Zora Neale Hurston was more than a novelist and bright voice of the Harlem Renaissance--she was also an anthropologist and folklorist. She made a name for herself in New York and the Caribbean--and also spent formative years in Baltimore.

David Taylor says Hurston was creative and brave; he wrote about her in Soul of a People, his chronicle of the Federal Writers’ Project during the Depression. Then Anokwale Anansesemfo, president of the Griots’ Circle of Maryland, says Hurston’s spirit was formed in the African-American town in East Florida where her father was mayor.

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