Exploring Eatonville, Florida: America’s first incorporated African American town, 1887

Eatonville, Florida sits between Maitland and Winter Park. It was the first incorporated African American town in the United States.

Zora Neale Hurston writes in her memoir, Dust Tracks on a Road: “I was born in a Negro town. I do not mean by that the black back-side of an average town.”

The town was started in August 1887 by 27 African American men.

Hurston grew up in Eatonville from a young girl, and immortalized Eatonville in her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God.

Each January, Eatonville celebrates Zora Neale Hurston at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities.