ZORA Festival of the Arts & Humanities | Eatonville, FL

Taking place the last week of January each year in Eatonville, Florida, this multi-day, multi-disciplinary event celebrates the life and work of 20th century writer, folklorist and anthropologist, Zora Neale Hurston; her hometown, Eatonville, the nation’s oldest incorporated African American municipality and the cultural contributions people of African ancestry have made to the United States and the world. Attracting thousands of locals and tourists, ZORA! Festival presents an impressive roster of arts, humanities and cultural programming.

The ZORA! Festival features an impressive roster of arts, humanities and cultural programming, including museum exhibitions, public talks, panel discussions, workshops and concerts. It culminates with a three-day weekend Outdoor Festival of the Arts, featuring children’s programming, such as the ZORA! Literacy Initiative and Children’s Corner; Words and Voices which celebrates the written and spoken word, Center Stage featuring local, regional and national acts, an International Marketplace; a Health Village and much more.

This year’s headlining artist is  Kem Owens (aka KEM), the Nashville-born, Detroit-based singer/songwriter/musician/producer known for his smooth, spiritually oriented R&B style.

See also the Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts.

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Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities
Address: 227 E. Kennedy Blvd, Eatonville, FL 32751 USA
Phone: (407) 647-3307 or (407) 647-4436
Website: www.zoranealehurstonfestival.com.com
Map & Driving Directions

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ABOUT ZORA NEALE HURSTON

Novelist, folklorist, dramatist, and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston was born on January 7, 1891, in Eatonville, Florida, the first incorporated black town in the United States. The dialects, customs, and folklore of the people of Eatonville and of rural Florida informed Hurston’s work throughout her career.

Hurston studied at Morgan Academy, the preparatory school of Morgan College, then at Howard University in Washington, D.C. She won a scholarship to Barnard College where she studied anthropology with Franz Boas and earned her bachelor of arts degree while participating in the flourishing Harlem Renaissance. She collected folklore and made recordings in Florida and other areas of the South in the late 1920s. During the Depression, she helped Alan Lomax, the son of pioneer folksong collector John Avery Lomax, document the folk music of Georgia, Florida, and the Bahamas. Later, she worked with the Federal Writer’s Project interviewing Floridians about their lives and culture and recording and collecting the diverse folk songs of her native state—a project she described as “an opportunity to observe the wombs of folk culture still heavy with life.”

Her ethnographic work also took her beyond the United States. She traveled the Caribbean— to Haiti and Jamaica to study folklore and customs—and to Honduras to study black communities. Hurston assembled and published the information she gathered on Haitian and Jamaican voodoo in her book Tell My Horse (1938). Even though her pursuits led her many places, she always returned to Florida. She invoked the spirit and voice of her people by seamlessly weaving the songs, stories, and other information she collected in her studies into her fiction.

Zora Neale Hurston’s wide-ranging interests as well as economic need led her to take an astounding variety of positions. She had short tenures as a manicurist, a librarian, a dramatic coach with the WPA Federal Theatre Project, a story consultant at Paramount Pictures, a maid, and a teacher.

In 1959, after suffering a stroke, Hurston was forced to enter a welfare home where she died in 1960. She was buried in an unmarked grave and her work languished in relative obscurity until 1975, when Alice Walker published the article “In Search of Zora Neale Hurston” in Ms. magazine. In the article, Walker recounts her experiences of searching for, finding, and marking Hurston’s grave.

Additional Information:

• Zora Neale Horton Official Website
• Town of Eatonville, Official Website
• Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities