Zora Neale Hurston

this is Virginia Lynn Mann our author of Zora's Neil person's final decade she is the winner of the Florida book award silver medal and the subject of a PBS documentary thank you I'm a teacher so I don't need this well I don't know if you all know who's Lauren your person is I need both my hands what if I yell like that does that help no no okay well I'll try um I need to be octopus so you didn't know how Alice Walker is as well no um Alice Walker wrote The Color Purple okay and she was a great admirer of your new person who is considered to be one of the most loved and

well-read black writers of the 20th century and she is the person who inspired Maya Angelou and Alice Walker and other black fathers that came after her um Alice Walker declared that no one could wish for a more advantageous Heritage than that could Queen to the black body of the South well a stronger case for such a blessing could not be made than for the writer during a person her collection and use of Southern folklore and purple are gay providers a spice in humor that set her apart from her contemporaries and inspired Walker to Proclaim her a genius of the staff person okay novels she had four novels an award-winning Original Stories and plays but the

first and foremost whether it is easy dance song of the Living Word Dory Johnson was a master storyteller by all casts she was bold and classy intelligent and passionate stubborn ambitious and generously fault one career was a good enough for so she pursuited three or something it didn't matter how impossible or dangerous it was she went forward full force of guns blazing if you were unfortunate however to enact your hair she would give you when we come last year that you would never forget and I discovered this firsthand when I found a letter that she had written to her side husband at our cross who she had caught visiting brothels in her absence to you

dear Powers here is my name by putting it into your hands they said unnecessary for you to come see me for any reason whatsoever it is and buy myself some flowers so congratulations and come to your funeral yes she remains steadfast with her predictions and automation to live her life to the fullest despite the sorrow of the black female writer at a time a few black female loved us racial violence would love to do she took 10 years off her birthday and asked for a young woman that's only halfway there oh my goodness um I'll do the best I can without um Christian was born in membersuga Alabama 1891 but she claimed Eatonville Florida which

is one of the first black towns in the country as her Village and her great source of inspiration foreign for example it is one of those particularly intelligent you were said to be a world where love you recalled math Almighty if you were particularly good cook it was seven just show us with him Fantasia your spirit replacing him you can't wait was that a thought of gel of course sexualized it is horror would hide around the side to visit again guitar she was fascinated by these portugalers one of the ship and she captures some of this humorous dancer and I had a contribution to the wpa's Florida wire project 1930s prepare me okay sounds like

it's echoing back okay but the mic sounds okay yes okay um for example this is in the WPA Florida writers project folklore collection right the third man says wow what a day you live going so hard it's so excited ashes it says that it was the court swellers live sessions that she loved the best um rare rabbit rare Fox the devil sister's hat and all the woods these folktales which were glorious were handed down from one generation to the other and they fire a person's imagination so that she collected them and she published him for future Generations May Ross of her work was to at a time when black cultures did not appreciated to to

demonstrate the beauty of an intelligence and the wisdom and their humor of their people and their tendency to Adorn language that's whale where it says Hurston family here we go at least you see the pictures um this is father and mother violation he was a Baptist minister um her daughter soon was a carpenter in a Baptist Minister who also became on her mother Lucy Anderson was a former Soul teacher before the age of five children uh so I had an old sister two younger brothers two younger and two older brothers sadly her Angelic life in England 14 years old then she was a strange on her father when he married a woman named love who

was about six years over the door um at the time she was going to school in Jacksonville uh going to a college school and her father for whatever reason stopped paying her tuition so she came home and could not stand to do the same room with Mexico uh one day again it is Southern Mattress and Laura saw her and try to get into Memphis away from her they started to fight many through a glass bottle and a Dora her and she for the next six years went from past hole to household from Friends to neighbors she said it wasn't one of the loneliest time she'd ever spent in her life in her autobiography she didn't

talk too much about it she was unable to go to school because they were very unhappy so she um finally left and went to Baltimore and was uh earned from a scholarship to Howard University um after earning a degree in English um okay about that right the deputy in 1920s um the zoot suit cap Galloway and those angles it was a literary movement um that's brought black folks from all over the country musicians artists of every kind to New York to hone their skills and to Showcase their talents um African-American writings that captured the true Spirit of their culture and join a person with how it is her um her apartment was in the site

of social Gatherings of a variety of planning in the days and she was also known for her Southern cookie harmonica play and hilarious folktales in addition her stylish clothes and feather hats she was also Infamous pretending to ignore social Morris she wore pants and she Smoked Cigarettes um during the Colorado Renaissance there was an explosion of African American culture um and if we can get that to play it'd be great many many steps and then we'll go with it too little play black artist musicians dancers singers and brothers came to Harlem from all those apparently nice and Infused then this is Governor Julia giving a series easy to find it in food there it's certainly

understandable places like The Cotton Club and the colonies in uh Callaway Waters guests in any clubs to read it by tall black men wear a tuxedos um talented black entertainers in the world it's ironic that they are able to entertain ment um I just thought you might enjoy this is a sort of video with um Bojangles Mr Bojangles Bill Robinson uh cat Calloway and Nicholas Struthers and success her first novel was Jonas Gordon um it was in 1933 from New York she moved to Stanford Florida and she wrote the story that included black dialects at that time no other roller and he was used um in fact she was criticized for it by other writers

at the time because they felt like they should be seeking the queen's English because they wanted to prove themselves you know equal to the library um and they are very intelligent and lost and she wanted to um demonstrate that to the world so she used the other legs juices later Blues click and I can't read it but this is important so let me try to tell you another thing about it his son she was the first black woman to graduate from Bernard University anthropology and at this time she had gone all of his staff go for music dances and she was born on top of the world and she wrote in essay but it was

kind of like a personal to the enemies called how it feels to do color your name and she says I do not graduated there is no voice who will hold that somehow leaving it in the bathroom deal and they're feelings are all hard enough I have I believe that the world belongs to this song regardless of the little pigmentation I don't believe in the world and I'm too busy organized yeah I feel kind of bad I'm sorry okay all right it's gonna go to um the first novel um that's the next one okay yeah okay during her lifetime she wears short story look again four dollars just tell me when to click okay click but

it's trying I understand and who uh her first novels I was telling you was Joe's boyfriend and that was a sort of autobiographical it is about a couple who had moved from the north thank you one more time to begin with the next publication and then it was the first book that she has total half of it included out of the folktale South and the other half of it included Voodoo salads she went to Louisiana and studied they call it Purdue in America to Louisiana with a natural very famous hooded racist named and she included all these spells like how to win a court case how to make a man come home having anything to

love you that was because of the book and she reported these songs exactly yesterday or give it to her and she recorded all of them which is acceptable Clinic hours that is the second book uh folklore that Jordan produced and it is of course she actually lived in Haiti uh this is China she went to Katie and she said to um some Secrets From The General Public and if they have centuries out in the woods around Isuzu house and if they saw somebody was so good at getting people to talk naked with a jug of water on one end of the couch and some food on the matter and she said it she went to

sleep and she had these exhausted trees that were very good and the reason that the water and the food was stood there so her spirit would not need it for God and um click it twice if you will yeah um again a zombie squeezing just enough that they didn't kill them because we're going to conscious their families would come later the person to survived this did them up and think about their sweats and so she exposed this to the world in her hotel my house Okay click here's the picture I'm telling you now that's a picture of a before zombies for 20 years and all of a sudden she shared it up on the series

and um it was because okay would be this song um it's a beautiful love story about survival and self-discovery um Dave Crawford who grows up in the South somewhere nearby 19 and she's released by her grandmother and she has no choice in how she makes a living hair she had no prospects other than that so her grandmother who was very old was worried about uh Jimmy Crawford and he's going to take care of her when she died so she forces her to marry and then behind the machinery and she has to act like a mule and so she runs off with a much younger and an ambitious man moved to what is really eating now

her hometown and the guy becomes mayor but he had considered much better he gives her no voice to give her no choices except to be his beautiful wife to look pretty so whenever he finally dies after 25 years uh Jade inherits his General Store and loves being single until she meets the love of her life whose visioning is tea cake okay um the promised land from the African-American perspective and in many scholarships is one of her best books okay please was for autobiography Sarah from the Swani was the only story about white people that she wrote and it's about the couple that was set in the community in a Florida crackers community at the turn

of the 20th century and it's their school okay this is how Carson explained it she said black book dialogue is how they painted a lot of pictures of their thoughts for others to look at and see the fat pictures were always crayon and margins of life which made it even nicer to listen to um I really like how Wilson explained it further she says that that the colorful black folkling resulted when African-American people came up against an intensely Musical and oral Southern Culture that emits to the King James Bible and its sweet talking staff comes after an explanation uh basic medium that's wrapped in images sound was showcased in all of her books okay to

begin okay this is just an example of some of the little fun metaphors are for example if you're a gossiping through their mouths and she also uh came up with mad academics the African-American folk language included things like Lauren just did you were similitative okay clip and the next one was a was a video okay this will go back one more okay okay one more there we go oh my goodness one more one more okay the next slide is showing because I just think this is absolutely a stitch this is the scene where Janie has been married to load accounts The Old Man and she's serious with her grandmother and she and she's really upset

and then he says and never look at it again to see it works out I feel the same way about Mr Hood too some thoughts was never going to be loved he's won eyes the way his face is so long in one way and so flat on the size to his neck his belly is too good too and he's coming up with like music deliciously over in the bed and instructed air while he's in it quick see why so much fun to read it okay um the next thing that's coming up was a video but I don't think we're going to be able to get it and it's a video of a radio play where

these wonderful black women who can certainly authenticate that land is better than I can read the beginning of first of his book it is absolutely wonderful I'm sorry we're not gonna be able to do that um so I'm going to skip to um Hastings ups and downs gains of lawsuits successes and failures have welcomed a yarn as colorful as any of the tales in Japan by 1948 she was the most powerful she wanted red black female law in America he estaged the first authentic pro concert in America she had a waterlake place and short stories she can't remember her essays articles to ground beef cooking books on full lore Instagram they Incorporated enough she was

sitting over here and shooting the aesthetic edition of the harlemax songs consultant for Paramount Studios and she has been the recipients foreign suicide for not going to be in 1948 which is falsely accused of molesting and howling she was ultimately he's honor related when her accused admitted his life when this abuse was supposed to be taken place but before the church were dismissed another important reporter leadership to the two national African-American newspapers which almost drove her to suicide she was convicted to be powerless again in the face of newspapers that were more interested in profits than they were the truth so he can go back one in 1948 going forward here we go um foreign

she published everything she published essays has never given that Choice again um she moved to Miami where she lived for a while I the same hours to look for my voice and that didn't happen she was offered a job go slowly foreign yeah I think it's before this yeah and he was so twisted up and so frustrated by his condition that he would grow with his family members into arguments and I think he would stop his fingers in his ears and not listen to them trying you know world she said that dealing with him was like running against his forced by Hurricane she goes to some of the friends easily and I would see that

he loved it because he had that last match of a worthy Poe foreign um she introduced Sarah krisha perhaps the foremost individual of an area for better race relations a white phenomenon after seeing black children played with white balls Sarah having and she decided that black people deserved the dog like Charles Johnson and extended first University president of Georgia Georgia sculptures to come up with um and she sent the pictures to do our first students said when we think about my idea release composite soldiers and so personal and she says foreign years ago for what seven days it's just absolutely normal beautiful um Zora also had to come up with a panel of people to

decide what color the doll should be this was a big deal should she be dark should she be alive I mean African Americans um and she has a tea in New York and she bought it back on she's Jackie Robinson unfortunately and some others and days they decided you know which color was the best and that's what they came up with okay next and she worked diligently on two novels one of them was a gold and he just got off which is released on the pay address who created a hair product for African-American she's the first slot female she also worked on candle breaks she did a lot of research and she paired the grade

and she found that he was not a monster that everyone thought I thought um because that's a long story but she saw him as being a great leader of great Builder cities and in all the history there was nothing historical record to prove that he had innocent children killed in order to catch Jesus in the neck she did not believe that he did that she wanted to present the authentic hair and so she wrote the story that story I said at the University of Florida archives for well since 1951 and I just recently now talked with someone from Harper Collins and it looks like they're going to accomplish that um in the near future so

I'm very happy Okay click Ed about eight years researching the person's last 10 years because there have been two biographies that have written about our life once she was accused falsely abused molesting his child all others were kind of left off there and said well she went to Florida and she lived there for the last 10 years of her life and she died apart when I was doing the proper say but that's not what happened she's a lot of things wonderful things like this doll how can we happen to see that the culture authenticity of black children was represented and offended continue to push and showcase stand and while she was in the Galway she

was called upon to cover what then was one of the most Sensational trials that had ever happened in South and the Pittsburgh Courier offered her two thousand dollars to cover the trailer and one of his 10 part serialized story about this woman named Rudy McCollum do you guys know about this big case within the car that took place in Live Oak Florida Rudy McCollin was a very wealthy 37 year old woman who uh killed her white lover who was the most popular position in Suwannee County and he was a newly elected state Register she killed them over another woman of course and she was married to a woman who was called belief what turns out

that that Ruby and Dr LeRoy Adams The Physician team leader was her love and the father of Portugal child well her husband Lisa Sam the doctor were in on this uh Belita racket he was a white Syndicate of people that belonged to his saludus you know what the leader is he was a forerunner to the Lord and a lot of money was made in Ocala Florida on that particular illegal activity well when she murdered the doctor because she was the accountant who paid off you know to save the dishes and local officials and and kept the records and how much she paid them the people in our however the uh the state attorney the local

prosecutor perfect and law enforcement did not want her to testify and you know unveil this information and they didn't want it to hurt the doctor's reputation to find out that she is actually having an affair with him um so they the judge and the prosecutor work together to keep living the column from testify she was on she was not allowed to say anything about the affair that you have at the doctor about this involvement with the leader the fact that she had a child by him and come to find out he was a member stamp plan he was a cool man uh according to his nurse she was a he was a school man he

would actually swore out of his way off the road to run over a dog he had thought of the murder of one of his best friends when she was set to cover this word and the remarkable thing about it is that he was sent to the food class plan basket of Florida and they didn't want any men and journalists involved because if it went into this information to come out and be embarrassing to a cat so they threatened anybody who had anything to do with trying to get people to talk and foreign ERS and people from Fort Lauderdale and she said you know some people even brought their meaning like they were at you know

waiting for the guillotine to cut the hat off and you know to see the bloody hand fall so she's head of the trial and she wrote this 10 part series about ruby and it hasn't been published again I have all the copies of it and I have quite a bit of what she wrote in my book it's fascinating it has all the best qualities of a you know can't put it down Prime novel you know forget the love and surprise surprising Revelations and bloody murder and it's just it's really subtle um who was found guilty that you can click she was down here to the um the jury consisted of quite a number of the

doctors patients by the way and then this was a challenge on the field well absorb is serious whenever this down here she was she said this is a kangaroo court I can't stand for this so she called in her friend um you uh he was a famous journalist I don't know if you know about him and we adapted here we started checking into it because he didn't like the fact that this black woman had the railroad well it turned that her civil rights have been tolerated and her constitutional rights have been violated so he has thought to casually check into it end up staying for two years and spending over 250 000 fighting yes got

fell into jail by the judge who was in charge it was a terrible terrible story so he ended up with hurston's top exposes all of us in the book called Ruby McCollum women in the Suwannee County Jail where he later everything and had to have enough time to tell you all these wonderful juicy details of this book but if you want to find out at all you can buy my book after this um okay so that I've sort of told you about that so you can click ahead um by the way you still can't find that book and when I went to interview people about it nobody wanted to talk to me but I did

talk to Sam Collins son who said that whenever Ruby killed the doctor that they had all this polluted money around the house they had more tens of thousands of dollars stashed around the house and you put all over the trunk and he loaded up his children and went to uh his mother's house and um somewhere in the middle of the state died the next day in the heart attack and nobody knew what happened to that money and so when I talked with Sam McConnell and ask him do you know what happened that money he said I was happy to hear that um her uh two novels published turned down she moved to Fort Pierce in

19 56 and she was offered a job as a a journalist or the local leadership where she got articles about the locals and she also published articles on VUDU imagine um she started working as a substitute teacher the High School Lincoln and she had a lot of friends she just loved she would get a free place to live by a doctor and see personal physician and he threw up on Sundays and she had dinner with them his family took her to concerts and just treated her and it pumped down okay um and she was sent from the Elizabeth Apparently one of the most beautiful animals they sold the soul raised about six hundred dollars for

this you know and apparently they were flowers that came out still a lot from the people that all over the country that supplies okay Midas or more so I don't think I can read that um and she says that every man is a box of seasonings thank you this door and have her own boxes thank you so much for putting up with you know the uh problems we've had technically I get what that's considering and you've been wonderful thank you so much questions here which is beautiful okay thank you well I think one of the best things was that um broke for many years and I've got tons of things but she could come along

and you know giving you all the stories about all this heat all these people it is uh learn about how how blacks came along um I will talk just a little bit about a few things and one was in 1933-4 through 45 Franklin Roosevelt he was President he put together a national program and in Florida it was identified as the Florida writers project and he asked Dora and uh and session was a guy who was working in Jacksonville and uh um Brian said to him I want you to help Zora get these people in the black sections of Florida and he wanted to do this through the whole state of Florida and so um he

looked at all the different people who would be interested in giving their history and they worked out very well because we now have the Library of Congress and DC and we also had the status authors at the University of Florida and the um speaking in those counties were all done because they wanted to get history and it was very important black people too because I wanted to make sure hey those are my buddies get some jobs that of course I think she mentioned was at one point involved after he left the um he went out to see the good luck slang and he did a lot of things there but no up most people would

have paying attention to but they did have two people there that were arrested many years ago uh from what I have here is seven books biography and lots of Articles and it was written in seven weeks in pain and Thou sweet fast to work so everybody has those pointed about it but they've read a big thing um let me see also in the late 1940s so you heard excuse um abusing the two young boys in New York and uh charges after work on getting the immigration and proofing that she did not do anything out she was in Haiti at the time of the election and she had found her password down there so he does

it does help you work around the box for sure also it goes along with this it says articles about sore after reputation was for sure during the sign appeared so I can't um Laura was also asked to substitute for the teacher Academy as we mentioned and the Floyd family until they started to get into their own jobs and find other things that um they they were saying they had no idea that she was a lady who they should have read me my books that are just listened to her and there's about 10 of those students still a lot today in Fort Pierce very age Fort Pierce that's Lynn said and Dr Clement placed here she

had a typewriter and it was always working on articles the benefits asking smother and a few other people were all seeing her every day because she did not and that's kind of like me I never learned to cook okay and so on it was a good good story um let's see oh and then out of this little sword here because it's something that I lived through the last few years um artists and sister if you don't know this marry me and then she they lasted five years because she died she had some serious leadership at again um so Jim and his weight white job were always stupidness investors in fact Jim in general in again

um oh I did that okay um and they sent the weekends with Jim painting and Zora typing so and then the last season was over they would take her back into town so it was good good foreign morning to our location was an expression of photos and articles Etc and it ended in addition of March Cemetery from the county made sure that the floor's location would be noticed she was people that I didn't want to mention for those of you who like that dog he is Patrick Duvall and he was the first black law enforcement person in Fort Pierce because that's usually what would happen most Flats with bears but put it on fire and

he said a saving and so that these are the things that the people got to see more of um but I think that's about about it because remember what I lived you want to come up and answer any questions or anybody have any questions that you'd like to hear about where is this matters library at there's a lot the library you're just talking about the medical Library where's that located at oh yeah with all of that stuff can decision um here so that's uh okay how many children did she have are they living in Florida um yeah thank you for the money yeah what happened is Sam Jr you can't tell anybody it's a secret

thank you Rose