Commandment Keeper Church, Beaufort South Carolina, May 1940
Yesterday was legend, griot, and African spiritualist, Zora Neale Hurston’s, birthday. She is most known for reveling in the many faces, sounds, textures and tastes within Black culture; and creating works that reflect the beauty, pain, and humor of our existence without translation. Somewhat of an outlier in the Harlem Renaissance, Hurston didn’t feel the need to make her work digestible to whiteness. There was no explanation when Janie said Black women were the mule of the world in her second novel, Their Eyes Were Watching God. She was talking to us and we knew what she meant.
“I am not tragically colored. There is no great sorrow dammed up in my soul, nor lurking behind my eyes.”
— Zora Neale Hurston
The novel, set in 20th century Eatonville, Florida was my introduction to Miss Hurston. I was a sophomore in high school when I first attempted to read it. Being a generation removed from my own Afrocarolinian rural roots, the thick, old southern dialect coated my tongue like molasses and peanut butter. Being the child I was- suburban, privileged and slightly obtuse when it came to race- I discarded the book for years until I picked it up as a recently radicalized HBCU student in 2016. I guess time and a growing respect for literature that centered the Black Gaze was what I needed because the southern epic and Black feminist holy text made perfect sense to me the second time around.
While I love Zora Neale Hurston, I wasn’t planning to commemorate her 130th birthday in any way beyond reading and sharing the various tributes on social media. But then I received a nudge in the form of an email from the Black Film Archive inviting its subscribers to watch footage she recorded in 1940. While Hurston is most known for her written works, her 16mm camera captured Black southern folk in ways that were unprecedented. Clicking on the link in the email, I was transported to the roads of Beaufort, South Carolina. Palmettos lined the periphery of the first frame, their branches bobbing to the sound of Black church hymns.
The camera then abruptly cuts to Commandment Keeper Church where the small Gullah congregation is immersed in praise and worship. I noticed the absence of the big band and pulpit set up most Black churches have nowadays. Instead the pastor and churchgoers were gathered around in a circle. There was one guitar, a few tambourines and even two pot lids being used as cymbals. Of course, there were plenty pairs of hands for clappin’ and feet for stompin’. As they sang and played, some of the women caught the holy spirit, jerking in their seats, calling out and jumping to their feet.
Right in the midst of it all was Zora Neale Hurston, wielding two drumsticks and a makeshift drum. Never the silent observer, Hurston was doing what she did best- embodying the roles as both archivist and participant in the cultural happenings she spent most of her life preserving. It’s no secret that Hurston also took particular interest in Black religions & and spiritual practices. Two years before this film was recorded, Hurston had just published Tell My Horse, a novel recounting her experiences with Haitian Vodou.
Unlike many of her contemporaries, Hurston understood African diasporic spirituality to be central to Black identity and agency. She cherished the lessons and Black joy folded into hoodoo folktales; she reveled in the power of Louisiana voodoo; and deeply respected the africanisms within the southern Black church. Hurston’s lens was one that could highlight the magical and extraordinary within even the most mundane facets of Black life.
What I love about the Commandment Keeper Church footage is that Hurston didn’t provide any accompanying interviews or narration to explain why she was there recording a gullah/geechee church service. Much like Their Eyes Were Watching God, there was no translation for audiences unfamiliar with these spiritual practices. Hurston didn’t waste any time on that. She simply saw the southern Black religious experience of that time worth preserving.
*The Black Film Archive is a living register of Black cinema from 1915 to 1979. Please support their work by subscribing here. This post was initially published on my former blog “Morning Glory Stories: Black Southern Resistance & History in the Carolinas” on January 8, 2022.