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Friend, Every January for more than a quarter century, the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community (P.E.C.) has called thousands of people together from across the globe to celebrate the extraordinary writer, folklorist and anthropologist Zora Neale Hurston in the phenomenal place that raised her, the town of Eatonville, Florida — the first self-governing, all-Black municipality in the United States. This year, the theme of the Zora! Outdoor Festival of the Arts and Humanities was place-making from a historical perspective. Over the three days of Zora! Festival, our team had countless conversations about Eatonville’s cultural heritage and its ongoing quest for justice through community land reparations. My colleagues and I joined the festivities at the invitation of the P.E.C., our client in a campaign urging the School Board of Orange County to return the historic Hungerford School property to the people of Eatonville. The board is no longer proposing to sell the Hungerford School property to a private developer, a promising step forward that followed on the heels of the Southern Poverty Law Center’s lawsuit against the school board. Filed on behalf of the P.E.C. and Hungerford descendant Bea Hatler, it was recently dismissed as moot in light of the canceled sale.
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