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Friend,
When thousands of festivalgoers descend on Eatonville, Florida, this month to celebrate the legacy of literary giant Zora Neale Hurston they will, by their presence, honor the community dubbed “The Town That Freedom Built” for its proud history as one of the oldest incorporated Black communities in the U.S.
But while they are enjoying the annual festival that since 1990 has brought live music, literary symposia, theatrical productions and art exhibits to Eatonville, where Hurston grew up, the 135-year-old town will be on the brink of a decision that will determine its future.
On Feb. 7, just days after festival tents are dismantled, the town council could determine the fate of a massive development that, if approved, will reshape and – activists and historians fear – erase the legacy of Eatonville.
At stake is the fate of the Robert Hungerford Preparatory School property, where the leaders of Eatonville established a school in 1897 on about 300 acres. The school was modeled on Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Normal and Industrial Institute, now Tuskegee University, in Alabama. Attracting Black students from up and down the Eastern Seaboard, it was for generations the beating heart of a community where, in an era of Jim Crow and lynching, Black citizens managed to build, govern and maintain their own Black-majority town.
The Southern Poverty Law Center’s Economic Justice Project is working with the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community (P.E.C.). The SPLC is supporting the P.E.C.’s efforts to ensure that the land is used in a way that benefits the community and safeguards its future.
“What we have done has been awakening the roots of Eatonville,” said Julian Johnson, a 29-year-old financial services professional who grew up in the town and returned to live there after college. Johnson said he stumbled on the development proposal when, interested in investing in the town, he attended a planning meeting.
“For too long, the descendants of the people who attended that school, who have roots in Eatonville, have felt voiceless. Now our story is getting out there, and our community is learning what’s going on and how they can be effective in the fight,” Johnson concluded.
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In solidarity,
Your friends at the Southern Poverty Law Center
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