Hopetown

Much of the narration is anchored to the history and present reality of Hopetown. The community was established by slaves, with the help of the Caddo people, who escaped a steamboat crash on Caddo Lake in the mid-19th century. When Darren visited Hopetown, there was only around a dozen residents left, seeing as most of the Black people who used to live there relocated to bigger cities. Leroy Page owned the land that Hopetown was on and the cause of tension in the novel is that white people had started squatting on the land by bringing trailers and mobile homes to live in. Hopetown is on Caddo Lake and Darren is often told that it is hard to find the town the first time you go. But rather than a one-off, Hopetown is contextualized within the larger idea of what Black freedom looked like across the nation...