Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life (Critical Perspectives on the Past)

A historian hoping to reconstruct the social world of all-black towns or the segregated black sections of other towns in the South finds only scant traces of their existence. In this book Tiffany Ruby Patterson uses the ethnographic and literary work of Zora Neale Hurston to augment the few official documents, newspaper accounts, and family records that pertain to these places hidden from history. Hurston's ethnographies, plays, and fiction focused on the day-to-day life in all-black social spaces as well as 'the Negro farthest down' in labor camps. Patterson shows how Hurston's work coincides with the fragmented historical record to demonstrate the extent to which the folklore and stories provide a plausible account of these Black folk as active human subjects, shaped by history and shaping their private world. Beyond the view and domination of whites in these spaces, they created their own codes of social behavior, honor, and justice. In Patterson's view Hurston did not demean her subjects or caricature them; she rendered them faithfully and with respect for their individuality and endurance. In so doing, she enabled us to envision a world that otherwise would have been inaccessible. A historian hoping to reconstruct the social world of all-black towns or the segregated black sections of other towns in the South finds only scant traces of their existence. In Zora Neale Hurston and a History of Southern Life, Tiffany Ruby Patterson uses the ethnographic and literary work of Zora Neale Hurston to augment the few official documents, newspaper accounts, and family records that pertain to these places hidden from history. Hurston's ethnographies, plays, and fiction focused on the day-to-day life in all-black social spaces as well as "the Negro farthest down" in labor camps. Patterson shows how Hurston's work complements the fragmented historical record, using the folklore and stories to provide a full description of these people of these towns as active human subjects, shaped by history and shaping their private world. Beyond the view and domination of whites in these spaces, black people created their own codes of social behavior, honor, and justice. In Patterson's view Hurston renders her subjects faithfully and with respect for their individuality and endurance, enabling all people to envision an otherwise inaccessible world. Contents......Page 5 Acknowledgments......Page 7 Prologue......Page 11 Introduction: Rootedness—The History of Private Life......Page 15 1 Reconstructing Past Presents......Page 29 2 Portraits of the South: Zora Neale Hurston’s Politics of Place......Page 42 3 A Place between Home and Horror......Page 60 4 Sex and Color in Eatonville, Florida......Page 100 5 A Transient World of Labor......Page 146 6 Patronage: Anatomy of a Predicament......Page 177 Epilogue......Page 201 Notes......Page 203 Index......Page 235 Uses the ethnographic and literary work of Hurston to augment the few official documents and family records to reconstruct the social world of all-black towns. Tiffany Ruby Patterson. Includes Bibliographical References (p. 185-216) And Index. The inner world of all-black towns as seen through the eyes of Zora Neale Hurston