The Gilded Six-Bits | Historical Context

Eatonville, Florida
‘‘The Gilded Six-Bits’’ is set in Eatonville, Florida, which was the first incorporated all-black town in the United States and also Hurston's real-life hometown. Such voluntarily segregated towns, growing out of a post-Civil War phenomenon known as ‘‘race colonies,’’ offered blacks the opportunity for political independence and some measure of freedom from the oppression of the wider racist culture. The area—now part of Orange County, Florida—was developed largely by white Northern veterans of the Civil War, with blacks...

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