Photo credit: Steven Lemongello for the Orlando Sentinel
EATONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — The town that’s described as the oldest continuously existing African-American city in the United States is celebrating its 130th birthday.
Celebrations in Eatonville, Fla., kick off Saturday with a crafts and culture festival. The city received its charter from the state of Florida in August 1887.
It was conceived as a self-governing all-Black town for African-Americans living in central Florida at the time.
It’s most famous resident was the author Zora Neale Hurston. She used Eatonville as a setting of her most famous book, “Their Eyes Were Watching God.”
Today, Eatonville has nearly 2,300 residents and U.S. Census Bureau data says 85 percent of its residents are Black.
