Eatonville,+FL

=__Eatonville, FL__=





(Courtesy of: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eatonville,_Florida)



**__History__**
Eatonville is a town in Orange County, Florida, six miles north of Orlando. It is part of the Orlando–Kissimmee Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 2,432 at the 2000 census. As of 2006, the population recorded by the U.S. Census Bureau is 2,272. It was one of the first all-black towns to be formed after the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and, on August 15, 1887, was the first such town to be incorporated. Zora Neale Hurston grew up there.

Every winter, Eatonville stages its annual Zora Neale Hurston Festival of the Arts and Humanities and the Zora Neale Hurston Library opened in January 2004.

Eatonville was also the hometown of former professional football player David "Deacon" Jones. Artist Jules Andre Smith did a series of paintings depicting life in Eatonville during the 1930s and 1940s. Twelve [6] of these works are at the Maitland Art Center in the adjacent town of Maitland.

While sources seem to disagree on the exact date and even the year of the town's incorporation, the town's own official site [7] provides a detailed account of the process and the dates. According to that official source, the town is named after Josiah C. Eaton, one of a small group of white landowners who were willing to sell sufficient land to African Americans to create a large enough tract of land to incorporate a black town. In addition to this, Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God presents a brief overview of the founding of the town through the eyes of Janie Crawford, the main character of the novel, and some suggest a cipher for Hurston herself. The novel also mentions several places in the state of Florida that many outs iders would have no concept of without the novel.

__Geography__
Eatonville is located at 28°37′7″N 81°23′0″W﻿ / ﻿28.61861°N 81.383333°W﻿ / 28.61861; -81.383333 (28.618727, -81.383440).[3]

According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of 2.8 km² (1.1 mi²). 2.5 km² (1.0 mi²) of it is land and 0.3 km² (0.1 mi²) of it (9.17%) is water.

__Demographics__
As of the census of 2000, there were 2,432 people, 761 households, and 548 families residing in the town. The population density was 958.2/km² (2,469.5/mi²). There were 858 housing units at an average density of 338.0/km² (871.2/mi²). The racial makeup of the town was 89.31% African American, 7.5% White, 0.49% Native American, 0.29% Asian, 1.56% from other races, and 0.82% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 3.54% of the population.

There were 761 households out of which 35.5% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 28.0% were married couples living together, 37.6% had a female householder with no husband present, and 27.9% were non-families. 22.5% of all households were made up of individuals and 8.5% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.92 and the average family size was 3.42.

In the town the population was spread out with 33.6% under the age of 18, 8.8% from 18 to 24, 27.5% from 25 to 44, 19.6% from 45 to 64, and 10.4% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 31 years. For every 100 females there were 88.7 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 81.3 males.

The median income for a household in the town was $29,457, and the median income for a family was $31,042. Males had a median income of $21,719 versus $21,328 for females. The per capita income for the town was $11,257. About 21.9% of families and 25.0% of the population were below the poverty line, including 29.3% of those under age 18 and 24.5% of those age 65 or over.



@http://fcit.usf.edu/Florida/lessons/hurston/hurston.htm Eatonville, Florida is a small community of great significance to African-American history and culture. Of the more than one hundred black towns founded between 1865 and 1900, fewer than twelve remain today. Eatonville is the oldest.

Reconstruction after the Civil War was a time of joy and for building a better way of living for blacks. At first, newly freed blacks began to establish homes and businesses in white communities. By the 1800s, tensions from this new coexistence gave rise to segregation, the separation of blacks to a particular area in the community.

 Rather than endure the indignities of restriction, some blacks established race colonies, communities of their own. These colonies often resembled extended families. They were centered on education and religion. Eatonville was a community founded in this tradition. On August 15, 1887, 27 registered voters, all black men, met in a building they call Town Hall and voted unanimously to incorporate. Eatonville was born and history was made.

Eatonville’s cultural importance was secured when the town was immortalized in the works of its renowned native daughter, Zora Neale Hurston. Her words captured forever the culture of the community and painted an image of an environment typical of the rural southern working-class African-American. Today the town continues to celebrate its connection with Hurston through the annual arts and humanities events at the Zora Neale Hurston Festival

=__Zora Festival!__=
 * @http://zorafestival.com/