What Happened Next

In the wake of the county commissioners’ resolution to bring a highway through their town, a group of concerned citizens formed The Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, Inc. (P.E.C.). Although now considered a planning organization with the long-term mission of developing Eatonville into one of America’s premier heritage communities, the truth is, in 1987, it was a group of folks who seriously wanted to stop “progress” from ruining their town. They were preservationists with a focus on education, the cultural arts, and humanities. Their task was to zero in on the significance of Eatonville from this perspective and “ sell” it to the county.

Focusing their efforts on the legacy of Zora Neale Hurston, P.E.C. looked for a way to take her contributions and make them accessible to people outside Eatonville. “But we needed a way to take something that might be perceived as stodgy and make it interesting,” says N.Y. Nathiri, P.E.C. executive director. That’s when they decided to produce a festival to honor not only Hurston and her works, but also her ideals and ethics. In short, this would be no typical street party. This festival would contain a strong humanities component to introduce modern audiences to the profound works of a pioneer in ethnic documentation and preservation.

The program would include a public forum of academic discussions, workshops, and master classes; an Education Day to present age-appropriate cultural arts programming for students; a Street Festival showcasing music, dance, drama, visual arts, folk arts, and ethnic cuisines; and cultural arts events, including concerts, art exhibitions, and theater performances.

This festival was a highly ambitious undertaking, and one considered by many as the work of masochists. Yet this was a committed group of volunteers and, steered by Nathiri, former Cornell University librarian and academician, the fledgling organization succeed in its goal, but not without many hard lessons learned. One of the most important Nathiri can impart is that “it takes lots of time to develop partnerships.” Because this festival would include a heavy concentration on education, the organizers needed to spend a lot of time developing outreach efforts to teachers. “We had to build name recognition and content about Zora Neale Hurston so we could provide classroom-ready materials to support the content of the festival,” explains Nathiri. She also sites the quality of volunteers as an essential ingredient to successful event planning.

Oddly, what would seem to be a major obstacle—attracting big-name contributors —turned out to be as simple as extending the invitation. P.E.C. sent the writer Alice Walker a package of information about their planned festival and asked if she would like to be a speaker. She accepted. It was that simple.

From there the road to success got easier. “When you have a celebrity it lends credibility,” declares Nathiri. Walker’s hefty speaking fee was picked up by a local bank almost instantly. Shortly thereafter, P.E.C. was able to secure participation from renowned actress Ruby Dee, Robert Hemenway, Hurston’s biographer, famed African-American storyteller Augusta Baker, and Dr. Ruthe T. Sheffey, Zora Neale Hurston Society founder and president. With these heavy hitters in their corner, P.E.C. requested a grant from the Florida Humanities Council, which promptly handed over an unprecedented $29,000.

Program planning got underway with a handful of volunteers who developed topics and themes and invited speakers, entertainers, and exhibitors. Sponsors from around the region were secured to help fund everything from marketing to operations. The first festival took place in January 1990, attracting 10,000 people. Each year since then has marked progressively more complex literary and cultural programs by academic and artistic presenters of note and renown from around the globe.

Central to P.E.C.’s success in not only originating and producing such a quality festival, but in growing it every year while keeping it running smoothly, is the superb organizational skills of the team and the doc- umentation of facts and figures from year to year. As Nathiri puts it, “We run this thing like a military operation,” which is saying a lot since there are now about 800 volunteers involved in the annual event. Guest response cards always rate the festival in highest terms for everything from content to accessibility.

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