While reading Their Eyes Were Watching God, I became curious about the history of the town of Eatonville. While reading the book, the only places we hear about in Eatonville are the store and Janie’s house. We see Eatonville through Janie’s eyes but she doesn’t spend much time away from her work or home because of how controlling Jody was. What was it like to live in Eatonville during such a racist time? How did residents celebrate their newfound freedom? I wanted to see what it would have been like to live in an all-Black town.
Known as a Freedman’s Town, Eatonville was founded in 1887 and was originally part of Maitland. It was America’s first incorporated Black town. A former slave and philanthropist bought land from Josiah Eaton who was also the namesake for the town. Church and School were vital to the history of the town. The town was home to St. Lawrence A.M.E. Church and Hungerford Normal and Industrial School. With post-primary education and vibrant churches, Eatonville was a bustling city. After the great migration, many Freedman’s towns were abandoned, however, Eatonville was one of the few that remained vibrant. Even today, the city hosts an annual Zora Festival in her honor with presentations, performances, and other cultural events to celebrate its most famous daughter. In 2010 the town was 90% black.
Watching videos with first hand accounts from residents of Eatonville was a real testament to the reliance of Black people. The town is still thriving today after more than 130 years of incorporation and Black leadership. Eatonville was also one of the few places where black musicians could perform and has clubs credited with helping many people’s careers. I can only imagine how Eatonville must’ve felt for someone moving there during Jim Crow or right after slavery ended. Living in a place with so few white people and so little racism was something really rare. This environment was cited in Zora Neale Hurston’s life because of the way it impacted her view of herself. She writes about this unique environment in her essay “How it Feels to Be Colored Me.” It’s really interesting to see how Black people made and continue to make their way in a world with so much racism.
This is a super interesting blog post. Before reading this book, I didn't even know places like this existed. One thing I'm left wondering is how white people/the rest of the country viewed places like this. I would imagine they would get harassment but I really don't know.
This is quite interesting, because I think this is the first time I have heard of an all-Black town being established in the United States during those time periods with intense racism. Even more, I am quite surprised that it has survived until today, and seems to be thriving. What is also quite interesting is how Eatonville is almost like a natural social experiment. Within the racism environment of the United States at that time, there is a town where there is minimal to no racism and all the inhabitants are black. How does this society relate to the larger society of the United States? These types of questions would be really interesting to see the answers to.
I didn't even realize Eatonville was a real place, I figured it was just a town that took inspiration from others at the time to have a convincing setting. The freedom one must feel there from being so thoroughly surrounded by people like you is something I think Hurston wanted to put across in her novel.
There were in fact a number of these small all-black towns throughout the South and Midwest that were founded during the Reconstruction era (including in Illinois), and many of them were successful. Eatonville is probably the most famous, largely because of Hurston immortalizing it in literature, but there are others as well. For a less sunny picture of an experiment in black self-governance, check out the historically based film _Rosewood_, directed by the late John Singleton (_Boyz 'N the Hood_ etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_(film).
I love that you did this research, as the concept of an (almost) all black town is intriguing to me as well, especially living and going to school in a place where there aren't so many black people. I do wonder what it would be like moving to a town like that during the times that you mentioned, but honestly I wonder what it'd be like to live there now more. It's also really interesting to me that a place like this could still be thriving when white America has historically tried to stop all black development, like that of Tulsa.
I was also really interested in Eatonville and I thought your post was really interesting. I'm really curious about what Eatonville is like today, because I had no idea it still existed. I also wish that I had learned about this town earlier because I think it has a really important history and message.
The level that Richard Wright describes and forms his characters is, in my opinion, a big indicator of the purpose of his book. Native Son is a protest novel with specific goals which relate to what it is protesting. Wright wanted to show the flaws of the American System and how it affected black people. He wanted to reach lots of people and share his message, his goal was neither artistry nor character depth. Bigger’s purpose in Native Son was to serve as a reflection of his environment, not to be a full character or person. He shows enough of Bigger so that we can understand him but Bigger never really grows and changes as a character. Wright wants to show what happens to a person if they’re put under such harsh conditions. Bigger changes as the system affects him more since he acts as a mirror. While Richard Wright’s characters are simplistic reflections of their environments, I wouldn’t necessarily call that a bad thing. His goal was to prove a point and make a statement.
One aspect of Beloved that I found especially fascinating was the way that Toni Morrison explored the sense of self and identity of a lot of the characters. Through Slavery, the identity of those who are enslaved is greatly reduced. Some of it is intentional, like how Schoolteacher talks about Sethe in terms of “breeding” and her “foals.” Some of it is a byproduct of the system, like not knowing your real mother or language. The disconnect between families causes many enslaved people not to know about who they are. They also work so much that they don’t have time to discover who they truly are. Some of the lack of sense of self or connection is almost a form of self-protection. Lots of people were prepared for the inevitability of being torn from their parents or children so they didn’t allow themselves to become fully connected as mothers, fathers, sisters, or brothers. We’ve talked about Sethe, Beloved, and Denver a lot in class so for my blog post I want to focus on Baby Suggs and P
One discussion that we had in class that I found particularly interesting was the debate about weather or not Dr. Bledsoe is a sellout to his race. We talked about it after reading the passage where the Narrator sees Dr. Bledsoe raise and lower his mask in front of Mr. Norton. Most people in our class agreed that Dr. Bledsoe was a sellout but I disagreed with that idea at the time of the discussion. Apart from the following passage “I'll have every Negro in the country hanging on tree limbs by morning if it means staying where I am,” I felt that, while Dr. Bledsoe acted poorly, he was in no way a sellout (Ellison 143). I would define a sellout to be someone who actively puts down other black people for their own gain. I think of someone like Daniel Cameron , the attorney general of Kentucky, when I think of a sellout, but I wasn’t ready to brand Dr. Bledsoe one. When we discussed this passage, I saw Dr. Bledsoe as someone who manipulated the system for his own gain. Howeve
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ReplyDeleteThis is a super interesting blog post. Before reading this book, I didn't even know places like this existed. One thing I'm left wondering is how white people/the rest of the country viewed places like this. I would imagine they would get harassment but I really don't know.
ReplyDeleteThis is quite interesting, because I think this is the first time I have heard of an all-Black town being established in the United States during those time periods with intense racism. Even more, I am quite surprised that it has survived until today, and seems to be thriving. What is also quite interesting is how Eatonville is almost like a natural social experiment. Within the racism environment of the United States at that time, there is a town where there is minimal to no racism and all the inhabitants are black. How does this society relate to the larger society of the United States? These types of questions would be really interesting to see the answers to.
ReplyDeleteI didn't even realize Eatonville was a real place, I figured it was just a town that took inspiration from others at the time to have a convincing setting. The freedom one must feel there from being so thoroughly surrounded by people like you is something I think Hurston wanted to put across in her novel.
ReplyDeleteThere were in fact a number of these small all-black towns throughout the South and Midwest that were founded during the Reconstruction era (including in Illinois), and many of them were successful. Eatonville is probably the most famous, largely because of Hurston immortalizing it in literature, but there are others as well. For a less sunny picture of an experiment in black self-governance, check out the historically based film _Rosewood_, directed by the late John Singleton (_Boyz 'N the Hood_ etc.): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosewood_(film).
ReplyDeleteI love that you did this research, as the concept of an (almost) all black town is intriguing to me as well, especially living and going to school in a place where there aren't so many black people. I do wonder what it would be like moving to a town like that during the times that you mentioned, but honestly I wonder what it'd be like to live there now more. It's also really interesting to me that a place like this could still be thriving when white America has historically tried to stop all black development, like that of Tulsa.
ReplyDeleteI was also really interested in Eatonville and I thought your post was really interesting. I'm really curious about what Eatonville is like today, because I had no idea it still existed. I also wish that I had learned about this town earlier because I think it has a really important history and message.
ReplyDelete