April 27, 2005 - St. Lucie County and City of Fort Pierce Win State Award for the Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Heritage Trail

The Florida Trust for Historic Preservation announced that St. Lucie County and the City of Fort Pierce have won the "2005 Preservation Award" for the Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Heritage Trail. The Trail won the award in the "Preservation Education/Media" category and representatives from the County and City will accept the award at the Trust's Annual Conference in May.

Those involved with the Zora Neale Hurston Dust Tracks Heritage Trail project from St. Lucie County include: Susan Kilmer, Library Director; Jody Bonet, Grants Department; Jon Ward, Cultural Affairs Director and from the City of Fort Pierce: Ramon Trias, Director of Development; and Tim Harrington, Historic Planner for the City of Fort Pierce.

Zora Neale Hurston was a novelist, playwright, anthropologist and folklorist popular during the 1920s Harlem Renaissance. Her books, like Their Eyes Were Watching God, made her the most widely published Black female author in the world during the early 1950s. She later fell into obscurity until her work was rediscovered in the 1970s and has since become a cultural icon. Her most famous novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God, was recently made into a movie by Oprah Winfrey, starring Halle Berry as the lead role. Hurston spent her last years, from 1957 until her death in 1960, living and working in Fort Pierce as a schoolteacher and newspaper columnist. After her death, her popularity waned locally, until the introduction of the Trail. She has been a factor in other localities since Alice Walker's Ms. Magazine article in the early 70s.

For more information, contact Jon Ward, St. Lucie County Cultural Affairs Director, at (772) 462-2548.