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In many schools across the United States, children are taught history from a European point of view. Therefore, often times than not leaving out important and historical stories about Black people before and after slavery. The story of Eatonville, FL is quite unknown unless you’re a Floridian.

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Eatonville was the first all-Black city that was incorporated in Florida in 1887. The city is located six miles north of Orlando, the town was originally named Maitland and got its beginning when a former slave, Joseph C. Clarke, along with Lewis Lawrence, bought over a hundred acres of land from Josiah Eaton, one of the few white landowners willing to sell to Black people at that time.

Then they distributed the acres to Black families from across central Florida. On the fifteenth of August, 1887, the town was officially incorporated when twenty-seven registered black voters indicated their intention to create a municipality. They named the town in honor of Josiah Eaton who eventually also served as its mayor. The new town’s citizens, however, chose Columbus H. Boger as its first mayor to head an entirely black-staffed government.

Eatonville is most notably known, for one of its most famous daughter, Zora Neale Hurston. Her father, John Hurston who would become the town’s mayor in 1897. Zora’s experiences growing up in Eatonville would shape her writing style and the town was featured in a lot of her work. Most notably the 1928 essay, “How it Feels to be Colored Me” and her 1937 novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. Which later became a movie in 2005 starting Halle Berry.

In 1990 the town established the Zora Neale Hurston Museum of Fine Arts. Eatonville now holds an annual Zora Festival, is a celebration of the arts and humanities in January.

According to the Suburban Stats, the population of Eatonville is 2,159 with an 84 percent Black population.

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