The Big Read Tampa: Are you reading it yet?
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Friends of the Bruton
Memorial Library
Includes fun Times Newspaper in Education activities
Welcome to The Big Read Tampa
St. Petersburg Times Newspaper in Education
The Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative
is proud to be the recipient of a grant to host The Big
Read Tampa. The Big Read is an initiative of the National
Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with the Institute
of Museum and Library Services and in cooperation with
Arts Midwest, designed to restore reading to the center of
American culture.
We invite you to join us in our Big Read of Zora Neale
Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God. First published
in 1937 and set in Eatonville, Florida, this epic tale of
the human spirit is considered a classic piece of AfricanAmerican literature.
The St. Petersburg Times is one of nearly 1,000 United States newspapers offering
“a living textbook,’’ the daily newspaper, to teachers and students. Now you
can read and teach with the St. Petersburg Times from the convenience of your
computer. Simply sign up for the e-Edition and you’ll have daily access to an
electronic version of the newspaper — delivered right to your computer. You
will be saving trees, avoiding newspaper pileup and making learning more
interactive and exciting for your students.
The e-Edition is an exact digital replica of the printed paper. The complete paper
– including every article, photograph and advertisement, even the crossword
puzzle – is automatically delivered to your computer.
Reading increases vocabulary, writing skills and knowledge of the world around
us. What better way to increase knowledge about the world than by reading
newspapers? What better way to make this reading more interactive than by
using the electronic edition?
For information about how to receive your free copies of the Tampa edition of
the Times and accompanying teaching materials for your school, call
727-893-8138 or 800-333-7505, ext. 8138 or visit tampabay.com/nie.
We have teamed up with many local organizations to offer
a variety of free events exploring or inspired by Hurston’s
work. These events include scholarly lectures, storytelling,
readings, musical performances, book discussions and
film screenings. Events will be held at many venues,
including the Tampa Museum of Art, WEDU, Hillsborough
Community College campuses, the Bible Truth Ministry
Academy, Barnes & Noble Bookstores and public libraries
throughout Hillsborough County.
With help from our friends at the St. Petersburg Times, we
are excited to offer you this guide detailing the many Big
Read events scheduled throughout the month of September.
Please join us as we come together to read, discuss and
celebrate a classic American novel.
This publication, and the reading of Their Eyes Were Watching God, incorporates
the following Sunshine State Standards:
Social Studies: SS.A.1.3; SS.A.1.4; SS.A.3.3; SS.A.3.4; SS.A.4.3; SS.A.5.3; SS.A.5.4; SS.A.6.3; SS.B.2.3; SS.C.2.3;
SS.B.2.4; SS.C.2.4
Language Arts/Reading: LA.6.1.5.1; LA.6.1.6.1-11; LA.6.1.7.1-8; LA.6.2.1.1-10; LA.6.2.2.1-5; LA.6.3.1.1-3;
LA.6.3.2.1-3; LA.6.3.3.1-4; LA.6.3.4.1-5; LA.6.3.5.1-3; LA.6.4.2.1-4; LA.6.4.3.1-2; LA.6.5.2.1-2; LA.6.6.1.1;
LA.6.6.2.1-4; LA.6.6.3.1-2; LA.6.6.4.1-2; LA.7.1.5.1; LA.7.1.6.1-11; LA.7.1.7.1-8; LA.7.2.1.1-10; LA.7.3.1.1-3;
LA.7.3.2.1-3; LA.7.3.3.1-4; LA.7.3.4.1-5; LA.7.3.5.1-3; LA.7.4.2.1-4; LA.7.4.3.1-2; LA.7.5.2.1-3; LA.7.6.1.1;
LA.7.6.2.1-4; LA.7.6.3.1-3; LA.7.6.4.1-2; LA.8.1.5.1; LA.8.1.6.1-11; LA.8.1.7.1-8; LA.8.2.1.1-10; LA.8.3.1.1-3;
LA.8.3.2.1-3; LA.8.3.3.1-4; LA.8.3.4.1-5; LA.8.3.5.1-3; LA.8.4.2.1-4; LA.8.4.3.1-2; LA.8.5.2.1-5; LA.8.6.1.1;
LA.8.6.2.1-4; LA.8.6.3.1-3; LA.8.6.4.1-2; LA.910.1.5.1; LA.910.1.6.1-11; LA.910.1.7.1-8; LA.910.2.1.1-10;
LA.910.3.1.1-3; LA.910.3.2.1-3; LA.910.3.3.1-4; LA.910.3.4.1-5; LA.910.3.5.1-3; LA.910.4.2.1-3; LA.910.4.3.1-2;
LA.910.5.2.1-5; LA.910.6.1.1; LA.910.6.2.1-4; LA.910.6.3.1-3; LA.910.6.4.1-2; LA.1112.1.5.1; LA.1112.1.6.1-11;
LA.1112.1.7.1-8; LA.1112.2.1.1-10; LA.1112.3.1.1-3; LA.1112.3.2.1-3; LA.1112.3.3.1-4; LA.1112.3.4.1-5;
LA.1112.3.5.1-3; LA.1112.4.2.1-3; LA.1112.4.3.1-2; LA.1112.5.2.1-5; LA.1112.6.1.1-3; LA.1112.6.2.1-4;
LA.1112.6.3.1-3; LA.1112.6.4.1-2
NIE Staff
Gretchen Letterman, manager,
[email protected]
Jodi Pushkin, curriculum development specialist,
[email protected]
Maria Walkiewicz, development specialist,
[email protected]
Jill Wilson, education/new media specialist,
[email protected]
Sincerely,
Joe R. Stines
Director of Libraries
Tampa-Hillsborough County Public Library System
Credits
Written and researched by Jodi Pushkin
Designed by Mark D. Ruffner of the Times staff
© St. Petersburg Times 2008
MNIE331
Growing pains of a nation,
and a life
www.tampabay.com/nie
1857
In the Dred Scott case, the Supreme Court
decides that African-Americans are not citizens
of the U.S., and that Congress has no power
to restrict slavery in any federal territory.
1863
President Abraham Lincoln’s
Emancipation Proclamation
legally frees all slaves
in the Confederacy.
Timeline source: National Museum of American History
1865
Congress passes the Thirteenth
Amendment, outlawing slavery,
and establishes the Freedmen’s
Bureau to assist former slaves.
Big Read Kickoff Event
Hillsborough Community College
Ybor City Campus
Saturday, Sept. 6
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
1866
Congress passes the Civil Rights Act.
White supremacist organization the
Ku Klux Klan is founded in Tennessee.
1868
The Fourteenth Amendment passes,
granting equal protection of the laws
to African-Americans.
14
1870
The Fifteenth Amendment establishes
the right of African-American males
to vote.
15
1875
The Civil Rights Act grants equal
access to public accommodations.
www.tampabay.com/nie
Think about it:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
As you read Their Eyes Were Watching God
by Zora Neale Hurston, think about the culture
represented in the book.
The author’s life can inform and expand
the reader’s understanding of a novel.
For example, authors often integrate their
expertise into the story. In Their Eyes Were
Watching God, Hurston infuses the setting,
characters and dialogue of the novel with
Southern folklore and anthropological
research. Also, events in the novel mirror
some circumstances and events in her life.
Hurston’s bold statement, I love myself when I
am laughing and then again when I am looking
mean and impressive,” captures the defiant
confidence we encounter in the maturing
main character, Janie Mae Crawford. And
while we more fully understand the work as
we learn about the author, the artistry of the
novel does not succeed or fail based on the
author’s life. The novel – a work of art – has an
internal structure independent of the author’s
personality.
Discussion question
What events in the story seem to come from
Hurston’s life?
1881
Tennessee passes the first of the “Jim Crow”
segregation laws, segregating state railroads.
Other Southern states pass similar laws
over the next 15 years.
www.tampabay.com/nie
“[Janie] was stretched on her back beneath the pear tree
soaking in the alto chant of the visiting bees, the gold of
the sun and the panting breath of the breeze when the
inaudible voice of it all came to her. She saw a dust-bearing
bee sink into the sanctum of a bloom; the thousand sistercalyxes arch to meet the love embrace and the ecstatic
shiver of the tree from root to tiniest branch creaming in
every blossom and frothing with delight. So this was a
marriage! She had been summoned to behold a revelation.
Then Janie felt a pain remorseless sweet that left her limp
and languid.”
– Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
In a letter to poet Countee Cullen, Hurston
wrote, “I have the nerve to walk my own way,
however hard, in my search for reality, rather
than climb upon the rattling wagon of wishful
illusions.”
Zora Neale Hurston:
Making her own path
A passion for life
Zora Neale Hurston has become the most
successful and most significant black woman
writer of the first half of the 20th century.
During her career, which spanned more than
30 years, Hurston published four novels,
two books of folklore, an autobiography,
numerous short stories, and several essays,
articles and plays.
Hurston, born on Jan. 7, 1891, in Notasulga,
Alabama, moved with her family to Eatonville,
Florida, the first all-black incorporated town
in the United States, when she was still a
toddler. For Hurston, Eatonville was always
home.
Although Hurston is now considered the
intellectual and spiritual foremother to a
generation of black and women writers,
during her lifetime, she struggled to attain
that respect. Hurston’s books were all out of
print when she died in poverty and obscurity
in 1960.
Growing up in an eight-room house on five
acres of land, Hurston had a relatively happy
childhood, despite frequent arguments with
her preacher-father. Her mother urged young
Zora and her seven siblings to “jump at de
sun.” Hurston explained, “We might not land
on the sun, but at least we would get off the
ground.”
1883
The Supreme Court nullifies
the Civil Rights Act of 1875.
1891
Zora Neal Hurston is
born on Jan. 7, 1891,
in Notasulga, Alabama.
1892
Hurston and her family move
to Eatonville, Florida.
Hurston’s pleasant childhood came to an
end when her mother died in 1904. Zora
was only 13 years old. “That hour began my
wanderings,” she later wrote. “Not so much in
geography, but in time. Then not so much in
time as in spirit.”
Despite the novel’s 1937 publication,
Hurston’s lifelong struggle for financial
security continued throughout the 1940s.
Once, she even pawned her typewriter. The
largest royalty any of her books ever earned
was $943.75.
After Lucy Potts Hurston’s death, Zora’s
father remarried quickly – to a young woman
who seemed to have little time or money for
his children.
Through the 1950s, Hurston remained
devoted to writing, but white publishers
rejected her books, in part because black
literature was no longer considered
marketable. Her health seriously declined.
Her anti-communist essays and denunciation
of school integration increasingly alienated
her from other black writers. After a stroke in
1959, Hurston reluctantly entered a welfare
home, where she died penniless on Jan. 28,
1960. Her grave remained unmarked until
novelist Alice Walker erected a gravestone in
1973.
Dust tracks on the road
Her mother’s death and father’s remarriage
led Hurston to leave home at 14 and become a
wardrobe girl in an all-white traveling Gilbert
and Sullivan operetta troupe. She completed
her education at Howard University in
Washington, D.C., while supporting herself at
a variety of jobs, from manicurist to maid.
Sources: The National Endowment for the Arts, the
estate of Zora Neale Hurston and HarperCollins
As the only black scholar at Barnard College,
Hurston studied with anthropologist
Dr. Franz Boas. His encouragement,
combined with a stipend of $200 a month
and a car from patron Charlotte Osgood
Mason, allowed Hurston to complete much
of her anthropological work in the American
South. Hurston indulged her lifelong
fascination with collecting and recording the
daily idiomatic dialect of black Americans,
which is revealed in her books, short stories,
articles, plays and essays.
Everyday influences
In Their Eyes Were Watching God, Hurston
infuses the setting, characters and dialogue
of the novel with Southern folklore and
anthropological research. Also, events in the
novel mirror some circumstances and events
in her life. Societal events affect our lives every
day. What events have influenced your life?
Look in the St. Petersburg Times for examples
of everyday events that influence your life.
Choose headlines, photos, captions, cartoons
and advertisements from the Times and create
a visual representation – collage, photo album,
digital collage – to share with your class.
This passion for her work led to tension in
her romantic relationships. Hurston married
and divorced three husbands. At the age of 44,
Hurston fell in love with 23-year-old
Percy Punter. When he asked her to give up
her career to marry him, she refused. She
fled to Haiti, where she wrote Their Eyes Were
Watching God in seven weeks.
In Plessy v. Ferguson, the U.S. Supreme
Court rules that segregated, or “separate
but equal,” public facilities for white and
black Americans are legal.
1897
Hurston’s father, John,
is elected mayor.
Journaling your life
Janie tells her story to her best friend in the
novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. If you
could tell your life story to only one person,
who would it be? Where would you begin?
Begin with a significant event or moment that
changed your view of the world. Describe your
experience through images or word pictures.
Write a journal excerpt about this moment.
You can post your journaling on the Times NIE
blog to share with other students. Log on to
tampabay.com/nie, and click on The Big Read.
In January 1925, Hurston arrived in New York
City with $1.50 in her pocket. Two years later,
Hurston had not only published four short
stories, but she also had become one of the
most popular artists of the blossoming Harlem
Renaissance.
1896
Learning
with the
Times
1904
Hurston’s mother,
Lucy Potts Hurston, dies.
1905
John Hurston remarries. Zora Neal Hurston leaves
home and lives primarily in Jacksonville, Florida.
www.tampabay.com/nie
“Ships at a distance have every man’s wish on board. For some they come in
with the tide. For others they sail forever on the horizon, never out of sight, never
landing until the Watcher turns his eyes away in resignation, his dreams mocked
to death by Time. That is the life of men. Now, women forget all those things
they don’t want to remember, and remember everything they don’t want to forget.
The dream is the truth. Then they act and do things accordingly.”
– Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hurston’s Era
The Jazz Age
The decade following World War I has been
penned as “the Roaring Twenties,” and it was
a time of unprecedented prosperity. Nothing
quite like it had happened before in America.
Young people were tired of the war, and white
Americans began taking an interest in AfricanAmerican culture.
By the mid-1920s, jazz was being played in
dance halls, roadhouses and speakeasies all over
the United States. The blues, which had once
been the product of nomadic black musicians,
the poorest of the Southern poor, had become
an industry. Americans bought more than
100-million phonograph records, which were
bringing jazz to locations so remote that no band
could reach them. In New York City, the heart
of the jazz culture, Harlem nightclubs thrived,
spotlighting numerous artists such as jazz
musicians Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington.
The first major movement of AfricanAmerican literature began in 1923 and
flourished through the 1940s. The renaissance
mainly involved a group of writers and
intellectuals associated with Harlem, New
York, during the migration of AfricanAmericans from the rural South to the urban
North.
One characteristic of the Harlem Renaissance
was a move toward so-called “high art” in
black writing, rather than the use of folk
idioms, comic writing and vernacular that
often had been considered the special realm
of African-American writing up to that time.
However, several of the Harlem writers made
powerful use of folk idioms such as the blues,
particularly Langston Hughes and Zora Neale
Hurston.
Other prominent Harlem Renaissance writers
included James Weldon Johnson, Jessie
Redmon Fauset, Claude McKay, Nella Larsen,
Jean Toomer, Arna Bontemps, Gwendolyn
Bennett and Helene Johnson.
F. Scott Fitzgerald coined the term “Jazz Age” to
reflect an era of ragtime, jazz, stylish automobiles
and uninhibited young women with bobbed
hair. But this decade also marked the Harlem
Renaissance – the artistic and political cultural
birth of the “New Negro” in literature and art.
Sources: Public Broadcasting System (PBS)
and the Library of Congress
The Harlem Renaissance
National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People (NAACP) forms to fight
for civil rights through legal action and education.
www.tampabay.com/nie
Linking history and music
During the big band era (1935 to 1945), jazz
music was at the very forefront of popular
culture in the United States. Research what
was going on in the United States during that
decade. Look for articles in the St. Petersburg
Times, online or in print, focusing on current
popular music and culture. Write a report with
the information you find. Be sure to include
how music was and is affected by the culture.
Share the information you find with your
classmates by presenting an oral report. Log
on to tampabay.com/nie and click on The Big
Read to blog about this information.
Think about it:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
A great writer’s work often reflects the arts and
culture of the era. The Jazz Age of the 1920s
and the Harlem Renaissance marked the
artistic, political and cultural birth of the “New
Negro” in literature and art. This renaissance
relied upon its deep roots, including the oral
traditions of storytelling and folktales. These
traditions corresponded to a variety of musical
styles: Negro spirituals, blues and jazz. In
Hurston’s prose, the old and new converged
into the dynamic, vibrant language of Janie,
Pheoby and the Eatonville townspeople.
Discussion question
The Harlem Renaissance represents an era in
American history during which the uniqueness
of African-American culture was celebrated. It
was a period marked by a vibrant nightlife, by
the publication of short stories, plays, poems
and novels by and about African-Americans,
by musicals written by and starring AfricanAmericans and by the creation of AfricanAmerican artwork.
1909
Learning
with the
Times
Why would Hurston use Southern black idiom
to tell her story?
1915
Hurston moves to
Memphis, Tennessee.
1916
Hurston gets a job working
as a wardrobe girl for Gilbert
and Sullivan.
1917
Hurston works as a waitress
and enters the Morgan Academy.
The Big Read Tampa
In the fashion of the Harlem Renaissance (also known as
the Black Literary Renaissance), Hillsborough County will
launch The Big Read Tampa in September with the novel
Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston.
The Big Read, launched nationally in 2006 by the NEA,
in partnership with the Institute of Museum and Library
Services (IMLS) and Arts Midwest, encourages literary
reading by asking communities to come together to read
Their Eyes Were
Watching God
Library Adult Book Discussions
Sept. 2, 11 a.m.
Bruton Memorial Library
302 McLendon St., Plant City
Sept. 6, 5 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Sept. 8, 2 p.m.
New Tampa Regional Library
10001 Cross Creek Blvd.
Sept. 12, 4 p.m.
Teen Book Discussion
John F. Germany Public Library
900 N. Ashley Dr.
Sept. 8, 1:30 p.m.
Austin Davis Public Library
17808 Wayne Rd.
Sept. 13, 10:30 a.m.
Seminole Heights Branch Library
4711 Central Ave.
Sept. 9, 2 p.m.
Lutz Branch Library
101 Lutz-Lake Fern Rd.
Sept. 15, 11:30 a.m.
Upper Tampa Bay Regional Library
1211 Countryway Blvd.
Sept. 9, 2:30 p.m.
Brandon Regional Library
619 Vonderburg Dr.
Sept. 15, 6 p.m.
Seffner/Mango Branch Library
11724 E. Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Sept. 10, 11 a.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Sept. 17, 3 p.m.
Town ’N Country Regional Library
5455 W. Waters Ave. Suite 208
Sept. 10, 7 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
213 N. Dale Mabry Hwy.
Sept. 18, 1-2:15 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
1918
Hurston graduates
from the Morgan Academy.
John Hurston dies.
1920
The Nineteenth Amendment gives women the right to vote.
Mamie Smith records the first blues record, Crazy Blues,
on the Okeh label. It is hugely successful. Hurston earns an
associate’s degree from Howard University.
and discuss a single book. This year’s communitywide
reading event will partner the public libraries and the
St. Petersburg Times, as well as local cities and museums, to
provide cultural programming and book discussions about
Hurston’s novel. Through the month, Hillsborough County
residents can attend book discussions, film screenings and
special events. For more information about The Big Read,
please call Darlene Harris at 813-272-5018 or visit hcplc.org.
Sept. 18, 2 p.m.
SouthShore Regional Library
15816 Beth Shields Way
Sept. 28, 1 p.m.
Jimmie B. Keel Regional Library
2902 W. Bearss Ave.
Sept. 18, 7 p.m.
Bloomingdale Regional Library
1906 Bloomingdale Ave.
Sept. 28, 3 p.m.
John F. Germany Public Library
900 N. Ashley Dr.
Sept. 19, 2 p.m.
Boys Only Read : Local sports
personality Tyrone Keys will
facilitate the book discussion
Bible Truth Academy Hope Center
Sept. 20, 3 p.m.
Teen Book Discussion
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Sept. 23, 6 p.m.
WEDU
1300 North Boulevard
Sept. 24, 7 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
11802 N. Dale Mabry Hwy.
Sept. 26, 10:30 a.m.
College Hill Branch Library
2607 E. Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Sept. 26, noon
West Tampa Branch Library
2312 W. Union St.
Sept. 27, 2 p.m.
Thonotosassa Branch Library
10715 Main St.
1921
Shuffle Along, with music by Eubie
Blake, lyrics by Noble Sissle and an allblack cast, opens on Broadway. Hurston
publishes her first short stories.
1922
Claude McKay publishes a collection of his
early poetry, Harlem Shadows. It will be
considered one of the important early works
of the Harlem Renaissance.
www.tampabay.com/nie
The Big Read
Tampa Special Events
Keynote speaker
Valerie Boyd
HCC – Ybor Campus
2 p.m.
Sept. 6
Sept. 11
Kickoff
Hillsborough Community College
Ybor Campus
10 a.m. - 2 p.m.
Guest speaker
Phyllis McEwen
Actor Phyllis McEwen will bring Zora Neale Hurston to life.
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
11 a.m.
Sept. 6
Sept. 11
Barnes & Noble
Book Discussion
122 Brandon Town Center
5 p.m.
Guest speaker
Phyllis McEwen
Bruton Memorial Library
Plant City
7 p.m.
Sept. 7
Sept. 13
Film screening
Tampa Museum of Art
2306 N. Howard Ave.
2 p.m.
Swing to the Beat Party
Children ages 5-9 years old can participate in crafts
and activities related to the book. Children also will
learn to dance the Charleston.
The New Place – Cultural Arts Center
11 a.m.
1923
Blues singer Bessie Smith
records Down Hearted
Blues.
Sept. 7
1925
Countee Cullen, considered one of the finest poets of the Harlem Renaissance,
publishes his first collection of poems, Color. Hurston moves to New York City.
She wins an Opportunity magazine contest for the short story “Spunk” and play
Color Struck. She enters Barnard College while working for author Fannie Hurst.
www.tampabay.com/nie
1926
Langston Hughes publishes The Weary Blues, his first
book of poetry. Jazz trumpeter and vocalist Louis
Armstrong forms his Hot Five band. Hurston studies with
anthropologist Franz Boas at Columbia University.
1927
Hurston receives the Carter Woodson Association
fellowship. She marries Herbert Sheen. Duke
Ellington’s jazz group begins a five-year
engagement at the Cotton Club in Harlem.
Sept. 25
Sept. 16
The Harlem Renaissance:
The History of Zora
Lecture on Hurston’s relationship
to the Harlem Renaissance.
College Hill Branch Library
6 p.m.
Sept. 17
Panel discussion: The life of Zora
Lois Hurston Gaston, Ph.D.,
niece of Zora N. Hurston
HCC – Dale Mabry Campus
5 p.m.
Featured: Dr. Deborah Plant, Ph.D. and Myron Jackson
Sept. 27
The Harlem Stomp
Teen Harlem Renaissance
Teens are invited to celebrate the novel with an
afternoon of dancing, games and music.
Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Library
1 p.m.
Guest speaker
James Tokley
John F. Germany Library
Auditorium
2 p.m.
Sept. 28
Photo by Steve Roake
Sept. 21
Guest speaker
Phyllis McEwen
Tampa Museum of Art
2306 N. Howard Ave.
11 a.m.
Closing reception
West Tampa Branch Library
3 p.m.
Sept. 23
Film screening
HCC - Plant City Campus
10 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m.
1928
Hurston separates from
Sheen and moves to Polk
County, Florida. She earns
her Bachelor of Arts.
1930
1931
Hurston does research in the Bahamas, New York City, New Jersey and the
South. She collaborates with Langston Hughes on their play Mule Bone: A
Comedy of Negro Life. In October, she registers, Cold Keener, and De Turkey
and de Law: a Comedy in Three Acts, for copyright.
Hurston and Hughes register Mule Bone for copyright. Hurston registers four sketches –
“Forty Yeards,” “Lawing and Jawing,” “Poker!” and “Woofing” – and attempts various
Broadway productions. In the news, nine African-American youths are accused of raping two
white women, and are tried for their lives and quickly convicted in Scottsboro, Alabama.
www.tampabay.com/nie
Are you reading it yet?
Special programs
and events
Sept. 2 Read Aloud
noon
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 6
KICKOFF EVENT
10 a.m. – 2 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Ybor Campus
Sept. 7
Film Screening
Their Eyes Were Watching God
2 p.m.
Tampa Museum of Art
2306 N. Howard Ave.
Sept. 7
Keynote Speaker
Valerie Boyd
2 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Ybor Campus
Sept. 10
Read Aloud
noon
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 11
Guest Speaker
Phyllis McEwen
11 a.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 11
Film Screening
2 p.m.
Ruskin Branch Library
One Dickman Dr., S.E., Ruskin
Sept. 11
Guest Speaker
Phyllis McEwen
7 p.m.
Bruton Memorial Library
302 McLendon St., Plant City
1932
African-American sculptor Augusta Savage
establishes the Savage Studio of Arts
and Crafts in New York, at the time the
largest art center in the nation.
10
www.tampabay.com/nie
The Big Read is an initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with
the Institute of Museum and Library Services and Arts Midwest.
Sept. 13
Swing to the Beat Party
11 a.m.
The New Place – Cultural Arts
Center
2811 N. 17th Street
Children ages 5-9 can participate
in crafts and activities related to
the book. Children also will learn to
dance the Charleston.
Sept. 13
Film Screening
2 p.m.
Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Library
1505 Nebraska Ave.
Sept. 16
Film Screening
4:30 p.m.
78th Street Community Library
7625 Palm River Rd.
Sept. 16
The Harlem Renaissance:
“The History of Zora”
6 p.m.
College Hill Branch Library
2607 E. Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
The story of Zora Neale Hurston
presented by Phyllis McEwen.
Sept. 17
Read Aloud
noon
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 17
“The Harlem Stomp”:
Teen Harlem Renaissance
1 p.m.
Robert W. Saunders, Sr. Library
1505 Nebraska Ave.
Teens are invited to celebrate the
novel with an afternoon of dancing,
games, music and a costume
contest.
Sept. 18
Film Screening
3 p.m.
SouthShore Regional Library
15816 Beth Shields Way, Ruskin
1933
Hurston revises The Great Day
and produces it in Florida
venues as From Sun to Sun.
Sept. 21
Guest Speaker
Poet Laureate James Tokley
2 p.m.
John F. Germany Library
Sept. 18
Book-to-Film Discussion
3 p.m.
SouthShore Regional Library
15816 Beth Shields Way
Sept. 23
Film Screening
10 a.m., 2 p.m., 5 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 21
Book-to-Film Discussion
3 p.m.
Brandon Regional Library
619 Vonderburg Dr.
Sept. 24
Read Aloud
noon
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 24
Book-to-Film Discussion
6:30 p.m.
Jan K. Platt Regional Library
3910 S. Manhattan Ave.
Sept. 25
Panel Discussion
5 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Dale Mabry Campus
Sept. 27
Book-to-Film Discussion
2 p.m.
Lutz Branch Library
101 Lutz-Lake Fern Rd.
Sept. 27
Guest Speaker
Phyllis McEwen
11 a.m.
Tampa Museum of Art
2306 N. Howard Ave.
Partnering
Book
Discussions:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Sept. 28
Closing Reception
3 p.m.
West Tampa Branch Library
2312 W. Union St.
Sept. 6
5 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Book-to-Film
Discussions
Sept. 14
Book-to-Film Discussion
1 p.m.
Jimmie B. Keel Regional Library
2902 W. Bearss Ave.
Sept. 16
Book-to-Film Discussion
7 p.m.
Riverview Branch Library
10509 Riverview Dr.
1934
Hurston publishes the
novel Jonah’s Gourd Vine.
Sept. 24
7 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
11802 N. Dale Mabry Hwy.
Teen
Book Discussions
Sept. 12
4 p.m.
John F. Germany Public Library
900 N. Ashley Dr.
Sept. 19
Boys Only Read
2 p.m.
Bible Truth Academy Hope Center
Tyrone Keys, local sports
personality, will facilitate the book
discussion of Their Eyes Were
Watching God.
Sept. 20
3 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Sept. 10
11 a.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
122 Brandon Town Center
Sept. 10
7 p.m.
Barnes & Noble Booksellers
213 N. Dale Mabry Hwy.
Sept. 18
1-2:15 p.m.
Hillsborough Community College
Plant City Campus
Sept. 23
6 p.m.
WEDU
1300 North Boulevard
1935
Hurston splits her time living and writing in New York and Florida. She registers
the three-act play Spunk for copyright and joins the Harlem unit of the Federal
Theater Project. Jazz pianist Count Basie forms a band that will become famous as
Count Basie and His Orchestra, one of the foremost big bands of the swing era.
“Listen, Sam, if it was nature, nobody wouldn’t have tuh look out for babies touchin’ stoves,
would they? ’Cause dey just naturally wouldn’t touch it. But dey sho will. So it’s caution.”
“Naw it ain’t, it’s nature, ’cause nature makes caution. It’s de strongest thing dat God ever
made, now. Fact is it’s de onliest thing God every made. He made nature and nature made
everything else.”
– Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Separate = equal
Jim Crow
Despite some legal changes after the Civil
War, former slaves and their children had
little assurance in the South that their
freedoms would be recognized. When
Hurston was a child in the 1890s, a system
of laws and regulations commonly referred
to as “Jim Crow” emerged. Most of the
laws separated such public facilities as
parks, schools, hotels, transportation, water
fountains and restrooms into “Whites
Only” and “Colored.”
Although using violence to subjugate
blacks was nothing new in the South, its
character changed under Jim Crow. Brutal
acts and mob violence were common.
Torture became a public spectacle. Railroad
companies sold tickets to lynchings. Some
white families brought their children to
witness such violence, and body parts of
dead victims were sold as souvenirs.
1931, Charlotte Osgood Mason, Hurston’s
“godmother,” arranged for her to see a
white doctor. But when Hurston arrived
at the specialist’s office in Brooklyn, an
embarrassed receptionist took her to “a
private examination room” – in other
words, a room with soiled towels, dirty
laundry and one chair.
To avoid the Jim Crow coaches during
her Southern folklore collecting travels,
Hurston and her brother John agreed that
she should buy a car. The coaches were
often poorly ventilated and dangerous
for women traveling alone. In February
1927, she bought a used car for $300 (with
payments of $26.80 a month), which she
soon dubbed Sassy Susie.
In the 1944 Negro Digest, Hurston
published “My Most Humiliating Jim
Crow Experience,” an accounting of what
took place in New York, not the South.
Hurston needed medical treatment that she
could not afford. For over a year, she had
been suffering from digestive problems. In
1936
Track-and-field athlete Jesse Owens wins four gold medals in
the Berlin Olympics, thwarting Adolf Hitler’s plan to use the
games to demonstrate “Aryan supremacy.” Hurston is awarded
the Guggenheim fellowship. She travels to Haiti and Jamaica.
Connecting the past and the present
Jim Crow laws in America marked a negative time
in our nation’s history. Author George Santayana
said, “Those who cannot remember the past are
condemned to repeat it.” What does this phrase
mean? Discuss this idea with your class. Using
words and pictures from the St. Petersburg Times,
tampbay.com and Parade magazine (look in the
Sunday e-Edition), create a collage to make a
connection between “then” and “now.” Images and
metaphors should express feelings and attitudes
as well as behaviors and events. The overall effect
should reflect your viewpoint on whether the
present world has learned the lessons of history.
You may focus on only one theme or on several
issues that you find particularly relevant to your
own life.
Think about it:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Hurston and the Jim Crow era
Hurston’s lifetime spans the Jim Crow
era almost exactly. She often said in her
autobiography and letters that she was
“sick” of the “race question,” and tried
to avoid it in her fiction. Nevertheless,
Hurston was often the object of
discrimination.
Learning
with the
Times
In white motels and restaurants, Hurston
could not escape the “aggressive
intolerance” from white people. Even
when Hurston traveled with famous
white novelist Fannie Hurst, both women
resorted to tricks to procure equal
treatment for Hurston. Hurst records one
occasion when Hurst announced to the
waiter, “The Princess Zora and I wish a
table.”
Source: National Endowment for the Arts: Boyd, Valerie. Wrapped in
Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston. New York: A Lisa Drew Book/
Scribner’s, 2003.
1937
Hurston publishes her second novel,
Their Eyes Were Watching God.
1938
Hurston publishes
Tell My Horse.
A great writer develops characters who continue
to fascinate readers throughout the years. We
become enchanted by their personalities, their
trials and their growth. We follow the main figure,
the protagonist, through a challenging series
of events. The protagonist’s journey is made
more dramatic by the challenges presented by
characters who often embody different beliefs.
Another character who brings out an important
feature of the protagonist is called an antagonist or
a “foil,” an important literary device. An antagonist
heightens conflict, signifying an opposing force.
The antagonist can be a character, nature, a social
force or an internal drive in the protagonist.
Discussion question
How do Logan and Joe reveal different sides of
Janie? What are their motivations? To what extent
does Janie acquire her own voice and the ability
to shape her own life? How are the two attributes
related?
1939
Hattie McDaniel becomes the first African-American actor to win
an Academy Award, for Best Supporting Actress for her role as
Mammy in Gone with the Wind. Hurston marries Albert Price, III
and publishes Moses, Man of the Mountain.
www.tampabay.com/nie
11
Think about it:
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God opens with an
unidentified third-person narrator who remains outside
the story. This anonymous, omniscient narrator
immediately creates interest by declaring: “So the
beginning of this was a woman and she had come back
from burying the dead.” The first page also contains one
of several allusions to the book’s title: “the sudden dead,
their eyes flung wide open in judgment.” However, the
narration changes when Janie tells her story to her best
friend, Pheoby Watson.
Discussion question
How can an omniscient narrator tell the story at the
same time that the novel’s heroine, Janie, also tells her
story? Do these voices reflect different parts of Janie,
or does the omniscient narrator reveal another force in
Janie’s universe? Janie is judged throughout the novel.
In the first chapter, who judges her, and why? How does
Janie respond? Why does Janie choose to tell her story
only to her best friend, Pheoby? How does our own
audience (especially friends) affect what we reveal or
conceal?
“The wind came back with triple fury, and put out the light for the
last time. They sat in company with the others in other shanties, their
eyes straining against crude walls and their souls asking if He meant
to measure their puny might against His. They seemed to be staring
at the dark, but their eyes were watching God.”
— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Think about it:
Janie’s story
Janie reads natural phenomena as indicators of her
internal landscape. As a result, Hurston’s writing is
thick with language that draws us beyond the literal
descriptions of people, places and events. Janie
describes her life “like a great tree in leaf with the things
suffered, things enjoyed, things done and undone.”
Identify the novel’s figurative language and expand the
meaning of the novel. For example, what does Janie
mean when she says that her “life is like a great tree in
leaf”?
Their Eyes Were Watching God begins with
the reader’s eyes fixed on a woman who
returns from burying the dead. Zora Neale
Hurston’s novel chronicles the journey of
Janie Mae Crawford from her grandmother’s
plantation shack to Logan Killicks’ farm, to
all-black Eatonville, to the Everglades – until
a tragedy brings her back to Eatonville.
From this vantage point, Janie narrates her
life story to her best friend, Pheoby Watson,
satisfying the “oldest human longing –
self-revelation.”
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Discussion activity
Divide your class into groups. Review Chapters 1-5
and list examples of figurative language. Pay special
attention to the novel’s first page. How are these
descriptions used figuratively: the road, ships, trees,
the sun, eyes, time, God, dreams, judgment, speech,
silence or mules? List each group’s images on the
board. Discuss these ideas with your class. To expand
discussion, look at specific types of figurative language,
such as simile, metaphor or personification.
1940
Richard Wright publishes
Native Son. Hurston returns
to New York City.
12
1940-1941
Painter Jacob Lawrence mounts a
60-painting exhibition, “Migration of
the Negro,” that depicts the migration
of Southern blacks to Northern cities.
www.tampabay.com/nie
Forced to marry at the age of 16, Janie at
first believes that love automatically comes
with marriage. Unable to endure her mulelike servitude and the desecration of her
dreams, she spontaneously leaves Logan
for Joe Starks, a handsome, ambitious man
determined to put her on a pedestal once he
becomes mayor of Eatonville. After enduring
a mostly joyless 20-year marriage to him,
Janie finally meets a young, uneducated
squanderer named Tea Cake. With him she
1941
The first training program for African-American pilots is
established at the Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. The Tuskegee
Airmen serve heroically in World War II. Hurston moves to Los
Angeles and serves as a consultant at Paramount Pictures.
thinks she can find genuine love for the first
time, but fate intervenes, and Janie fears she
may have to choose between his safety and
her own.
Although the novel is not an autobiography,
Hurston once reflected that it is, at heart, a
love story inspired by “the real love affair
of [her] life.” She also fictionalized another
important incident in her life in the novel: In
1929, Hurston survived a five-day hurricane
in the Bahamas, getting herself and another
family out of a house moments before it
began to collapse.
Hurston’s conviction that black culture is
valuable, unique and worthy of preservation
comes through in Their Eyes Were Watching
God via its harmonious blend of folklore
and black idiom. In Janie Mae Crawford,
Hurston rejects 19th- and early-20th-century
stereotypes for women and creates a
protagonist who – though silenced for most
of her life – ultimately finds her own voice.
Source: Synopsis courtesy of the National Endowment for the Arts
1942
The interracial Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) is formed
in Chicago. It will become famous for organizing the Freedom
Rides of 1961. Hurston moves to St. Augustine, Florida, and
publishes her autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road.
The first black township
Established in 1887, the rural community of
Eatonville, located near Orlando, Florida,
was the nation’s first incorporated black
township. It was, as Hurston described it, “a
city of five lakes, three croquet courts, three
hundred brown skins, three hundred good
swimmers, plenty guavas, two schools, and
no jailhouse.”
On Aug. 15, 1887, a group of 27 black men
met in the Oddfellows Hall, a building
donated to the new community by Lewis
Lawrence, and voted on the question of
incorporation of the Town of Eatonville in
Orange County. These men, all residing
within the boundaries of the proposed
town, voted unanimously to incorporate the
municipality. Eatonville, name for Captain
Josiah Eaton of Maitland, is recognized today
as the oldest incorporated all-black town in
the United States.
Josiah C. Eaton was incorporated Maitland’s
first mayor, but it soon became apparent
that the voting power of the white men was
being diluted with too many black voters.
Shortly after the Civil War, recently freed
slaves moved to central Florida in search
of work. They cleared land and planted
vegetables and citrus groves, built houses,
worked on central Florida’s first railroad and
were domestic servants in wealthy families’
households.
This is the community in which Zora Neale
Hurston thrived.
In Eatonville, Hurston was never trained in
inferiority, and she could see the evidence
of black achievement all around her. She
could look to town hall and see black
men, including her father, John Hurston,
formulating the laws that governed
Eatonville. She could look to the Sunday
schools of the town’s two churches and
see black women, including her mother,
Lucy Potts Hurston, directing the Christian
curricula. She could look to the porch of the
village store and see black men and women
passing worlds through their mouths in the
form of colorful, engaging stories.
Sources: The National Endowment for the Arts, the Town of Eatonville,
the estate of Zora Neale Hurston and HarperCollins
Hurston and her other works
Zora Neale Hurston’s writing career took
off when Charles S. Johnson published
her early short stories, which featured
characters altogether unlike those of her
contemporaries. Delia Jones from “Sweat”
and Missie May from “The Gilded-Six Bits”
diverged from prevailing stereotypes for
black women in fiction: the overweight
mammy, the tragic mulatto, the promiscuous
Jezebel.
This complexity deepens in Hurston’s
novels: Jonah’s Gourd Vine, Their Eyes Were
Watching God, Moses and Man of the Mountain
and Seraph on the Suwanee.
Mules and Men was the first collection
of black American folktales and hoodoo
material from New Orleans, including more
than 65 folktales. Her second collection, Tell
My Horse, gives an eyewitness account of the
mysteries of voodoo in Haiti and Jamaica.
The appendix includes Negro songs, another
lifelong love of Hurston’s.
Hurston’s unconventional 1942
autobiography, Dust Tracks on a Road,
consciously blurs the line between fact and
fiction. Always a deeply spiritual woman,
she wrote in Dust Tracks on a Road that
“nothing is destructible; things merely
change forms. When the consciousness we
know as life ceases, I know that I shall still be
part and parcel of the world.”
Source: The National Endowment for the Arts
1943
Dust Tracks on the Road received
the Ansisfield-Wolf award for best
book in race relations. Hurston
divorces Price.
1944
Writer Rayford Logan edits What the Negro Wants, an anthology of
14 essays by prominent African-Americans demanding racial equality.
Hurston marries and divorces James Howell Pitts. Hurston collaborates
with Dorothy Waring on a musical comedy script, Polk County.
Learning
with the
Times
Leaders
around the world
Hurston’s father was the
mayor of Eatonville. This
experience is represented
in Their Eyes Were
Watching God with Janie’s
husband, Joe Starks, being the
mayor. Politics affected Hurston’s
life and often affects everyone’s life in
one way or another. Do you know who is running
the world – locally, nationally and internationally?
Review the St. Petersburg Times for a couple of
weeks. Look for the names of leaders in the Times,
including those who may be running for office. Write
down the name of the leader, his or her title and the
location where the leader rules. Next to the names of
local, state and national leaders, write a description
of a leadership attribute that is evident in the story.
Create a chart of all the world leaders you find. Using
your school media center and the Internet, research
information about the location, the leader and the
form of government. Write a report based on all of
the information you find. Be sure to document all
of your sources properly. Present to your class an
oral report on the information you discovered. Share
important information you have learned with other
students. Log on to tampabay.com/nie, and click on
The Big Read.
The great American novel
Read the book reviews in the St. Petersburg Times.
Identify the key elements in the reviews that identify
the characteristics of the books. What elevates
a novel to greatness? List 10 characteristics of a
great novel. Next, identify 10 reasons Their Eyes
Were Watching God might be considered a great
American novel as well as a work of art. Share these
qualities with the class and on the NIE blog. Log on
to tampabay.com/nie, and click on The Big Read.
1945
Ebony, a magazine about AfricanAmerican life and achievements,
is founded and becomes an
instant success.
1947
Baseball great Jackie Robinson becomes the first
African-American to break the color barrier and
be allowed to play in the Major Leagues. Hurston
writes and does research in the Bahamas.
www.tampabay.com/nie
13
Learning
with the
Times
During the decades that Their
Eyes Were Watching God has
been in print, there have been
a number of different covers
for the book. Now it is your
turn to be creative. Create
a work of art to serve as a
new cover for the novel.
Include a brief explanation
of your creation. Share your
artwork with your class,
and the submit it to Xpress
Plugged In, NIE’s new weekly
showcase for the artistic endeavors of students
through the 12th grade. Send NIE your new cover in
electronic form. Be sure to include your name, age,
school and grade, as well as your home address,
ZIP code and phone number with area code. Written
pieces should be sent as Microsoft Word documents,
and artwork should be high-resolution jpegs (at least
300 dpi). The contact address is XpressPluggedIn@
verizon.net. Selected artwork will be featured on the
Xpress Plugged In section of the NIE Web site.
“Here was peace. She pulled in her horizon like a great fish-net. Pulled
it from around the waist of the world and draped it over her shoulder.
So much of life in its meshes! She called in her soul to come and see.”
— Zora Neale Hurston, Their Eyes Were Watching God
Exploring
NIE Teen Blogging Zone
l
While Wright claimed that Hurston
pandered to whites, Alain Locke said
she oversimplified Southern black
experience under the segregationist
system known as Jim Crow. In
January 1938, Locke’s infamous
review publicly asked Hurston when
she would begin to write “social
document fiction.” This response so
wounded her that she later regretted
writing the novel at all. But critics
who felt that Hurston’s fiction
undermined their attempts to combat
racism misunderstood her aesthetic.
As she once wrote in a letter, “I
tried...not to pander to the folks
who expect a clown and a villain in
every Negro. Neither did I want to
pander to those ‘race’ people among
us who see nothing but perfection
in all of us.” Holding to this vision
would cost her, financially and
otherwise, right up until her death in
1960. What are your thoughts about
Hurston’s statement and Locke’s
comment?
l
Discuss Janie’s three marriages. What
initially pulls her to each of the three
men? How do they differ from one
another? What does she learn from
each experience?
Conversation plays a significant role in Their
Eyes Were Watching God. What better way
to discuss the book than by blogging with
students throughout Tampa and Hillsborough
County? To participate in any of these
monitored book discussions, log on to
tampabay.com/nie and click on The Big Read.
l
The use of dialect in Hurston’s
narrative plays a large role in the
character development. Her narrative
technique also contributes to character
development, as well as setting and
plot. Discuss the effect of Hurston’s
narrative technique of alternating
between highly figurative narration
and colloquial dialogue.
l
Discuss the significance of the book’s
title and how it relates to Janie’s quest
and the rest of the book.
l
In 1937, Richard Wright reviewed
Their Eyes Were Watching God and
wrote: “The sensory sweep of her
novel carries no theme, no message,
no thought. In the main, her novel is
not addressed to the Negro, but to a
white audience whose chauvinistic
Shattering stereotypes
After years of polite submission to her male
counterparts, Janie gains her voice in Chapters 7 and
8. Prior to her defiance of Joe, Janie observes the
way Daisy, Mrs. Bogle and Mrs. Robbins are treated
by the men. These three Eatonville women provide
caricatures – quick, stereotyped sketches – of what
it means to be a black woman in this small Florida
town. In what ways do these caricatures highlight
a larger disrespect toward women? Stereotypes,
discrimination and prejudice go hand in hand. Look
for articles, photos or cartoons in the St. Petersburg
Times that highlight or represent a stereotype,
discrimination or prejudice. Choose one of these
articles and summarize it for your class. Also, include
your reaction to and opinion of the story. Share the
article and your views with your class and with other
students on the NIE blog.
tastes she knows how to satisfy.”
In particular, Wright objected to
the novel’s discussion of race
and use of black dialect. Why
might Wright have objected to
Their Eyes Were Watching God? Do
you agree or disagree with Wright’s
interpretation of the novel?
1948
1949
1950
President Harry Truman ends segregation in the
U.S. military. Hurston returns to New York and
is falsely accused of molesting a young boy. Her
book Seraph on the Suwannee is published.
The molestation
case against
Hurston is
dismissed.
Poet Gwendolyn Brooks becomes the first African-American to win a Pulitzer Prize, which she
receives for her poetry collection, Annie Allen. Juanita Hall is the first African-American to win
a Tony award, for her role as Bloody Mary in the musical South Pacific. Ralph J. Bunche wins
the Nobel Peace Prize for his work as a mediator in the Arab-Israeli conflict in the Middle East.
14
www.tampabay.com/nie
1951
Hurston publishes
political articles
and writes reviews.
l
Their Eyes Were Watching God is concerned with issues
of speech and how speech is both a mechanism of
control and a vehicle of liberation. Yet Janie remains
silent during key moments in her life. Discuss the
role of silence in the book and how that role changes
throughout the novel.
l
Complex images do more than simply map the
inner landscape: They become symbols. As a form
of figurative language, symbols can maintain our
fascination by hinting beyond the literal, drawing us
back to explore what the author may mean. Discuss
the development of three major symbols in the novel:
the pear tree, the street lamp and the mule.
l
Many readers consider this novel a bildungsroman,
or coming-of-age novel, as Janie’s external journey
takes her through southern Florida and her three
marriages. Janie finds her voice and learns to use it.
In order to trace the development of Janie’s character,
use this discussion to explore Janie’s transformation
at two major turning points: her confrontation with
Joe Starks (Chapters 7-8) and her meeting of Tea Cake
(Chapter 10).
l
A great writer can be the voice of a generation. What
kind of voice does Hurston employ and why would
she use a novel to express this voice? What does her
voice reveal about her generation? Is it still relevant? If
you were the voice of your generation, what would be
your most important message? Why might you choose
to convey this in a fictional novel rather than a speech
or essay?
Learning with the Times
A novel’s plot follows the events of the novel as they lead to a dramatic climax, a
tragic realization or a happy ending. The plot structure of a novel is in the form of
a pyramid: exposition, rising action, climax, falling action, resolution. The timing
of such events can make a novel predictable and boring, or provocative and
riveting. Hurston has made deliberate choices about how to structure and pace
the series of events to demonstrate one black woman’s experience in Florida.
Newspaper articles also have a structure. Instead of the climax being at the end
of the article, though, usually the climax is at the beginning. Newspaper articles
often are written in an inverted-pyramid style. Look for three articles about
people in the St. Petersburg Times. Map the structure of the articles, identifying
how the details in the articles fit the parts of the plot structure. Compare the
structure of one of these articles to the structure of one chapter of Their Eyes
Were Watching God.
Folklore podcasting
Folklore includes customs, tales, sayings or art forms that are traditional with
the common people of a given country or region. Folk music, a form of folklore,
is transmitted orally from generation to generation, and generally reflects the
lifestyle of those people who originated and perpetuated it. Zora Neale Hurston
studied folklore in America and Haiti. Some of the folklore is reflected in Their
Eyes Were Watching God. Taking the role of a newspaper reporter, role play an
interview with Hurston about some of the folklore used in her book.
Though reflecting one group, or region of people, folklore and folk music can
have a variety of forms, including entertainment, education, religious expression,
artistic expression and communication. Find an article in the St. Petersburg Times
that focuses on an unusual event. A good place to look for ideas would be on
the Bizarre Florida blog at http://blogs.tampabay.com/bizarre/. Create a folk or
rap song depicting this event.
Submit a podcast of your creations in an MP3 audio file,
two megabytes maximum, to [email protected].
Reading field trip
Do you like to read, shop for unusual books and
meet authors? Check out the 16th annual St.
Petersburg Times Festival of Reading on Saturday,
Oct. 25. The festival, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. at
the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, will
feature book talks and autographing sessions by
national and local authors, booksellers and vendors,
children’s arts and crafts and Storyland Stage. For
more information, visit
www.festivalofreading.com or call 727-892-2358.
F O U R T E E N T H
1952
Ralph Ellison publishes his
novel Invisible Man, which
receives the National Book
Award in 1953.
1954
In Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka,
Kansas, the Supreme Court rules unanimously
against school segregation, overturning its
1896 decision in Plessy v. Ferguson.
1955
Rosa Parks refuses to give up her seat on a
Montgomery, Alabama, bus to a white person, triggering
a successful, year-long African-American boycott of the
bus system. Musician Chuck Berry begins recording.
A N N U A L
1956
The U.S. Supreme Court rules that the segregation of
Montgomery, Alabama, buses is unconstitutional. Hurston
writes opposing Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court
decision on segregation, which results in unpopularity for her.
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A Special thank you
to our sponsors
VETERA
NS
EXPRES
SWAY
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Special thanks go to the following for helping to fund
this program: The St. Petersburg Times, Barnes &
Noble, Tampa Museum of Arts, WEDU, Friends of
the Library of Tampa-Hillsborough County, Inc., Ada
T. Payne Friends of the Urban Libraries and Bruton
Memorial Friends of the Library.
We also would like to
extend a heartfelt thanks
to our community
partners, collaborators
and volunteers for
their time and
participation over
the next month
to ensure the
success of this great
program.
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Main Libraries
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2
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John F. Germany
900 N. Ashley Dr.
Tampa 33602-3704
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri 10-6 • Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
Bruton Memorial
302 McLendon St.
Plant City 33563-3212
Mon-Thur 9-9 • Fri 9-6 • Sat 10-6
Sun 1-5
Temple Terrace
202 Bullard Pkwy.
Temple Terrace 33617-5512
Mon-Thur 10-8 • Fri & Sat 9-5
Sun 1-5
6 Jan Kaminis Platt
3910 S. Manhattan Ave.
Tampa 33611-1214
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
Drive-thru open
during regular library hours.
7 Jimmie B. Keel
2902 W. Bearss Ave.
Tampa 33618-1828
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
Drive-thru open
during regular library hours.
Regionals
8 New Tampa
10001 Cross Creek Blvd.
Tampa 33647-2581
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
Brandon
619 Vonderburg Dr.
Brandon 33511-5972
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri 10-6 • Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
9 SouthShore Regional
15816 Beth Shields Way
Ruskin 33573-4903
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
Bloomingdale
1906 Bloomingdale Ave.
Valrico 33594-6204
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
10 Upper Tampa Bay
11211 Countryway Blvd.
Tampa 33626-2624
Mon-Thur 10-9 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
1957
The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr., helps found
the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.
President Dwight Eisenhower sends U.S. Army troops
to enforce the desegregation of schools.
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Town ’N Country
5455 W. Waters Ave.
Ste. 208
Tampa 33634-1258
Mon-Thur 10-8 • Fri 1-6 • Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
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Lutz
101 Lutz-Lake Fern Rd., W.
Lutz 33548-7220
Mon 10-9 • Tue 10-6 • Wed 10-9
Thur-Sat 10-6 • Sun 12:30-5
22 Science Library at MOSI
4801 E. Fowler Ave.
Tampa 33617-2099
Mon 12-5 • Tue-Fri 10-5
Sat & Sun 10-6
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North Tampa
5455 W. Waters Ave., Ste. 208
Tampa
Mon-Thur 10-8 • Fri 1-6 • Sat 10-6
Sun 12:30-5
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Port Tampa City
4902 Commerce St.
Tampa 33616-2704
Tue 10-6 • Wed 12-8 • Thur-Sat 10-6
23 Seffner-Mango
11724 E. Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Seffner 33584-4923
Mon & Tue 10-8 • Wed-Sat 10-6
24 Seminole Heights
4711 Central Ave.
Tampa 33603-3934
Mon & Tue 10-9 • Wed-Sat 10-6
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Riverview
10509 Riverview Dr.
Riverview 33569-4367
Mon-Tue 10-9 • Wed-Sat 10-6
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Robert W. Saunders, Sr.
1505 N. Nebraska Ave.
Tampa 33602-2849
Mon-Thur 10-6 • Sat 10-6
21
Ruskin
One Dickman Dr., S.E.
Ruskin 33570-4314
Tue-Thur 10-7 • Fri & Sat 10-6
Branches
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Austin Davis
17808 Wayne Rd.
Odessa 33556-4720
Mon 12-9 • Tue 10-9 • Wed-Sat 10-6
Charles J. Fendig
3909 W. Neptune St.
Tampa 33629-5815
Mon 12-9 • Tue 10-9 • Wed-Sat 10-6
College Hill
2607 E. Dr. M.L.K. Jr. Blvd.
Tampa 33610-7770
Mon 10-6 • Tue 12-8 • Wed-Sat 10-6
Egypt Lake Partnership
3403 W. Lambright St.
Tampa 33614-4760
Mon-Wed 2:30-8 • Thur & Fri 2:30-6
Sat 10-6
25 78th Street Community
7625 Palm River Rd.
Tampa 33619-4131
Mon 10-8 • Tue 12-8 • Wed-Sat 10-6
26 Thonotosassa
10715 Main St.
Thonotosassa 33592-2831
Mon 10-8 • Tues-Sat 10-6 27 West Tampa
2312 W. Union St.
Tampa 33607-3423
Mon-Sat 10-6 1959
1960
Lorraine Hansberry’s Raisin in the Sun is the first play
by an African-American woman to be produced on
Broadway. Motown Records is founded. Hurston suffers
strokes and enters the St. Lucie County Welfare Home.
Four African-American college students hold a sit-in to integrate a Woolworth’s
lunch counter in Greensboro, North Carolina. The Civil Rights Act reaffirms
voting rights for all Americans. Zora Neal Hurston dies on January 28. She is
buried in an unmarked grave. In 1973, writer Alice Walker marks the grave.