Red River Parish, Louisiana

Red River Parish, Louisiana is the location of the sharecropping plantations where Denver spends his early life. Red River Parish is portrayed as a morally bankrupt region where modern-day slaves, legally free though impoverished black workers, are taken advantage of by crop owners. The bleak scenery consists of shotgun shacks, so named because the structures are frail enough for one shotgun blast to blow holes through both ends. Denver’s time in Red River Parish is characterized by racism, lack of education, and opportunities. Although a setting in the twentieth century, Red River Parish is anachronistic in its treatment of black workers.

The Hobo Jungle

The hobo jungle is a term for the area where homeless men gather underneath an overpass. The area is squalid, filthy, and dangerous. Homeless men smoke and drink in the jungle under the cover of night where no police...