[Best-selling author Lalita Tademy is a former vice-president of Sun Microsystems who left the corporate world to take stock of her direction and goals in life. During this time, she began tracing her family’s history using a variety of genealogical resources and ended up publishing the novel Cane River. In it, Tademy covers 137 years of her family’s history in fiction format, focusing on four generations of strong Creole women and the injustices they fought to create a legacy for their offspring. The book looks at the evolving relationships between blacks and whites--particularly the complex bonds between slave-owners and slaves--and free blacks and slaves in the South through a fresh lens.]

To the student:

As you read this historical account of life under Jim Crow, ponder the following:

• In what ways did life worsen for free blacks and improve for freed slaves after the Civil War? Following from that, why does Oralene have difficulty comprehending the change in her relationship with Philomene?
• What does Ms. Tademy mean by the “bleaching of the line?” Why does Elisabeth wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing? What do you think?
• What were the legal and socials pressures on Joseph Billes and Lalita Tademy’s great-grandmother, Emily? Why does Ms. Tademy say that the social pressures were greater than the legal ones? How does the editorial in the Colfax Chronicle support her statement?
• Do you think that social pressures about associating with “your own kind” still exist today? If so, why? Can you give some examples? If not, what do you think changed?

...Following the Civil War was really very difficult. It was more difficult for free people of color in some cases than the slaves. The slaves were free for the first time, [they] had very little, very few tools; but [they] learned to fend for themselves. They were very tied to the land. The free people of color dropped a very long way. And suddenly, they were classified in with the slaves ... with the freed slaves. So instead of having this middle class that they had been able to maintain in between white and black, they were [now] lumped in with blacks, and they had a very difficult time. You can see this in Cane River very specifically that within ten years of the end of the Civil War, they were economically actually losing ground. And, freed slaves had begun to acquire land and some confidence in a lot of cases. The free people of color just had a harder time in getting that traction and getting back what they had before....

Here, Tademy looks at how the relationship between the “mistress” of the plantation, Oralene, and her former slave/servant Philomene changes once the Civil War is over. Oralene is not able to grasp that things won’t “stay the same” between them, that considering people property is wrong.

...[When Philomene wants to leave Oralene] after Philomene has been freed, she has a confrontation with her mistress. And, this is Louis’ niece. And, Oralene is flabbergasted because she feels that Philomene owes her. She owes her because she has been providing her with food ... they have gone through the Civil War together, they have survived it together, and Philomene wants to go off, and she wants to make a different life for herself ... alone ... not in service to Oralene. This is totally confounding to Oralene, who expects they can go on the way that they’ve always gone on. And, Philomene’s response is that, yes, she fed her, and yes, there was an exchange of services, but it was time to move on. And, Oralene just could not understand the mind set that said that she did not want to live her life under a mistress, [that] she wanted to live a life herself doing the best she could for her own children, not for Oralene’s children. As Philomene says, “You shoe the mule, also. And, I’m sure the mule could get along without those shoes.”

...During this period of time in history, the thing that has to be remembered, when we’re looking back at this with 21st century eyes, [is that] it’s very different. But, during that particular time in history, white people were brought up to believe that they were entitled to many things ... one of them was servants ... people that were in service to them. Also, the economic engine of the South really was labor ... either through sugar cane, or to pick cotton or whatever it was, it was to toil the land. And, that was just an inalienable right ... it’s reflected in all the laws, it’s reflected in the fact that African Americans, slaves, were not considered citizens. They were a pool of labor and nothing more. So, if you deign to think that they had a soul, you were already considered to think differently than some of your neighbors might....

In reading slave narratives and recalling family stories, Tademy learns about the satisfaction that slaves got from engaging in small and subtle acts of defiance while outwardly appearing to be compliant and submissive. Here, she looks at why and how this behavior continued during the Jim Crow Era.

And so, these little acts of defiance were really re-establishing portions of oneself that I really wanted to project. And, I know this didn’t appear in the book, but it was one that helped me to link the current day ... more modern day going all the way back to slavery times. And, I know that my mother, who is very fair, and, if you didn’t know, you might think that she was white--and she’s always lived as an African American--but I know that there were times when she would get on a bus, and she’d ride in the front. And, that was an act of personal defiance. The only person that needed to know about that was her. And, it was a way of maintaining her own dignity. It was a way of maintaining a piece of herself against the system that wouldn’t allow her to sit in the front of the bus during segregation. But, she got away with it.

And so, these are small pieces. The Jim Crow South ... one of the major manifestations of that is where you could sit on a train, on a bus, on any public transportation ... where you could go to the bathroom, whether you could drink from a white-only faucet, public faucet, or a colored faucet. A lot of that, you always had to show the outward manifestation or you were in great danger. But, there’s always some little piece that rebels and that keeps you strong. And that’s why I wanted to show that particular mind set in Cane River....

...Near the end of the book, I really go more into a lot of the stories that I heard very specific to my great-grandmother Emily. And, I know that she was--because I have picture of her and because I have descriptions of her--she was so fair skinned, that she looked white, in effect. And, [in] the very last chapter in the book, she goes into a general store. She hasn’t been in town for such a long time, that she’s pretty sure nobody would recognize her. And, she is waited on by the man behind the counter until another woman walks in [who] does know who she is, and she knows that she’s colored. At which point, she’s expected to step aside and to wait until she can purchase the items in the store. And, this is a very common occurrence.

It’s just made a little more odd by somebody that looks so white, whose skin is probably even fairer than the other woman who came in. And, I know that my great-grandmother would not have stood for that ... which is why I wrote it. She walked out of the store without making any of the purchases. She also was hungry, but she would have had to go around to the back of the little restaurant in order to get something to eat. And, I know that one of the things that she often said was, “I’ll die of thirst or hunger before I go back to anybody’s back door.” And so, she just went and got on the bus and went back home. Those are choices that she made. And, the choice really wasn’t because she was so fair skinned; it’s that she expected to be treated in a certain way. She would remove herself from those situations where she couldn’t be treated in that way.

“Bleaching of the Line” and “Passing:” Tademy discusses how these issues played out historically in her family.

...It occurs at some point to Elisabeth, and this is the oldest of the four women, it comes to Elisabeth at some point to actually look at herself, at her daughter, at her granddaughter, at her great-grand daughter and, by then, her great-great granddaughter ... and to see that over time, it’s gone from brown skin to lighter skin, to lighter skin ... from coffee to lily. It’s just gone totally to the point where the skin color is very, very light. And, it’s not as if this was something that would have just occurred to her at that moment, but it is something she realizes when she sees everyone together, that the bleaching of the line has occurred.

And, she has to wonder how good that is. If that’s a good thing or a bad thing, whether that opens up more opportunities, or did they have to give up something in order to get there? And, the bleaching of the line is something that is real. It did occur in many cases. It turned out to be a topic in Cane River that garnered more attention then I ever expected. It’s what a lot of people want to talk about, which is this lightening over time.

Because, the fathers of the children ... and it’s actually not just the fathers themselves ... the mate, the parent of the generation is often selected, and they’re lighter. And so, each generation successively gets lighter ... but, particularly ... after slavery and particularly during the just-limited opportunities during the Jim Crow period. Lighter meant that you had more opportunity to work. It meant that you were first in line for the very few jobs that there were, so that you might be able to work for the railroad. You might be able to ... later on, you could work for the post office. You got the jobs that there were set aside, that were available to black people in some cases. And so, there really was a distinction ... an unfortunate distinction, but a distinction that opened up more opportunities with the bleaching of the line.

[The lighter the skin, the more likely you were to get the job ... especially if the job involved interacting with the public.] It was more acceptable ... it was less threatening is how the story went. And, there was also just an amazing assumption of greater intelligence, of the ability to interact in a way that people could appreciate. It was a series of assumptions that were very damaging but very much reflected in choices that people made about jobs....

...Passing was really never an issue in my family. Not in my direct family. There were some extended family members that passed in and out, actually. They would go away, get a job, and pass on the job. And, it was remote. Nobody knew. And, when they were done, they would come back. Then, there was one instance of someone that really passed in other states. And, I’ve been contacted by their children’s children’s children now, who are very fascinated to know that that’s really what’s happened, because I’ve named a name, and they’ve come and found me now. It is not considered to be such a huge thing now, but at that time, it was perpetrating a huge lie. And, it was cutting off all your ties with your family and cutting off ties with your community in order to pass. In my particular family, even though in terms of looks it would have been easy to pass, it was really not a choice that was made.

Tademy discusses the relationship between her great-grandmother Emily and the Frenchman, Joseph Billes (the fourth relationship between whites and blacks she talks about in-depth in her book). She uses this example to illustrate the legal and social milieu of the time regarding race relations.

The last of these relationships between a white man and a black woman ... it’s after the Civil War, and so, it’s somebody who was born as a slave, but they’re not a slave by the time the relationship matures ... was the relationship between my great grandmother Emily and a newly immigrated Frenchman, Joseph Billes, who came over to the county in 1871. And, that is a relationship that was a love relationship. It also very much confounded the common wisdom of the time in that they could not get married. It was not legal. So, they couldn’t get married. But, they had five children.

My great-grandmother was the only woman in Joseph Billes life, up to a point, while all her children were being born, and vice versa. And, he actually moved her into his house. This was absolutely not done. There was a code, unwritten, that you could go ahead, and you could slip money, you could support your children, if necessary; but you did not bring them into your own house and raise them. And, this is what Joseph Billes did. And, that was a match that was atypical, in that, again, they were not married because they couldn’t be married; but he viewed them as his family and his only family. And, he spent the last six months of his life trying desperately, going to every lawyer--and I have a track of this documentation--going to every lawyer he could think of to figure out a way to leave his land and his wealth to his children. And, by law, he could not do it.

The social pressure [forcing him to make another living arrangement, at least temporarily], which actually, I believe, was more intense than any legal pressure, was that you came back to your own kind. That sometimes these things happened, and that’s what men did in their youth, but you come back to your own kind. And, especially, that would occur in a society where you don’t sell your land, you keep your land, and you pass it down. That was the form of prestige, wealth, identification, everything. And, in order to leave what he had spent a lifetime accumulating, he actually married a white woman. And, after he was married to her for almost a decade, very unhappily, and I have a lot of court proceedings that document just how unhappy that was for a very long time, he still wanted to leave his wealth to his only children. And, these are the five children that he had had by my great-grandmother Emily....

...I found two articles in the Colfax Chronicle. Colfax is the little teeny town where my parents met in Louisiana. And, it’s actually across the river from Cane River. Those articles document the ... it was called a suicide by my great-grandfather, who was the Frenchman who came over after the Civil War, who was the father of five children including my grandfather.... He was considered to have killed himself. Now, the fact is that he was shot through the head with a rifle, he was shot through the neck with a pistol, and his throat was slit. And, he was considered to have killed himself. But, putting that aside ... these two articles ... the first one relayed the facts and that he committed suicide. The second was an editorial ... that talked at great length about how he had reaped what he sowed by living this sinful life, raising these children, bringing them into his house, and that he got what was coming to him. And, this was very instrumental in letting me know what the mood of the times was, because this was a front page editorial on a very sensationalistic event that had happened in that small community.

Instruments of Terror: The Night Riders and the KKK

The Night Riders were the pre-cursors of the KKK. And not very surprisingly, they were used as an instrument of control ... [during the] very, very heady days in the 1800’s and 1870, 1880, and 1890 particularly.... They would ride around the countryside, where they would pick out people who were a threat to their way of life, the way of life of white supremacy. And, it was a very accepted thing to talk about the goodness of white supremacy at that time. They would physically punish them [blacks] in any number of ways. It could be lynching, it could be shooting, it could be maiming, it could be burning, [or] it could be terrorizing beatings. But, they had a pretty free reign of the countryside and particularly in Louisiana, which was a very violent state.

...What the Night Riders and eventually the KKK did was purely terror. And, it was picking out a small number of people to send messages ... to send the message. So, the intent wasn’t to kill off everyone; it was just to frighten everyone into complying with living life the way that they saw it. And, the way that they saw it all revolved around white supremacy....

...I didn’t study Cane River specifically during certain of these time periods, but the Jim Crow South and its impact on Cane River was very much like the impact anywhere else. Just as the rules and the regulations and the constrictions were tightening by the 1850’s and before the Civil War, they were getting far tighter by the 1880’s and the 1890’s, so that you had quite a lot of violence. Right after the Civil War, for example, there was a lot of voter fraud, particularly in Louisiana. And, a lot of that was designed specifically to keep people from voting, to keep them at home, to keep them from participating as full citizens. And, that got very bad in Cane River as it did everywhere else. I wouldn’t make a huge distinction. Cane River after the Civil War lost a lot of it’s French-ness and a lot of the things that made it so unique before then. So, I would not characterize it as a softer place.

In concluding her narrative, Lalita Tademy talks about the ambiguity in meaning of the word, Creole. She then discusses her next book project, a novel based on the genealogy of her father’s people, from the men’s perspective.

...I absolutely, positively refuse to try to be an expert on what Creole means, because I don’t have a clue at this point. I know that it’s used in many different ways. It’s a language, it’s a food, it’s a classification of people, it’s an attitude. It is very differently used. I also know that the meaning of Creole has changed over time, which makes it even more difficult. So, what it meant in 1830 and what it meant in 1870 and what it means in 1920 or 1990, is different. Creole, for a time, meant white, of European ancestry. And, it really was the creation of something new. So, it was of European ancestry but born in the new world ... here in the United States. It also came to mean the mixture of Spanish and/or French and African American. And, African American was not a term used then, but “black.” As well as the patois, the language of Creole. So, it’s all over the map. So, what I have come to--the only thing that I will lay claim to in my understanding of what a Creole is--is to ask someone if they’re a Creole. And, if they say they are, I say, okay. I agree. I don’t know what it means....

...I’m now writing a new book, and again, it’s an historical novel, multi-generational. Where Cane River was the story of multiple generations of my mother’s people, this next book is about multiple generations of my father’s people ... it is more man to man to man to man where Cane River was woman to woman to woman to woman. But, it also takes place off of the Red River, just 30 miles away from Cane River. But, it might as well be Pluto or Venus because the mood and feel [of the] circumstances are so very different. And, a lot of it takes place during reconstruction. And again, it’s based on real stories that I uncovered when I was doing my research. So, I’m about 250 pages in and looking forward to getting back to it so I can finish it.

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