Placemaking in a Storm: Zora Neale Hurston, Eatonville, Struggle and Resistance

In 2027, we commemorate two significant anniversaries: the 140th anniversary of Eatonville's founding and the 90th anniversary of Zora Neale Hurston's Their Eyes Were Watching God. Together, these milestones provide an opportunity to reflect on the enduring relationship between place, community, creativity, and cultural memory in Hurston's life, work, and legacy. As the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community (P.E.C.) embarks on a year of celebration, reflection, and engagement inspired by Hurston and her love of Eatonville and other Black spaces, we invite you to join us in an exploration of place and placemaking.

This year's theme, Placemaking in a Storm, draws inspiration from Hurston's literary, folkloric, anthropological, and cultural contributions, as well as from the challenges and possibilities of our contemporary moment. In Their Eyes Were Watching God, the storm serves as both a literal and symbolic force that reshapes landscapes, communities, and lives. Yet the novel also reveals the human capacity to rebuild, reimagine, and create meaning in the wake of disruption. Across her work, Hurston explored how individuals and communities forge belonging, sustain cultural traditions, and envision futures amid uncertainty and change. Through literature, folklore, performance, anthropology, and community life, she documented, imagined, and created places that celebrated the richness and complexity of Black experiences.

This year’s Placemaking Conference will focus on conversations centered on Hurston's work and this current socio-political and cultural moment.

-How does Hurston’s work speak to Eatonville and other Black spaces as models for placemaking?

-What does it mean to create community in this current moment?

-How do cultural spaces not just survive but thrive in this moment?

-What does it mean to do placemaking as an act of resistance?

We also invite participants to consider placemaking more broadly: as a cultural, social, political, artistic, intellectual, pedagogical, and imaginative practice.

-How do communities create and sustain spaces of belonging?

-How do artists, educators, scholars, and community members cultivate resilience in moments of disruption?

-What can Hurston's work teach us about community formation, cultural preservation, self-determination, and collective flourishing?