European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - February 26, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse R Eatonville Fla. Proud Independent and Black a photo Reid Deal Mattie Jonett if the Mother of football great Deacon Joni. By Greg Myre associated press if the ghosts of Eatonville s founders returned to the tiny Hamlet they carved from a Centra Florida Thicket a Century ago they would feel at Home for it changes Little from year to year season to season. Only the Browning of Pine Needles a hint of coolness in the night air and a marquee advertising a basketball game at Wymore tech High school distinguish the Days of Winter from the Days of summer. Only a few paved roads a gussied up bar and the first stoplight at the town Crossroads separate this decade from the last. Boo town Orlando thunders in the distance. Its four Lane highways bordered in Neon but the gentle rhythms of Eatonville remain much As they were in 1887 when 27 registered Black voters working in the neighbouring White Community of Maitland saved up enough Money to buy some land and settled there creating what is believed to be the first incorporated All Black City in America. At Eatonville i 3,000 resident look toward their Centennial Celebration one year away the town remains vibrant proud Independent and More than 99 percent Black. You got what your strengths would bring you in Eatonville Zora Neale Hurston wrote in the autobiography dust tracks on a Road. It was a Case of make it and take it this was the spirit of that whole new part of the state at the time As it always is where men Settle new a handful of Black towns emerged in the South during reconstruction after the civil War but most appear to have Laded away and a Check of town records and Howard University researchers was unable to uncover any existing All Black Community incorporated before Eatonville. However Mound Bayou miss., also was founded in 1887. The people Here Are said town councilman Leroy Filmore an Eatonville resident for More than 20 years. We be never had a big business where everyone worked. That s forced people to go to Eddie she found a front porch culture that still exists where men held lying sessions and told tales like the one about a town mule so lean you could do a week s Wash on its rib Bones so mean he would t fold Down his legs when he died. Today the men and the women gather at or b s bar. The place has grown with the town from a Beer and a shot tavern where migrant workers drank away the pain of a mean Day s labor to disco Modem j done up in Chrome mahogany mirrors and stereo. On its Good Days it s seen the likes of Singer James Page 14 the stars and stripes other communities for jobs but they come Back to be with their families in Eatonville. That s helped keep the place peaceful and quiet and new businesses Are coming to Eatonville but life still revolves around the school the two bars and the seven churches. All do brisk business. I meet the other ladles at the High school during the week and then i see them at Church on said 83-year-old Mattie Jones. We see each other All the time but we always have new stories to Mattie Jonas came to Eatonville 70 years ago married Young gave birth to 14 children was a contemporary of one of the town s two most famous residents Zora Neale Hurston and Mother of the other pro football Hall of Famer Deacon Jones. Her eyes Are falling and two hip operations have left her gait unsteady but her voice is As Bright and Clear As the azure skies above. Each weekday she Waits under the Shade of a baby Maple in front of her immaculate White cinder Block Home for a yellow school bus to take her to Wymore tech where she and a dozen other elderly women gather to make pillows for orphanages. We be seen More than enough hard times but we always shared and that made the Good times even better Jones said. When they honoured Deacon the whole town came out and All the bands played. It was just like the crowds that used to Greet president Kennedy. I cried like a i have been in sorrow s Kitchen and licked out All the pots wrote Hurston. I have stood on the Peaky Mountain wrapped in rainbows with a Harp and a sword in my hands. What i had to Swallow in the Kitchen has not made me less glad to have lived nor made me want to Low rate the human Hurston was a world traveler author of seven books and is credited by novelist Alice Walker As being the artistic inspiration for her pulitzer prize winning work the color purple which is now a movie. Despite her wanderings Hurston s stories always found their voice in the Rich folklore of Eatonville. There two Eatonville ret Dentt share time together m wednesday i
