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Photo provided by: Miryam Elshaer

The streets of downtown Eatonville are lined with signs not only honoring Hurston but other black visionaries like Martin Luther King. The entrance fee was $15 which included access to the Zora museum and other activities. Art exhibits opened on main street to the public and a local school had a robotics presentation from their black student robotics club.

The annual ZORA! Festival takes place in Eatonville, FL every year. The festival happens during the first weekend Black History Month and celebrates local and literary hero Zora Neale Hurston. Sandwiched in between Altamonte Springs and Winter Park, Eatonville is the oldest incorporated black municipality  in the United States and hometown for Hurston, inspiring her many short stories and poems. Today she is known for “saving” the town, her legacy allowed for Eatonville to be established as a historical area and prevented a major highway from potentially making the town obsolete. The annual festival is filled with music, food, and many tents full of folk art celebrating black Americans achievements and perseverance. This year, congresswoman Val Demings made an appearance and an Aretha Franklin tribute was on the itinerary for the festival.