00:00:06.540 - 00:00:37.250

Phil, Florida Hello, I'm Mike Cannon. And this is conversation. The 19 thirties were a particularly creative period for Florida writers. One thinks, for example, of Margery Cannon, Rawlings and her works. South Moon Under published in 1933 Golden Apples in 1935. And, of course, The Yearling, published in 1938.

00:00:37.530 - 00:01:18.770

Winner of the Pulitzer Prize in 1939. Ernest Hemingway published To Have and Have Not, While a resident of Florida in 1937 McKinley Cantor published his The Noise of Their Wings here in 1938. But one of the most famous novelists of Florida from the 19 thirties, though it may be a name unknown to you, is Zora Neale Hurston, native of Eatonville, Florida's only incorporated Blacktown, who published her first novel in 1934 under the title Jonas Gourd Vine and then in 1937 published the work for which she is best known as a fiction writing writer.

00:01:19.000 - 00:01:38.960

Their eyes were watching God, but Zora Neale Hurston was more than a novelist. She was a folklorist, an anthropologist, a writer of autobiography, a poet. She is one of the great names in the history of Florida literature, and we'll find out more about her when I return in a moment with my guests.

00:01:51.340 - 00:02:29.560

Conversation from the University of Florida, a discussion of social, political, scientific and religious issues of the day. Your host is Dr Michael V. Gannon, Ring professor of Ethics, an assistant dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at the University of Florida. My guests on this conversation are Dr David Clawson, folklorist in the Department of English of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences of the University of Florida, and Miss Lynn Pride, a graduate of Spelman College in theater.

00:02:30.020 - 00:02:55.830

And she is now a second year law student in the University of Florida. Welcome to both David and Lynn on this program about Zora Neale Hurston David. She seems to have led a life of great intensity, intensity of mind, spirit, physical energy. And there is one particular passage to which I'm attracted from her work dust tracks on a road in which she says what all my work shall be.

00:02:55.840 - 00:03:18.150

I don't know that either. Every hour being a stranger to you until you live it. I want a busy life, adjust mind and a timely death. Did she have those? Well, it's rather ironic that her death was many ways very untimely. She died in 1960 penniless, unknown to most people.

00:03:18.940 - 00:03:42.590

And I think the final ironic moment at her death was when she was being taken away. Her body was being carried away to the morgue. Her manuscripts were being burned by a janitor working at the ward where she was where she stayed before she died. At the last minute, a deputy sheriff realized that perhaps some money could be gotten from these manuscripts.

00:03:42.950 - 00:04:19.660

Took a hose in, put out the fire. So her manuscripts were rescued. And they are now sitting in the rare books section of the university for the library. So her death was very untimely, and only at the last minute did her manuscripts get rescued. And you might say, In 1978 Zora Neale was rescued through the very definitive book by Robert Hemingway, the biography, uh, David, if she died in obscurity and by the way, she lived in a welfare home for some years prior to her death, unknown by the literary world that had completely forgotten her and, of course, unknown to the people of Florida.

00:04:20.140 - 00:04:43.860

But prior to that time, certainly during the thirties, she led an intense life. Yes, she did. She was perhaps the most extravagant member of the Harlem Renaissance, and I think that term needs to be perhaps defined because it's been, I think, misunderstood by many people. The Renaissance was the period between the end of World War One to the Depression.

00:04:43.860 - 00:05:01.150

So roughly from 1920 to 1930 and this was the great period of the burgeoning of black artists. Now I think we need to define that because black writers have always been in this country. They have always been producing. But what changed was that they finally got an audience and market.

00:05:01.840 - 00:05:21.630

This was the period when many writers, black and white, were producing. But of course the market was here for limited to black writers. But from these 10 years, there was an outpouring of artistic products from these people and literature and music. This was the period of the discovery of jazz and the blues.

00:05:21.630 - 00:05:36.450

Of course, we know these art forms have always been a part of black culture, but Zora Neale was one of these writers that captured this period, and I say she was the most extravagant because she was one of the few members of the Harlem Renaissance who actually was from the South.

00:05:37.140 - 00:05:56.250

Now many of these writers wrote about the South, and many of them were writing in a very romantic vein. They weren't really knowledgeable of the self like Zora Neale Hurston was, for instance, Langston, who's traveled widely in the South, reading his poetry on a bond top taught in the south starting Brown taught in South.

00:05:56.840 - 00:06:11.020

Zora Neale was from the south, and she lived there. So she did not write about the South from 2nd 3rd, removed as many of them did. Nor did she romanticize the South, although she was criticized quite a bit. We can talk about that a little later.

00:06:11.030 - 00:06:36.770

Yes, she was born in Eatonville, but did she live Eatonville at an early age? She lived there, I believe, into about age 11. Her father was, uh, at one time the mayor of Eatonville. I think he even wrote the charter for the town. He was also a carpenter and administer Baptist minister and Zora Nails mother died when she was about seven.

00:06:36.770 - 00:07:00.220

I think and she was shifted around too many relatives homes, which is very common practice in itself for blacks and that you always have a home in some relative's house. But she was dearly tied to her mother, and she didn't get along with her father after her mother's death because she remarried and her mother knew Mother came in with her own Children, and she didn't feel the affection from her father, so she was moved around quite a bit.

00:07:00.220 - 00:07:19.750

She ended up in Jacksonville all the time. She was struggling to get an education because her mother always told her to reach for the sky. That was one of her very famous expressions that Zuma always retold. And she finally left the public school system and traveled with a touring Gilbert and Sullivan troop.

00:07:20.400 - 00:07:34.130

And she was the darling of these actresses, actors and actresses. She could keep them on the floor for hours with her humor. And was she Was she a teenager, teenager, teenager? How did she get tied up with him? I wonder. She talked her way into it.

00:07:34.140 - 00:07:52.930

Uh, and this is a part of his life that she carried throughout. She would talk her way into fellowships into Barnard College, and she just had this ability to get what she needed to survive. So she traveled as the seamstress. I think she even had some bit parts when there was a part available for a black actress.

00:07:52.940 - 00:08:09.360

She had no formal training, but she was a natural born actress. From there. The troop broke up in Baltimore, and she somehow talked one of the members into providing her with some funds to continue her education at Morgan State College. And they had a high school division then.

00:08:09.840 - 00:08:35.660

So she finished her high school training at Morgan State and then did two years at Morgan State, then transferred to Howard at Howard. She came under the guidance of Professor Turner, one of the foremost linguists. He did the oh, the research for the Gullah people on the Sea Islands, and he recognized her genius and helped to push her into her writing.

00:08:36.340 - 00:08:58.970

And from then her short stories that she would write for the various student journals made their way to New York City, where Charles Johnson, editor of Opportunity magazine, the voice of the Urban League, published her first piece and after three years of Howard University. She was encouraged by Johnson to come to New York and to settle there, and she attended Barnard College for a while.

00:08:58.970 - 00:09:14.710

Yes, she came to New York. She had, I think, $2 in her pocket. And from there she managed to get to Barnard and complete her education. When did she begin her writing? And where did she do most of her writing? Most of her writing was of her books.

00:09:14.710 - 00:09:31.360

I mean, not of her student articles. Okay. In the South, she wrote mainly when she was in the South. That was her. You might see her driving. Motive for writing was found when she was in the cell in Florida. She did quite a bit. She came back to Florida to right.

00:09:31.740 - 00:10:01.080

Here is a photograph of Zora Neale Hurston taken on November 9, 1934. It's one of a very few that exists today. She certainly exhibits radiance, uh, in her face in her expression. And surely it shows in her work as well. And, David, we're now going to have the opportunity to hear, uh, some of her work as introduced and read for us by Lynn Pride Lynn.

00:10:01.190 - 00:10:29.290

We would appreciate if you would, uh, introduce us to the works of Zora Neale Hurston. Outstanding novelists, skill folklorist, journalist and critic Zora Hurston was for 30 years the most prolific black woman writer in America, and all of the various personality sketches, full length literary studies forwards and afterwards, inspired by Hurston, there is a broad range of contradictory reactions.

00:10:29.710 - 00:10:51.760

There were those who saw it as a highly reserved in serious writer. Some critics put a writing in the same category as menstrual shows, while others promised her as the most significant unready author in America. Though she lived in controversy, died penniless and was out of print for 30 years, Zora Neale Hurston did indeed established herself as a writer and folklorist.

00:10:52.340 - 00:11:13.360

In her 30 year career, she published four novels, two books of folklore and autobiography, numerous stories, articles and plays. The Eatonville Anthology, published in 1926 and apparently the written version of stories Hurston told to entertain at parties during the Harlem Renaissance, proves how much their eyes were watching God.

00:11:13.360 - 00:11:38.150

Hurston's masterpiece was influenced by the actual people and experiences of Eatonville, Florida, the Eatonville and Pathology, the pleading woman, Mrs Tony Roberts is the pleading woman. She just loves to ask for things. Her husband gives her all he can rake and scrape, which is considerably more than most wives get for their housekeeping.

00:11:38.540 - 00:11:56.700

But she goes from door to door, begging for things. She starts at the store Mr Clock. She sings songs in a high, keening voice. Give me a little piece of meat to boil a pot of greens with Lord knows me, and my chilling is so hungry.

00:11:57.140 - 00:12:20.260

It's a shame, Tony, don't feed me. Mr. Clarke knows that she has money and that her larder is well stocked for Tony. Roberts is the best provider on his list, but her keening annoys him and he rises heavily. The pleader at his elbow shows all the joy of a starving man being seated at a feast.

00:12:20.940 - 00:12:44.060

That's right, Mr Clark, the Lord love it, the cheerful giver. Give me just a little beast about this big, indicating the width of her hand and a lot of bless you. She follows this angel on earth to his meat tub and super intends the cutting, crying out in pain when he refuses to move the knife over just the teen a bit more.

00:12:44.840 - 00:13:04.870

Finally, meet in hand, she departs, remarking on the meanness of some people who give a piece of salt meat only two fingers wide. When they were plainly asked for a hand wide piece, Clark puts it down to Tony's account and resumes his reading with a slab of salt pork.

00:13:04.870 - 00:13:26.560

As a foundation, she visits various homes until she has collected all she wants for the day at the Pearsons, for instance, Sister Pearson, please give her a handful of collard greens for me and my poll chilling D me and my Children is so hungry. Tony, don't feed me.

00:13:27.240 - 00:13:42.060

Mrs. Pierson picks a bunch of greens for her, but she springs away from them as if they were poisoned. Lord of Muscle Mass piercing. You ain't gonna give me that little I feel the greens for me and my Children is you. Don't be so grasping. God won't bless you.

00:13:42.640 - 00:14:10.480

Get my handful more laws. Some folks has got everything, and there is just as great shopping and stingy. Mrs. Pearson raises the ante, and the pleading woman moves on to the next place and on and on the next day it commences all over. Becky More has 11 Children of assorted colours and sizes.

00:14:10.610 - 00:14:29.160

She has never been married, but that's not her fault. She has never stopped any of the fathers of her Children from proposing. So if she has no father for her Children, it's not her fault. The men roundabout are entirely to blame. The other mothers of the town are afraid that it is catching.

00:14:30.210 - 00:14:54.050

They won't let their Children play with hers. Cool. Taylor Coun Taylor never did any real stealing. Of course, if he saw a chicken or watermelon, he'd take it. The people used to get mad, but they never could catch him. He took so many melons from Joe Clark that he set up in the melon patch one night with his shotgun loaded with rock salt.

00:14:54.740 - 00:15:16.460

He was gonna fix coun, but he was tired. It's hard work being a mayor, postmaster, storekeeper and everything. He dropped asleep sitting on a stump in the middle of the pack so he didn't see Kun when he came. Kun didn't see him either. That is not at first.

00:15:16.940 - 00:15:31.150

He knew the stuff was there. However, he had opened many of Clark's juicy Florida favorites on it he selected his fruit, walked over to the stump and burst the melon on it. That is, He thought it was the stump until it fell over with a yell.

00:15:31.220 - 00:15:48.060

Then he knew it was no stump and departed hastily from those parts. He had cleared the fence when Clark came to, as it were, so the charge of rock salt was wasted on the desert air during the sugarcane season. He found he couldn't resist Clark soft green cane.

00:15:48.740 - 00:16:01.160

But Clark did not go to sleep this time. So after he had cut six of eight stocks by the Moonlight Clock, rose up out of the cane stripping with a shotgun and made come sit right down and chew up the last one of them on the spot.

00:16:02.040 - 00:16:29.560

And the next day, he may Kuhn leave his town for three months. Village Fiction Joe Lindsay is said by Lumme Boger to be the largest manufacturer of prevarications in Eatonville. Brassell, late owner of the world's leanest and meanest mule, contends that his business is the largest in the state, and his wife holds that he is the biggest liar in the world.

00:16:30.240 - 00:16:56.100

Exhibit A. He claims that while he was in Orlando. One day, he saw a doctor cut up open. A woman removed everything liver, lights and heart included, clean each of them separately. The doctor then washed out the empty woman, dried her out neatly with a towel and replaced the organ so expertly that she was up and about her work in a couple of weeks.

00:16:58.640 - 00:17:29.270

The decade of the thirties was the meridian of Hurston's career. 1935 she published her first book of folklore, Mules and Men, based on material she collected in Florida and Louisiana. A classic informing style Mules and Men goes far beyond the mere reproduction of the tails. It introduces the reader to the whole world of joints, lion contests and tall tale sessions that make up the drama of the folk life of black people in the rural South.

00:17:30.340 - 00:17:53.510

The following is a rendition of a tail. A tall tale told my Matilda Mosley on why women always take advantage of men. It's done in dialect, you see, in the very first days God made a man and a woman and put them in a house together to live way back in them days.

00:17:53.600 - 00:18:20.170

The woman was just as strong as the man. And both of them did the same things. They used to get the fussing about who's gonna do this and that. And sometimes they fight. But they was even balanced, and neither one could whip the other one. One day the man said to herself believe I'm gonna go see God and ask them for a little more strength so I can whip this woman and make her mind.

00:18:20.540 - 00:19:34.720

I'm tired of the way things is. So he went on up to God. Good morning, old father. Howdy, man. What you doing around my throne so soon? This morning? I'm trouble in mind and nobody can ease my spirit accepting you. God said, Put your plea in the right form and I hear an answer Oh, makeup With the morning stars glittering in your shining crown with the dust from your footsteps Making worlds upon worlds with a blazing bird we call the sun Flying out of your right hand in the morning and consuming all day to flesh and blood of stump Black darkness had comes flying home every evening to rest on your left hand and never once in all your eternal years mistook the left hand for the right I ask you please to give me more strength And that woman you give me so I can make her mind I know you don't want to be always coming down way past the moon and stars to be straightened her out and it's got to be done So give me a little more strength Omega and I'll do it All right, man, you got more strength than woman.

00:19:35.440 - 00:19:49.570

So the man run all the way down the stairs from heaven till he got home. He was so anxious to try and strengthen the woman that he couldn't take his time. As soon as he got in the house, he hollered, Woman, here's your boss Garden told me to handle you and ever Which way I please.

00:19:49.580 - 00:20:04.860

I'm your boss. The woman flew to fighting them right off. She fought in them fighting it, but he beat her. She got to win and try them again. But he whipped her again. She got herself together and made the third trial and vigorous. But it beat her every time.

00:20:05.440 - 00:20:20.550

He was so proud he could whip her last that he just crowed over and made her do a lot of things she didn't like. He told her long as you old baby, I'll be good to you. But every time your rear up I'm gonna put plenty would on your back and plenty of water in your eyes.

00:20:21.240 - 00:20:36.450

The woman was so mad she went straight up to heaven and stood before the Lord. She didn't waste no words. She said, Lord, I come before you might a man today I want my strength back and power. I used to have woman. You got the same power you had since the beginning.

00:20:37.140 - 00:20:52.460

Why is it then that the man can beat me now? And he used to Couldn't do it. He got more strength than he used to Have he come and ask me for it and I give it to him. Lisa God, I asking you for now. Just give me the same as you give him.

00:20:53.140 - 00:21:10.670

God shook his head too late now, woman, would I give I never take back. I give him more strength than you. And no matter how much I give, he'll have more. The woman was so mad she wheeled around and went on off. She went straight to the devil and told him what had happened.

00:21:10.680 - 00:21:28.060

He said, Don't be discouraged, woman. You listen to me and you'll come out more than conquerors. Take them, frowns off your face and turn around and go right on back to heaven and ask God to give you that bunch of keys hanging up the mantelpiece. Then you bring them to me and I'll show you what to do with them.

00:21:28.640 - 00:21:59.170

So the woman climbed back up to heaven again. She was mighty tired, but she was more outdone that she was tired. So she climb all night long and got back up to heaven again. When she got before the throne, butter would melt in her mouth. Oh, Lord and master other rainbow I know your power You never make two mountains without you Put a valley in between But you want woman God, give me that bunch of keys hanging up by your mantelpiece.

00:21:59.740 - 00:22:18.030

Take them. So the woman took the keys and heard on back to the devil with him. There were three keys on the bunch. Devil said See that the three keys. They got more power in them than all the strength of man can ever get. If you can handle them right now, This first big kids to do the door, the little kitchen.

00:22:18.440 - 00:22:32.910

And you know, a man always favors his stomach. The second one is the key to the bedroom. And he don't like to be shut out from that neither. And this last key is the key to the crater. And he don't want to be cut off from his generations at all.

00:22:32.920 - 00:22:46.210

So now you take these keys and go lock up everything and wait till he comes to you. The woman thanked him and told him if it wasn't for you, Lord knows what us poor woman folks would do. She started off, but the devil halted her. Just one more thing.

00:22:46.210 - 00:23:01.270

Don't go home bragging about your keys. Just lock up everything and say nothing till you get ass And then don't talk too much. The woman went on home and did like the Devil Tola When the man come home from work, she was sitting on the porch singing some song by Peck on the wood and make the bed go good.

00:23:01.640 - 00:23:16.060

When the man found the three doors, fasting were used to stand wide open he swelled up like a pie in London after a train. First thing he tried to break in because he figured his strength would overcome all obstacles. When he saw he couldn't do it, he asked the woman who locked his door.

00:23:16.070 - 00:23:29.930

She told him me, Where did you get the key from God? Give it to me. He run up to God and say, God, Woman got me locked away from my bidders, my bed and my generations. And she said, You give it a key. God said I did, man.

00:23:29.940 - 00:23:50.960

I'll give her the keys. But the devil showed her how to use them. Well, oh maker, please give me some keys. Just like them. No, man, what I give, I give a woman Got the key? How can I know about my generations? Asked the woman. So the man come on back and submitted himself to the woman and she opened the door.

00:23:51.740 - 00:24:05.910

He wasn't satisfied, but he had to give in way after while he said to the woman, lets us divide up. I'll give you half of my strength if you let me hold the keys in my hand. The woman thought that over so the devil popped and told him.

00:24:06.060 - 00:24:28.350

Tell him No. Tell him. Keep his strength and you keep your keys so the woman wouldn't trade with him. And the man had to Margus his strength to her to live. And that's why the man makes and the woman takes you. Men are still bragging about your strength, and the woman is sitting on the keys and letting you blow off till you get ready to put the brittle on you.

00:24:30.740 - 00:25:00.260

That's wonderful, David. What a wonderful storyteller she is. Certainly was. Did she invent these stories? Or were these stories that she heard in Louisiana or wherever the setting was for this particular tale? Well, it was both, actually. She collected these from Florida and Mississippi, Louisiana, and these were in the repertoire of many of the black folks that she talked to.

00:25:00.640 - 00:25:17.050

But as any informant will do, who is an excellent folk? Tell her she would take these tales and also add her own richness to them. But these types of tales are found throughout the South. Would you mind removing your mic and letting Lynn use it just for a moment?

00:25:17.050 - 00:25:47.540

I want to thank Lynne for those wonderful readings. And, uh, Lynn, I can tell that you enjoyed it immensely that they have a ring and a rhythm, don't they? Yes, they do. She's just She's marvelous, marvelous storyteller. And she captures the people in South Florida, the rural area, the dialect, the whole, the whole environment just so well, the storytellers, the people that sit on the corner and tell these fantastic stories that are just so entertaining.

00:25:47.540 - 00:26:05.470

She's just marvelous. That was from mules and men, which recounts stories from Louisiana and Florida that could have been from either place. Or do you think that was from Florida? I think it probably captures things from both places. I'm from Florida, so I'm a little familiar with what happens in the Florida South.

00:26:05.500 - 00:26:37.750

It's fantastic. Now, before we end, I want to ask David just very briefly. There is a fellowship being put together now in the Department of Anthropology. I understand, uh, the committee is hoping to raise $100 to begin a scholarship for black students in anthropology, and it would be fitting that that student would be a black female, and, uh, if one would like to write for information about this they could write to Dr Elizabeth and Eddie, the Department of Anthropology, a 13 50 g p.

00:26:37.750 - 00:26:55.360

A. University of Florida. She is professor of anthropology there dot org. Just Dr Elizabeth Eddie University of Florida. I'm sure that would reach her. She chairs the committee to establish the fellowship, and you are hoping to raise how much? $100,000.100,000 dollars. Thus far, we raised about 35.

00:26:56.040 - 00:27:18.550

That's great from obscurity. She is now achieving new reputation. We could speak of a new Harlem Renaissance as it were. She certainly has been rediscovered. And it's about time that more people know about this brilliant woman of David. Is there an effort in the literary community as such to do something to memorialize her?

00:27:18.560 - 00:27:43.760

Uh, is it true that she had an unmarked grave for many years? Yes, the novelist Alice Walker went to Eton Village and through talking to people and by reading manuscripts, she found the approximate area where she was buried. But even then she wasn't sure. But she did put a marker, and I believe that the market, said Zora Neale Hurston, folklorists, anthropologists, genius of the South.

00:27:44.140 - 00:28:05.140

Oh, that's wonderful! Well, we'll end on that note. I want to thank you. Both, uh, David Clawson, folklorist and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. And Lynn Pride, uh, law student at the University of Florida graduate in theater from Spelman College. I thank you very much for those moving readings from Zora Neale Hurston, the subject of tonight's conversation.

00:28:05.140 - 00:29:05.930

Thank you for being with me. Thank you. Mm.