Project Text

Cycle of Racism

Jefferson was told he was not a man as in not a human being, therefore he believed he wasn’t and believed he didn’t deserve to live. However, with his death facing him with in a matter of months, he comes to the conclusion that he is indeed a man; not only a man who is human being, but a very strong, courageous, and honored man. It took Jefferson a while to understand this about himself, but he did indeed die after learning the lesson of a being a man. Although Grant was the person assigned to make Jefferson a man, he still had a lesson of his own to learn, and he needed the help of Jefferson. In order to help Jefferson die a man, Grant has to first face his own inner problems, which Grant refuses to do because then he will be an emotional cripple and make him no better than his old teacher,  Matthew Antoine. Grant can be a hero only through his interaction with Jefferson and the same for Jefferson. In A Lesson Before Dying , Gaines shows how racism embraces every corner and opening of society; oppressing black people in everyday interactions. Black people were constantly made to feel inferior when they have to wait at a white person’s leisure, forced to enter through the back door of a white person’s house, or treated poorly by a white person. Not only did black have to deal with being put down by the whites, they were put down by the mulattos and their own people.

In the south, blacks are constantly reminded that they are inferior to white people. Grant is the school teacher on the plantation and even though he is a very well educated man, the white people in Bayonne still do not respect him. For example, “…She was gone about fifteen minutes. I knew it couldn’t t possibly take her that long to find another radio, but because I had refused to take the used one, and because she felt quite sure there was no place in Bayonne where I could find another one, she knew I had little choice but to wait until she got back… just about then another white woman came into the store. The clerk set the radio beside the cash register and went to see what the white woman wanted…So they stood there about ten minutes before the clerk came back to wait on me” (Gaines, 128-129).  Grant did not have anywhere else to go to, and buy the radio, and the white saleswomen knew it. With that, she felt like being unfair to Grant just because of the fact that he was a black man. When Grant must enter Pichot’s house through the back door, it is a symbolic reminder of the days of slavery, when slaves could never approach the front door.  Even though slavery was over, blacks were still treated as if they were. “Such protocols represented a holdover from slavery and were still common throughout the South into and past the middle of the twentieth century. They were imposed not only on a plantation's black workers but also on all other black visitors to the plantation owner's residence” (Du Plessis, 630). Similar practices continued from the past of the slavery era. These practices had stopped being enforced after slavery, but everyone still went by these set of silent social assumptions, and were understood by both blacks and whites alike. When Jefferson was being tried, he had an all whites jury. There really wasn’t any need to have a court meeting because he was already found guilty. “Probably no groups of whites in America have a lower opinion of the Negro people and are more fixed in their views than Southern law enforcers. To most of them… practically every Negro man is a potential criminal. They usually hold, in extreme form, all other derogatory beliefs about Negroes; and they are convinced that the traits are "racial." (Myrdal, 541). No matter what Jefferson lawyers told the court that day, he would have still been found guilty because a white man died, so therefore a colored boy would have to pay the price.

Besides the whites in Bayonne, mulattos also feel the need to remind black that they are superior to the blacks. “Creoles (also called mulattos) are the offspring of mixed-race unions between blacks and whites. The Creoles have generally looked down on darker-skinned blacks, who in turn have expressed antipathy to the Creoles” (McClain, 1). Grant’s elementary school teacher, Matthew Antoine was a mulatto. The teacher hated himself for the mixture of his blood; ”And when he saw that I wanted to learn, he hated me even more than he did the others, because I challenged him when the others did not… Just stay here long enough,” he said. “He’ll make you the nigger you were born to be” (Gaines, 48-49). Grants teacher never tried to uplift the students. He instilled in them that learning would not be of value to them because they would never amount to anything but a labor worker. Grant failed to believe the words of his teacher which also pushed him to work harder. Eventually Grant went on to college to make something of him. Even after this, the mulatto teacher still never had any words of encouragement for Grant and labeled him a fool for trying to be successful. No matter what, Grant would always be a black man and a white man would always be superior to Grant. “…they did bricklaying or carpentry, and possibly some house painting. All this by contract. And all this to keep from working in the field side by side with the niggers. Since emancipation, almost a hundred years ago, they would do any kind of work they could find to keep from working side by side in the field with the niggers…With school it was the same. Many of them would drop out of school, would get a trade—bricklayer or carpenter—rather than sit in class side by side with the niggers…And these two who were talking now were of that way of thinking. Dumb as hell, but prejudiced as hell.” (Gaines, 143). The two mulatto men had no other place to go to do their drinking and they would not dare go to an all-white club. So they went to club for blacks like the rest of the blacks in Bayonne, and brought all their prejudices with them too.

After being put down by so many other people putting each other down is all blacks learned to do. Jefferson is taught by Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins that he is actually a man.  Because Reverend Ambrose and Grant Wiggins have such different teaching beliefs and personalities, they approach teaching Jefferson with conflicting views.  Grant automatically looks down upon anyone who is not as educated as him; and with Reverend Ambrose, he despises him also because he has a strong faith in the white man’s God. The Reverend always question Grants credentials since Grant does not believe in the lord. He refers to Grant as a boy and not man because he is lost. “I won’t let you send that boy’s soul to hell,” he said. “I’ll fight you with all the strength I have left in this body, and I’ll win” (Gaines, 156). The Reverend believes right now Jefferson needs to find faith in God, but Grant knows he needs to find faith in himself. Reverend Ambrose has never been to found of Grant as an educator because he believe he can not teach anyone to be a man because he still a boy himself. Grant and Reverend Ambrose never see eye to eye through the whole book. “…The conflict between Grant and Reverend Ambrose has to do with issues of leadership, not spiritual salvation. In Ambrose’s view, Grant’s role as school teacher makes him the community’s potential leader. Hence, it should not be lost on the reader that the church in the Quarters doubles as the school house” (Clark, 147). When Grant goes out and buys Jefferson a radio, Reverend Ambrose becomes very upset with him. Even though the radio had helped Jefferson make a breakthrough, the Reverend didn’t find Grant's teaching good enough. Reverend Ambrose and Grant both want better for the people in their community, but they both continue to let this struggle for power get in the way.

The overall message Gaines is trying to convey is to have human dignity. One should not allow anyone to dehumanize them, or tell them anything negative about yourself. In the book, they were living in a world where you had to look, talk, and act white in order to succeed. But even that was not enough, you had to be white to get anywhere in life. Throughout the story, Grant and Jefferson both brought out the best in each other. Jefferson showed Grant that his teaching were more than just writing, reading and arithmetic; he taught Jefferson about life and how to be a man. Grant reminded Jefferson that he was man and one of the strongest men that lived on the plantation. Grant’s perspective on life changes after spending time with Jefferson; “What did you learn about your own people? What did you learn about her—her ’round there?” …“No, you not educated, boy,” he said, shaking his head. “You far from being educated. You learned your reading, writing, and ’rithmetic, but you don’t know nothing. You don’t even know yourself.” (Gaines, 156). Grant learns to love something other than himself and to strive for change and not to give up on his community. He also develops a love for his people, where before he hated everything about them and the place he lived. He had to learn to understand them and understand their ways. Jefferson was able to die with dignity. He walked straight into his death with his head held high, not letting anyone bring him down or take away his pride. “He was the strongest man in that crowded room…We all had each other to lean on. When Vincent asked him if he had any last words, he looked at the preacher and said, ‘Tell Nannan I walked.’ And straight he walked.” (Gaines, 185). Jefferson was able to accept his death and die as a dignified man.

Work Cited

Clark, Keith. Contemporary Black Men's Fiction and Drama. Urbana: University of Illinois, 2001. Print.

Du Plessis, Max. "Historical Injustice and International Law: An Exploratory Discussion of Reparation for Slavery." Human Rights Quarterly 25.3 (2003): 624-59. Print.

Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. New York: A. A. Knopf, 1993. Print.

McClain, Carol Shepherd. "Family stories: Black/White marriage during the 1960s." The Western Journal of Black Studies 35.1 (2011): 9+. General OneFile. Web.  Apr. 2012.

Myrdal, Gunnar, and Sissela Bok. An American Dilemma: The Negro Problem and Modern Democracy. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction, 1996. Print.