Although she was born in Alabama in 1891, Zora Neale Hurston considered the all-Black town of Eatonville, Florida—a rural community that was the first incorporated Black township in the nation—to be her birthplace.
Compared to most Black people living in the South in that era, Zora was fortunate to be steeped in a culturally affirming setting where she was never indoctrinated in inferiority. In fact, evidence of Black excellence and achievement surrounded her.
Zora’ s childhood in Eatonville was idyllic, growing up in an 8-bedroom house on 5 acres of land. A spirted girl, she often clashed with her preacher father, but was encouraged by her mother to “jump for de sun.”
Tragically, at just 13 years old, Zora was forced to grow up when her mother passed away in 1904. Her father quickly remarried to a much-younger woman. Zora did not get along with her and nearly killed her in a fistfight. From then on, Zora began looking to make her own way in this world.
As its sole Black student, Zora graduated from Barnard College in 1928 with a degree in anthropology. When she arrived in New York City in 1925, the Harlem Renaissance was at its peak, and she soon became one of the writers at its center. She completed her masterwork, “Their Eyes Were Watching God” in 1937.
A folklorist, she also studied and published works about the culture and spirituality of Black people in the US and the Caribbean, and covered the infamous murder Ruby McCollum, the first Black woman to testify against a white man for sexual abuse.
Tragically, Zora’s work faded into obscurity for a number of cultural and political reasons. When she died in 1960, aged just 68, she was penniless and er neighbors could not collect enough money to bury her with a headstone.
For years, one of the greatest black writers of all time was buried in an unmarked grave until 1971, when a young author named Alice Walker was inspired to find the grave.
Braving the snake-infested cemetery, she was able to locate the Zora’s final resting, long overgrown with yellowed weeds, and purchased a headstone with the fitting epitaph, “ZORA NEALE HURSTON—A GENIUS OF THE SOUTH.”
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