Zora Neale Hurston -- A Theme Restaurant in D.C.

In Eatonville the town (outside of Orlando, population 2,400), there are porches where stories are spun, so naturally there must be a "porch" in Eatonville the restaurant (just off V Street NW, 250 seats) where visitors from the town might sit a spell with customers.

"This is a first," says N.Y. Nathiri, pleasantly stunned to see this trendy urban take on her rural home town. She rocks her green wooden chair on the rough wooden boards of the porch that's tucked beside the swanky dining area of the Washington restaurant.
She's wearing a black T-shirt that says "Zora!" and carrying a burlap bag that says "Zora!" She's just arrived from Eatonville, also the home town of the great Harlem Renaissance novelist with the incandescent personality, Zora Neale Hurston. Hurston used to collect yarns she heard on the porches of Eatonville, and those porches turn up in her books. She died in 1960 in such poverty and obscurity that her grave was unmarked, but today her following is passionate.

Nathiri, 60, had heard rumors of this other Eatonville. Zora pilgrims to the town kept recommending the restaurant. Nathiri had to see for herself. From her perch on the porch, she takes in the big Day-Glo murals inspired by scenes from Hurston's work, the enlarged quotes of Hurston's words, the painting of Eatonville itself. Nathiri, executive director of the Association to Preserve the Eatonville Community, could look around here and think her work is almost done.

"It's an incarnation of Eatonville that is very 21st century," she says. "It's cultural preservation across generations and in another setting

Eatonville, meet Eatonville.

I know what I think about Zora Neale Hurston, one of the writers on my top ten list, fiction or non. But I don't know what I think about this, except, kind of on the level of where were you when she died, unknown, in poverty and isolation in 1960. And now people are making money from her brilliant, ground-breaking work, money that she did not make herself, despite doing all that work.

The full story in the Washington Post is here.

What is useful in this story is the brief outline of the Florida - D.C. connections among the African American populations of both regions, in terms of immigration for work, for family ties, that reach back at least through the Civil War. Many people aren't aware of this venerable network, or its place in African American history.

On the other hand, the article states: "What it really is, though, is a devout and profitable evocation of spirit and ideals intended to appeal to Washingtonians' pride in their town's contribution to the Harlem Renaissance and to national culture overall."

Now, I'm not so sure about this "national culture overall thang." I mean, really, in terms of national culture, just what has D.C. contributed that isn't about lobbyists and pork barreling, and how much good from that have African Americans received anyway? Currently D.C. is twittering that its hiphop scene is poised to rank everyone else, and deserves to since southern hiphop is bouncin' so great, i.e. Little Wayne, etc. But honey, Imatellya -- that's New Orleans and no way evah will D.C. rank New Orleans when it comes to music. That's the price D.C. pays for the power to screw NO over and over.