Episode Summary

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In the 1930s, Zora Neale Hurston was already a nationally known novelist, anthropologist and member of the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Yet she saw her publishing income dry up during the Great Depression even with the publication of her best-known novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. When she took a job with the Writers' Project in Florida, her first assignment was to write for the WPA Guide to Florida. In the hands of truth-seekers like Hurston and a young white co-worker, Stetson Kennedy, the Florida WPA guidebook would reflect a wide range of Florida life, "warts and all," including a report of violent voter suppression in the 1920s—until editors started to push back. This episode follows that conflict.

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Hurston also moved the Writers’ Project to record the songs and folktales of Florida culture. We hear from historians and bestselling novelist James McBride about how that work still resonates today.