Zora Neale Hurston in St. Augustine: A Collaboration Between Libraries, Museums, & Theatre

Abstract

Celebrated Black writer, anthropologist, and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston visited St. Augustine, Florida several times over the course of her life, most memorably in 1927 and 1942. The city provided Hurston a wedding venue, a research setting, and “a quiet place to sit down and write”. St. Augustine also served as the dramatic setting for her 1926 play, Color Struck. This article will highlight the cross-institutional and cross-community effort to tell the story of this lesser-known part of Hurston’s life and career that emerged between St. Augustine and Gainesville.

The “town/gown” collaboration included George A. Smathers Libraries’ Special and Area Studies Collections and Lincolnville Museum and Cultural Center, as well as historians and theatrical community members from St. Johns County. As a result of their combined efforts, Color Struck premiered for the first time in Florida in the historically Black neighborhood of Lincolnville on April 28, 2023, with the sponsorship of George A. Smathers Libraries and the Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Society. In conjunction, George A. Smathers Libraries published the digital exhibition Zora Neale Hurston’s St. Augustine, which continues to serve as an educational tool for examining the impact of the Ancient City on Hurston’s life and work.