a living presence in the community, some even calling her by her first name.

N.Y. Nathiri's grandmother lived across the lake from Hurston. The founder of The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.) and the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities, Nathiri made it her mission to celebrate Hurston's memory. In an interview with The Florida Times Union in 1996, she explained why Hurston is so important to residents:

The historicity of Eatonville, the name of Zora Neale Hurston, was not known and

appreciated in our own home county. That's why we had to take on the role of

aggressively preserving for future generations the community culture that Eatonville

represented.

Because of the experience of the Hurston festival, we can say with credibility what we

were saying all along " the economic future of Eatonville is wrapped up in the history of

this community. It brings tens of thousands of people at one time as well as people

coming throughout the year to learn about what Eatonville represents. Zora's literature

and folklore collecting, that's our treasure (H1).

The festival, first organized in 1988, is a four-day event complete with poetry readings, storytelling, street vendors, music and keynote speeches by personalities like Maya Angelou, Amiri Baraka, Ntozake Shange, Danny Glover and Cicely Tyson. According to Nathiri, as quoted by the Tampa Tribune, the festival has three aims: to celebrate the life and work of Hurston, to honor the historical significance of Eatonville and to recognize the cultural contributions of people of African descent (Lake 3). Each year, the activities focus on a different theme, from poetry to dance. In January 2004, the festival featured an exposition of 1970s artists, who were inspired by the continuing Civil Rights Movement. The works of Gordon Parks, the creator of Shaft, and Elizabeth Catlett, took center stage at the event, which attracted more than 100,000 visitors (Parker, 1).

Besides hosting the festival, P.E.C. also works year-round to economically revitalize Eatonville. The association formed in 1987 in response to Orange County's proposal to widen Kennedy Boulevard. To combat the proposition, the members initiated a five-year lawsuit to prevent the expansion, arguing that increasing the boulevard from two lanes to five would swallow both Eatonville and its historical significance. Once assimilated, the association made its mission not just to prevent the expansion of the boulevard but also to preserve the community and its legacy (Weightman 1). P.E.C.'s overall goal, which the festival is a large part of, is to "develop historic Eatonville into one of America's premier heritage communities"(Nathiri, 8). Since its inception, the association has taken credit for the development of a phenomenon within cultural tourism dubbed "heritage tourism," which Nathiri claims is integral to the equation "Preservation = $$$" (8). That preservation, she argues, has been a challenge for Eatonville, though the town has a district on the National Register of Historic Places, a preservation board and the Eatonville Heritage Trail, it does not have any historically significant buildings that would argue for its eligibility as an important community in American history. Saving Eatonville for future generations is based, rather, on the spirit of Hurston. Clearly, the author's memory has sustained it.

Dust Tracks to Fort Pierce
Located 125 miles south of Eatonville, 14.7 square-mile Fort Pierce is beached on the Atlantic Ocean. It's a city of eight zip codes, fifteen schools, more than twenty hotels, a dozen movie theatres and hundreds of restaurants (City-data). It is a metropolis compared to Eatonville. It's also more racially diverse. Of its nearly 38,000 residents, 15.4 percent listed themselves as African-American or black in the 2000 U.S. Census.

Hurston moved to Fort Pierce in the late 1950s, where she wrote a column on "Hoodoo and Black Magic" for the Fort Pierce Chronicle and worked as a substitute teacher at Lincoln Park Academy. She suffered a stroke in 1959 and was forced to move to the St. Lucie County Welfare Home. She died there on January 28, 1960 and was buried in an unmarked grave. If the town didn't notice her then, however, the citizens certainly take stock in her legacy now.

According to John Ward, Hurston is a local hero. Often calling her "Zora," Ward explained that when the famed author first moved to the area, she encountered both fans and detractors, many of whom were envious of her celebrity. At times, the jealous few described her as "too big for her britches."

"When she died, she was much loved in the community," Ward said, claiming that many people came to her funeral and that, contrary to popular belief, the current residents have "a pretty good idea of where she was buried," short of performing an excision of the grave and DNA testing. After Hurston's death, however, she faded into obscurity in Fort Pierce, just as she did in the literary world.

In 2001, a local Hurston scholar wrote a grant to obtain funds to create landmarks and celebrations for the famed author. That grant's provisions have resulted in the construction of the Zora Neale Hurston Branch Library and the award-winning Dust Tracks Heritage Trail. Tourists and hordes of school groups visit the library and the trail, Ward said, often leaving notes and tokens of remembrance on Hurston's grave. Many of the visitors, especially children, admire Hurston for her creativity and the odds she had to overcome to express it.

Eatonville residents, Ward added, are also very jealous of Hurston's legacy and not readily willing to share what he called "their patron saint" with another city. Fort Pierce, he argued, is also an important destination in Hurston's life and should, thus be so for tourists as well: "People should go to Eatonville to see what they have and then come here," Ward said.

Regardless of what animosity exists between the two locations, the Zora Neale Hurston Branch Library and the Dust Tracks Heritage Trail serve as further evidence of Hurston's impact on South Florida. In 2003, the library hosted a celebration of the U.S. postage stamp depicting the author's image. The "Zora Neale Hurston Festival" included local guest speakers, music and a free shuttle to Hurston's grave site and home. The 2004 festival was postponed due to the effects of Hurricane Jeanne, but scheduled guests included Valerie Boyd and other Hurston scholars.

The Dust Tracks Heritage Trail opened in March 2004. Three kiosks and eight markers indicate the locations that were significant in Hurston's life in Ft. Pierce, including her home, Lincoln Academy (where she worked as a substitute teacher) and the studio of artist "Beanie" Backus, who Hurston befriended. A virtual tour of the trail is available online, providing the same information posted on the markers. While some stops seem worthwhile and interesting, others don't quite make sense. The Ft. Pierce Police Substation (Kisok 2) is included, for example, but the explanation for its appearance on the trail does not indicate why it was significant in Hurston's life. Despite whatever shortcomings the library and trail may have, they do serve as important reminders of a unique and significant Florida voice.

The Eatonville that was and Hurston's Eatonville don't seem to be so different from each other. How each individual views the town depends solely on their own personal make-up; just like emotions, places are subjective to the person who experiences them. The fact that Eatonville still exists, however, seems to be largely attributable to Hurston's perspective and the history she has afforded her hometown. Understanding her deep love for Eatonville and the unique childhood she had there because of it's position as an all African-American town make reading her work that much more enjoyable and real, even if much of it is fictionalized.
Her perception of race relations, or rather, her choice not to address them, perhaps appeared before its time. While Wright and others felt that illustrating racial injustice in their work was an effective means of raising awareness and pushing for social change, maybe Hurston meant to lead by example. Her Eatonville seems to be a place where others are judged in the way Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. hoped that individuals would be perceived, on the basis of character content, not skin color. Maybe, on the other hand, Hurston simply didn't want to be preoccupied with race issues.

The fact that Eatonville hasn't changed much, and that municipalities like Fort Pierce want to share in its successes, illustrates how far the civil rights movement has come since Hurston��"šï¿½ï¿½"žï¿½s lifetime. Not only are she and her hometown recognized for her achievements, they are now pillars of the African-American literary community, and, perhaps, the literary world as a whole. Thanks to her legacy, Kennedy Boulevard is still two lanes wide and Eatonville is still ripe with her spirit.

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