To know Zora Neale Hurston, you have to know the town she claims as her birthplace; the town of Eatonville, Florida. In her autobiography, Dust Tracks On a Road, Hurston writes: " I was born in an all Negro town. I do not mean by that a black back-side of an average town. Eatonville, Florida, is, and was at the time of my birth, a pure Negro town - charter, mayor, council, town marshal and all. It was not the first Negro community in America, but it was the first to be incorporated, the first attempt at organized self-government on the part of Negroes in America."

Zora arrived in New York in January 1925, and became one of the most memorable personalities of this period. Eatonville's favorite daughter soon became one of Harlem's best and brightest" talents. Zora soon became acquainted with such notables as Langston Hughes, Arna Bontemps,Countee Cullen and Wallace Thurman. Hurston joined this extraordinary group and became one of the "New" voices of the Harlem Renaissance. Although dominated by men, Zora was a powerful force in the group and crowned herself "Queen of the Niggerati."