Speaking Volumes | For Black History Month, revisit the work of Zora Neale Hurston

This February, the focus of Black History month is on the Black family. Specifically, this theme will be focusing on the representation, identity, and diversity of the Black family throughout history. Numerous debates have emerged over how to define the Black family and what this definition means for the lives of Black Americans. Additionally, the extensive spread of the Black community across states and nations throughout history provides a vast tapestry for exploring Black families in both the past and the present. To celebrate the rich variety within Black families and their representation and culture, Manatee Libraries is highlighting the work of one of the most significant Black authors in American history, Zora Neale Hurston.

Hurston was born on Jan. 7, 1891 and died January 28, 1960. While she was originally born in Alabama, her family moved to the all-Black town of Eatonville, in Orange County, Fla.. in 1894. Her work, both fiction and nonfiction, focuses on the experiences and struggles of the Black community as well as her own struggles as an African American woman. In 1925, Hurston received a scholarship to attend Barnard College, a women’s college in New York. Here she began working towards her bachelor’s degree in anthropology, under the guidance of anthropologist Franz Boas of Columbia University. Hurston spent her time traveling across Florida, the American South, and the Caribbean collecting stories, learning cultural traditions, and immersing herself in Black communities, sometimes on behalf of the Federal Writer’s Project.

Much of her work is set in Florida, in her home town of Eatonville, as well as other locations such as Polk County and the Everglades. During her lifetime, her work did not gain the notoriety and recognition it has today, earning her very little, although she did find a patron in white philanthropist Charlotte Osgood Mason. To learn more about her life, try reading “Dust Tracks on a Road: An Autobiography” written in 1942 or “Zora Neale Hurston: A Literary Biography” written by Robert Hemenway in 1977.

Celebrate Black History Month and Zora Neale Hurston at the library by checking out “Mules and Men”, originally published in 1935. This collection of stories reflects Hurston’s research and time spent in Central Florida and New Orleans. The stories explore many aspects of black culture and traditions, including black life, customs, songs, and superstitions.

Also available at the library is “Their Eyes Were Watching God”, one of Hurston’s most well-known works. This book tells the story of Janie Crawford on a quest to find love and happiness and take charge of her own destiny. The story explores themes such as gender roles and liberated women. Manatee Libraries has copies of this title in many formats, including the 2005 movie adaptation starring Halle Berry as Janie Crawford.

For more stories collected through her travels in Florida, check out “Every Tongue Got to Confess” published in 2001, 41 years after her death. These stories were gathered in the Gulf Estates in the 1920s, but Hurston was unable to publish her manuscript. This collection of nearly 500 folktales range from stories of love, faith, race, and fitting this year’s theme, the black family.

Your library is online: www.mymanatee.org/library. Free masks are available at all library locations. Manatee Libraries are fine free! Please note that lost/damaged fees still apply.

Speaking Volumes is written by members of the staff at the Manatee County Public Library System. Sylvia Osbourne is a librarian at the Central Library.