Our History Disappearing Right Before Our Eyes

2. The Hurston Residence
1473 Evergreen Avenue
Neighborhood: Eastside



Zora Neale Hurston was one of the most prolific African-American female writers of her day and a major player in New York City's Harlem Renaissance cultural movement. Between 1934 and 1948, Hurston published seven books including her autobiography Dust Tracks on a Road.  While Zora's early years were spent in Eatonville, Jacksonville was an instrumental player during her lifetime and the place she claimed she experienced racism for the first time.  

This structure was the residence of John C. Hurston, Jr., Zora's older brother. John came to Jacksonville after a fallout with their father around 1908-09 and initially lived in a Market Street boarding house between State & Union Streets. He quickly worked his way up to being a manager at the Eastside's Charles Anderson Fish & Osyter House (1127 Florida Avenue), moving to this residence somewhere around 1911.  In 1914, Zora moved into this house with John and his wife, Blanche.

At the time, Zora had grown from the sassy, strong-willed girl Bob (her older brother) once knew into an independent-minded young woman, and she chafed at her brother's efforts to govern her.  She fled her brother's residence to come back to Jacksonville to reside with another older brother. Here is an interesting look into her life at this time:

Soon, she fled. By 1914, Zora was back in Jacksonville, living with her brother John Cornelius and his wife, Blanche, at 1663 Evergreen Avenue. That year she was listed, along with the couple, in the directory of Bethel Baptist Institutional Church - the same church at which the Florida Baptist Academy, her former school, had been founded. Zora had journeyed to Jacksonville not just to elude Bob's authority but also with the hope of returning to the academy and finishing high school.

This was not to be. Yet what happened next is the most mysterious gap in the narrative of Hurston's life.

From the time she was a little girl, dogged by clairvoyant visions of her future, Zora knew that (in her words) "a house, a shot-gun built house that needed a new coat of white paint, held torture for me, but I must go. I saw deep love betrayed, but I must feel and know it. There was no turning back.

From Wrapped in Rainbows: The Life of Zora Neale Hurston by Valerie Boyd

In a common show of cultural disrespect, a portion of the Hurston site was haphazardly demolished by code enforcement earlier this year.  That concrete structure next door was Blanche Hurston's flower shop.  In an effort to keep what's left still standing, efforts are underway at the City of Jacksonville Historic Preservation Office to landmark the Hurston residence.


State Archives of Florida, Florida Memory, http://floridamemory.com/items/show/33048



NEXT: The Halle Cohen Residence