Zora Neale Hurston was born in Notasulga, Alabama, in 1891, but her family moved to Eatonville, Florida, when she was a child. Eatonville, established in 1887, was the United States’ first incorporated Black township and serves as a setting for many of Hurston’s stories, including her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God. “Drenched in Light” provides a small glimpse of daily life for a young, Black girl in a setting that resembles Eatonville. Hurston not only experienced life in a small town similar to protagonist Isis, but she also traveled the American South collecting oral histories from African Americans who grew up in similar conditions.

While growing up in Eatonville, Hurston’s father served as mayor and was pivotal in creating the laws that governed their town. Hurston did not graduate from high school until she was in her late twenties, but she studied and read many literary classics and mythology. Despite her struggle to earn her high school diploma, she went on to earn her associate degree at Howard University, a historically Black college in Washington, DC. Later, she enrolled in the anthropology program at Barnard College of Columbia University, where she was the only Black student.