59 pages • 1 hour read
Lalita TademyRed River
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
The Erasure of Black History
The biggest theme and arguably the main point of the entire book is the history of minorities, specifically the black community in the South, and how this history is often systematically rewritten or erased entirely. This is an issue the characters confront in the narrative as the Colfax Massacre is almost immediately labeled the “Colfax Riot” by the same white men who perpetrated it. Sam expresses the grief of the community when he says, “Colfax Riot, my foot. Words matter in how people see, how they gonna remember. Easter Sunday 1873 be the Colfax Massacre, not the Colfax Riot” (209).
Decades later, Jackson is still fighting this horrific rewrite of history, telling Ted: “[D]on’t never let nobody tell you it was a riot. I was there. Your grandfather Noby was there. Our fathers were there. It was a massacre” (370). Nevertheless, the author includes photos of the actual historical marker in Colfax, which exists today, marking the spot as the location of the “Colfax Riot” (220). Ted also confronts the problem of history being written by the people in power as a means of maintaining that power when he reads the entry for “Negro” in the encyclopedia (379). The entry includes racist, belittling ideas that Ted is shocked to read. Jackson explains that “some people make up reasons we can’t be on the same level as them, even drag history into it. So we got to remind ourselves how good we is” (381).
The book is the author’s attempt to set the record straight, or at least to address the problem of the twisting or erasure or minority history. She is telling a fictionalized account of her own family history, but it is truer than the official story of the misnamed “Colfax Riot.” Like the characters in the book, author Lalita Tademy understands the importance of bearing witness and not allowing the stories of the disenfranchised to be lost to history.
Family History Repeating Itself
The theme of family history and its tendency to repeat itself is present throughout the book. Polly establishes the theme in the Prologue, saying that there are patterns in families and history, “like repeating threads weaving through the same bolt of cloth” (3).
For example, Israel has both a temper and the uncanny ability to survive horrific circumstances. His son, Noby, inherits these traits. Israel’s temper caused him to attack a white overseer, and later Noby defends himself from a taunting white man. Both men suffer for their actions. Both men also manage to survive events that killed many others. Israel’s actions also instigate the feud between Noby and David. The resentments of the father pass down to the sons, who are unable to break free of the cycle.
In the same way, Sam passes down the tradition of shouting the Tademy name to his sons and grandsons. He also tells them the story his father told him, about how “we got a real name, a family name. My father tell me, and now I tell you” (105). As a result, Jackson and later Ted both have fierce pride in their name. They believe in a brighter future, a future of equality, for this reason.
Perhaps the most obvious example of repeating family history is how the dream of the schoolhouse passes from father to son along the Tademy tree. Sam passes the responsibility to Jackson, telling him: “the Lord give you a gift, and you responsible to use it” (263). Later, Jackson pushes Ted to continue his education.
Notably, Ted is also able to resolve the histories of both sides of his family, the Smiths and the Tademys, when he stands up to Robert, acknowledging the importance of his identity without resorting to violence, saying, “[D]on’t make any difference whether they know the Tademy name at Grambling or not […] long as I know what it means. Don’t make sense to get in a fight about it now” (404).
The Complexities of Identity
The question of identity is one that most of the characters confront in one way or another throughout the book. For example, Sam at first shies away from his identity as leader and protector of the community when McCully identifies these traits in him. Still, McCully believes that the dream of the school will become a reality because Sam is a leader. Later, Sam accepts this identity and takes a leading role in building up the black community.
Sam’s son, Jackson, faces a similar crisis when Green is killed, and he is left to take up Sam’s dream of opening a black school. Then, when Sam dies, Jackson is adrift, unsure of his identity without his father and brother to define it for him. However, like his father before him, he accepts the responsibility to be the shepherd of the black community and open the school.
Jackson later scolds his son Nathan-Green for failing to teach his boys to shout their name. Ted is caught between tradition and his own dreams until he stands up to Robert and tells him that it doesn’t matter what others think of the Tademy name, since he knows what it means.
