By Norman Cain, May 1, 2019 — This year, I was visiting my daughter and her family in Orlando, Florida. During the course of my visit, my daughter mentioned that the annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival was held in Eatonville, Florida, the birthplace of Zora who was born in the twenties. Eatonville had been an all-black town, and which was located 10 miles from Orlando. Zora was an anthropologist, journalist, novelist, and during 2017, I began to learn more about Zora through a year-long celebration of her life by Drexel University Community and Student based writer community. There were panel discussions, writers workshops, discussions and many other activities devoted to her legacy.
In spite of Zora’s [influence], she died penniless and forgotten until her [legacy] was resurrected throughout the years. I read several of her books, among them Mules and Men. Additionally, I read accounts about her run-ins with Afro-American renowned writers of the 30s and 40s. She was not appreciated because of her subject matter, “The Common Negro,” and because she was an outspoken woman, a rarity during the period that she wrote and lived. [She was also a] producer of Caribbean dance concerts, and a [had a] few other endeavors. I first encountered Zora in 1975 in the Main Branch Library in Atlanta, Georgia where I read her acclaimed novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, a novel that takes place in the Eatonville, Florida area and which vividly describes a storm that is reminiscent of the latest storm that plagued the Florida coast.
Unfortunately, because I got the dates mixed up, I was not able to attend the festival this year, [but I] will be there next year.