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Friend,
It may be too soon to call what is happening in the town of Eatonville, Florida, these days a renaissance. But six months after the proud hamlet was imperiled by a development proposal that would have paved over its legacy, it is fair to say that one of the oldest incorporated Black communities in the U.S. has at least a chance at rebirth.
After residents packed town meetings, picketed and took the story of the threat to the childhood home of Zora Neale Hurston – the literary giant known as the Queen of the Harlem Renaissance – to a national audience, the proposal was tabled. Town leaders who had originally acceded to the plan by outside investors to wipe out the beating heart of this community and replace it with high-end homes, shops and concrete have pushed back. And activists who feared that the town founded, governed and maintained by a Black majority was on the brink of extinction are newly emboldened to build on that history and reshape Eatonville’s future.
In the words of Hurston, the most famous resident of “the town that freedom built,” the people of Eatonville have, through education, organization and determination, chosen to “grab the broom of anger and drive off the beast of fear.”
That drive has been a rapid ride over the past few months – culminating for now in an extraordinary, if provisional, advancement for residents fighting fiercely to wrest the future of their town from the grasp of outsiders who they say would erase Black history for profit.
Eatonville holds a significant place in U.S. history for its self-rule during segregation that has continued to this day, its famed private school that educated generations of Black students, and the proud welcome its performance venue, Club Eaton, offered to Black musical greats including B.B. King, Cab Calloway and James Brown when most music halls in the South were largely closed to them.
“Clearly, this is a matter of economic justice. While this is by no means over, what I see is the town taking the first steps,” said N.Y. Nathiri, who as executive director of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community (P.E.C.) has since 1987 waged a sometimes lonely fight to save and honor the town’s unique history. “At the same time, I think the interests who still control this land are beginning to understand the gravity of the situation.”
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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