It’s nothing short of a blessing to have had an opportunity to investigate, contemplate, and articulate a life—especially one as fully lived as Zora Neale Hurston’s. Wrapped in Rainbows truly has been a communal endeavor; scores of people have helped me make this journey.
I must give thanks to:
My parents, Laura and Roger Boyd, for my first books, for my first typewriter, and for setting the best possible example through their lives of hard work and quiet, steady love.
Mignon Goode and Kamela Eaton, for an auspicious beginning, and for keeping the faith.
Kelley Alexander, for her openhanded and openhearted support.
Norma Clarke, for her bountiful friendship.
Dale and Lee Marshall, for their unceasing goodwill and benevolence.
Rudolph Byrd, for gallantly providing me with a room of my own at a most crucial time.
Lisa C. Moore, for serving as my second pair of hands and feet on the research trail.
Lylah Salahuddin, for her enthusiastic and valuable assistance with research and other necessary tasks.
Joseph Blount, for helping me to organize mounds of documents, and for making it enjoyable.
Tia Juana Malone, for the photos, and for being the first to know.
Lucy Hurston, Lois Hurston Gaston, and the entire Hurston family, as well as the Victoria Sanders Literary Agency, for graciously opening the door to Zora’s life.
Robert E. Hemenway, for a remarkable road map, and for his uncommon generosity.
Alice Walker, for loving Zora first—and fiercely.
Cheryl Wall, for reading the manuscript with loving regard and rigorous candor, and for peppering me with provocative questions and pushing me to dig deeply for the answers.
Pearl Cleage, Robert Kanigel, and Teresa K. Weaver, for reading parts of the manuscript and offering invaluable feedback and insight.
My agent, John McGregor, for his tireless advocacy and unremitting encouragement.
My editor, Lisa Drew, for her patient support, thoughtful editing, and eternal optimism. Thanks also to her assistants, Jake Klisivitch and Erin Curler, and to top-notch attorney Emily Remes. I’m grateful, too, to Leigh Haber, who acquired my book for Scribner before moving on.
I also wish to thank the following people and resources:
Attorneys Elsie O’Laughlin and Ron Jayson, for offering their Hurston files.
The George A. and Eliza Gardner Howard Foundation of Brown University, for financial assistance.
My supportive colleagues at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
My friends from the MFA program in creative nonfiction at Goucher College.
The Zora Neale Hurston/Richard Wright Foundation and its visionary leader, Marita Golden.
* * *
When I began working on this book in 1996, only a few of Hurston’s peers remained. I tried to interview them all, and anyone else who had firsthand knowledge of Hurston’s life. I am thankful to the following people, some of them now deceased, for sharing their memories of Zora: Margaret Benton, Valerie Calhoun, John Henrik Clarke, Katherine Dunham, Patrick Duval, Zora Mack Goins, Hortense Williams Gray, Zanobia Jefferson, Curtis E. Johnson, Adelle Ferguson Lafayette, Cleo Leath, Arlena Benton Lee, Brooklyn T. McMillon, Margaret Paige, Louise Thompson Patterson, Grant Reynolds, Alex Rivera, and Anne Wilder.
I am deeply indebted to the administrators and staff members of the following libraries and institutions: Atlanta’s Auburn Avenue Research Library on African American History and Culture; the State of Alabama Department of Archives and History; the Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University; the Moorland-Spingarn Research Center, Howard University; the Library of Congress; the Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture; Rare Books and Manuscripts, Library of the University of Florida at Gainesville; the George A. Smathers Library, Department of Special Collections, University of Florida; the Florida Historical Society; the University of South Florida Library; the National Archives; the American Philosophical Society; the Archives of the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation; Charles Scribner’s Sons Archives, Princeton University Library; Clark Atlanta University Library; the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin; Amistad Research Center, Tulane University; Special Collections, Fisk University Library; Columbia University Rare Books and Manuscripts Library; the American Jewish Archives at Hebrew Union College; Joan Nestle and Amy Beth of the Lesbian Herstory Archives; the Library of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; North Carolina Central University Library; Boston University Library; Dr. Kenneth J. Hernden of the Rush Medical Center Archives; Barbara Hall of the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences; the Office of the Chancellor, University of Kansas. Though much of Hurston’s correspondence is scattered at the above-cited archives, and elsewhere, her known letters have now been collected in Carla Kaplan’s book Zora Neale Hurston: A Life in Letters.
Many friends, family members and supporters have given of themselves unselfishly, offering places to stay, conversations to cherish, and so much more. At the risk of leaving someone out, I wish to thank: Jabari Asim; BarbaraO; Joye Mercer Barksdale; Amy Belkin; Timothy Boyd; Linda, Steve, Stephanie, and Joseph Blount; Michael, Venetta, and Kaylisha Boyd; Louise, Harold, Robyn, and Camille Brittain; A’Lelia Bundles; Nancy Chase; Eileen Drennen; Ralph B. Fielder; the late Leon Forrest; the late Egypt Freeman; Marcia Ann Gillespie; Uldine “Red” Goler; Farah Jasmine Griffin; Beverly Guy-Sheftall; Kimberly Harding; Bernitta Harris; Charsie Herndon; Tamara Jeffries; B. Lamont Jones; Sonya Jones; Kim Kuncl and Dena Smith; Roy LaGrone; Thonnia Lee; Alexa Maat; Louis Massiah; Dianne McIntyre; Cricket Mena and Brenda Brown; Sara Minnifield; Marcia, Daniel, and Azari Minter; Debb Moore; Swasti Kozue Oyama; Phyllis Alesia Perry; Eugene B. Redmond; Sheila Reed; Sara Lomax Reese; Craig Seymour; Ellen Sumter; Dorrie Toney; Elizabeth Van Dyke; Iyanla Vanzant; Mike Weaver; Laura Wexler; Cynthia, Sherman, Malik, and Kenya Wheeler; Evelyn C. White; Shay Youngblood; and all my friends at SYMCA.
And finally, but not least, I thank my best friend and sadhana partner, Veta Goler, for believing in this calling as much as I did, and for propping me up on every leaning side.