Black Pride in Louisiana By David Squires
![]() |
Huey P. Newton (left) and Ernest J. Gaines (right) |
![]() |
Huey P. Newton (left) and Ernest J. Gaines (right) |
In the novel The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, Dr. Ernest J. Gaines creates the main character, Jane, who has lived through every historical event to happen to African Americans in the South. Jane functions as a living history book that provides personal reflections on American Slavery (the Antebellum Era), Reconstruction, and civil rights, and the Civil Rights Movement in rural South Louisiana.
To what extent is it possible to get inside the creative mind of a writer? No single source can unequivocally take us to the core of the literary imagination that draws us to it. But if we take as a helpful starting point materials once held in the writer’s possession and gifted to a repository of their choosing, we will feel closer to an answer.
Dr. Ernest J. Gaines is internationally known as the author of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying. He authored additional award-winning novels and short stories that became made-for-television movies. Though fictional, Gaines' novels and short stories take place at the forefront of several historical events. Through his words, Dr. Gaines preserved a way of life for African American, Cajun and Creole tenants and sharecroppers in Oscar, Louisiana.