DETROIT — It is a place to gather after Saturday night dinners and after the church doors open on Sunday afternoons. A dais upon which to sing lullabies and honor memories, to weave folklore and family stories, the kind carried from greats to grands, from one generation to the next.

In its framed simplicity, the front porch has been a fixture in American life, and among African-Americans it holds outsize cultural significance.

From the narrow shotgun homes of Atlanta to the dormer-windowed bungalows of Chicago, the front porch has served as a refuge from Jim Crow restrictions; a stage straddling the home and the street, a structural backdrop of meaningful life moments. It is like the quietest family member; a gift where community lives and strangers become neighbors.

Zora Neale Hurston, an exquisite chronicler of black Americana, understood the magic and necessity of the porch as a gathering place to witness and soak up history. Her prose cast the porch as a setting for storytelling.