Red River

Part 2 begins with a short prologue from Polly in 1936. She summarizes the events following the massacre, saying that a few of the white men were arrested “but nothing much came of it” (215). Even after a wounded Israel gave witness testimony in court, nothing happened to the white men, breaking Israel’s spirit forever. Polly says, “We all knowed Reconstruction was over then” (216). After the massacre, the White League became the Ku Klux Klan 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” (216). The black community stopped fighting back out of self-preservation.

Israel dies three years after the massacre because “a man find it hard to go forward when hope die” (217). Most of the surviving men lose hope. McCully’s wife dies a year after the massacre, so Sam and Polly take in their daughter, Amy. Sam takes a special interest in helping Israel’s sons learn to read and write, and he remains determined to open his school.

Six years after the massacre, the surviving men go to vote once more and for the last time, since black men were subsequently banned from voting.