Zora Neale Hurston, A Literary Life

By Michelle Potter

"It was the time for sitting on porches beside the road. It was the time to hear things and talk."

- Their Eyes Were Watching God

Zora Neale Hurston was the fifth of eight children born to John Hurston, a carpenter, and Lucy Potts Hurston, a former school teacher. Hurston grew up in Eatonville, a small town 10 miles northeast of Orlando, Florida. She frequently fudged her birthdate as 1901, but most scholars believe she was born in 1891.

Eatonville, known as the "the first incorporated African American municipality in the United States," was the small-town founda...