Zora Neale Hurston was an anthropologist who came to Florida to study—observe—life in the first all Black American town of Eatonville, Fl, in the early 1930’s. Her findings inspired her novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, published in 1937. The novel is centered around the hurricane that hit Lake Okeechobee in 1928, and the passage above is Hurston’s description of the Black workers huddled in one of the cabins while working “on the muck,” picking beans, as they wait for the approach of the storm. The storm was devastating. Over 2,500 people were killed when a storm surge on Lake Okeechobee breached the dike, flooding hundreds of square miles. Here, Hurston is personifying the storm, making it come alive.
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