Red River by Lalita Tademy

Author:Lalita Tademy [TADEMY, LALITA]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: FIC000000
ISBN: 9780759571341
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2007-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Figure 10. Gathering the dead and wounded, Harper’s Weekly, May 10, 1873

Figure 11. List of killed and wounded, 44th Congress Congressional Record, including Isaac McCullough [sic], Spencer McCullough [sic], and Eli McCullough, all dead (Northwestern State University of Louisiana, Watson Memorial Library, Cammie G. Henry Research Center)

Figure 12. New-York Times, Daily Picayune, and New Orleans Republican 1873 headlines

Part Two

After

Polly

1936

They carry off a handful of the white men what led the shooting on the Colfax courthouse. Took Mr. Hadnot and the old sheriff and some others all the way to New Orleans, but nothing much come of it. The courts down there had colored testify alongside white, telling what they know about that Easter Sunday 1873. Israel Smith get called down and he tole what happen to him since he seen so much, from inside the courthouse and down by the river both. No matter his body broke, half blind and only able to hobble along with a cane, he force hisself to bear witness so his voice be heard and it go to the record. But the more time pass and nothing happen to the white men they charge, Israel end up even more broke in spirit than body.

We heared from Israel each witness sweared on a Bible and tell they story. The stories contrary to one another, keeping with whether told by colored or white, where they was when the shooting start and such, but no matter which way you come at it, couldn’t get around the one hundred fifty colored men under the ground, dead and gone. For a little while, we think maybe somebody be brought to justice for all that killing. Them trials and retrials limp on for years, go to the highest court in the nation, the Supreme Court. We get news each time the court say let this one or that one walk away free, till wasn’t no one left to put the blame on. Shooting colored didn’t have no price, worse than before, ’cause this time, the gov’ment outside Louisiana say it all right. We all knowed Reconstruction was over then, fast in Colfax after that Easter Sunday, and slower but just as sure everyplace else in the South after a while. The White League start calling theyself Ku Kluxers and ride the land without no threat of a lifted hand against them, more bold than ever. Sheriff Nash and Hadnot come back to town heroes, and the whites was mostly happy now they back in charge without needing to worry about the gov’ment looking over they shoulder.

We colored was too busy burying our dead and propping up our living to pay too much never mind. Life keep on, one day to the next. Everybody, but the men ’specially, we got to pull back and walk soft, avoiding relations with white when we was able, and doing the meek down-eye when we wasn’t. Don’t give them no chance to say we insolent and come down hard again. Didn’t nobody talk loud about 1873 in Colfax ’cept the whites crowing about the end of Negro rule.

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