Florida · The historic town & Kennedy Boulevard
Eatonville
Incorporated in 1887 by twenty-seven Black men. Still governed by their successors.
Why this city
On the 15th of August 1887, twenty-seven Black men incorporated the town of Eatonville — the first incorporated African American municipality in the United States, with its own mayor, marshal and council. It has governed itself ever since, six miles north of downtown Orlando and now surrounded by it.
Zora Neale Hurston grew up here and wrote from here for the rest of her life. Her Eatonville is not a place of struggle: it is a town where Black self-government was ordinary, where the store porch was the seat of philosophy, and where nobody's authority needed explaining. That framing is the town's single greatest gift to American letters.
Come knowing that Eatonville's history is under active threat. The old Hungerford School land — a Black industrial school founded in 1889 on the Tuskegee model — has been the subject of a long development fight, and the town's preservation community will tell you exactly where that stands. Spend money in the town, not around it.
Museums & historic sites
Zora Neale Hurston National Museum of Fine Arts
The Hurston, on Kennedy Boulevard — run by the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community. Start here and ask what the current fight is.
The Zora! Festival
Held each January by the Association. The single best week to visit; book lodging months out.
St. Lawrence AME Church & Macedonia Missionary Baptist
Two founding congregations, both from the town's first years and both still holding services.
The Hungerford School site
Founded 1889 as a Black industrial school on the Tuskegee model. Ask the Association about the land's current status before you form a view.
Hurston's grave, Fort Pierce
Two hours south-east. Hurston died in poverty in 1960 and lay in an unmarked grave until Alice Walker found and marked it in 1973.
Mounds & ancient Indigenous ground
Earthworks, shell rings and mound complexes within reach of the city — most of them older than anything else you will see on this trip. Where a site sits on sovereign or restricted land, enter with a tribal or preserve guide, and never climb a mound.
Fort Christmas & the Jesup ground
East of the town: forts built during the Second Seminole War, on ground the Seminole never ceded.
Turtle Mound, Canaveral National Seashore
An hour east: a fifty-foot Timucua shell midden of some 35,000 cubic metres, and the highest point on Florida's Atlantic coast.
Lake Jesup and the St. Johns middens
St. Johns-culture shell mounds along the river system that shaped this county. Several are inside county preserves with interpretive trails.
Seminole and Miccosukee ground
Central Florida was Seminole homeland; the Maroon and Seminole alliance that Angola belonged to ran through this interior.
Where to stay
A Black-owned guesthouse in or beside Eatonville
Booked through the Circle's desk. Where a town has no Black-owned house at this standard, we say so and place you in the best independent room instead.
A Winter Park or Maitland base a few minutes away
Independently held. Eatonville is small; most members sleep adjacent and spend their days in the town.
The table
Black-owned soul food kitchens on Kennedy Boulevard
Family-run, lunch service, cash-friendly. This is where your money does the most good.
A Black-owned bakery or fish house in the town
Ask at the Hurston museum who is open the week you arrive; a town this small changes.
Caribbean and Southern tables in west Orlando
Fifteen minutes south, for the wider Central Florida Black table.
Tours & walks
A Hurston walking tour of the town
Arranged through the Association. The porch, the store, the church, the school — as she wrote them.
A Black Central Florida heritage drive
Eatonville, Parramore in Orlando, and the Ocoee massacre site of 1920, with a local historian.
A Zora! Festival programme day
In January: the humanities panels rather than the street fair. Register early.
Members have this city's stays, tables and guides booked for them, with introductions where protocol allows. Everyone else is welcome to use the guide exactly as written.
All city guidesNext step
Behind the closed gate.
Our community-governed journeys and the Sovereign Florida Circuit go where a guidebook cannot take you.