preview

Analysis of Miss Jane Pittman

Decent Essays
In Ernest Gaines novel, The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, he stresses the importance of education of black men from the period of slavery to the civil rights movement. Education has not always been available to African Americans. During the time of slavery education was very limited as not many people were educated, especially blacks. Schools for blacks were often destroyed and those found teaching them were usually killed. A lack of education was one way that whites were able to keep control over blacks along with violence to make people scared to challenge their treatment. Throughout the book there were several educated black men that made their way into Miss Jane's life, two of which were raised by Miss Jane and were like children…show more content…
When Jimmy died the community was finally able to get involved and they continued what Jimmy started first through Jane as she continued with Jimmy's plan to protest by drinking from the fountain. As time passed things have changed and African Americans have moved forward because of the leadership and examples from Ned and Jimmy. They fought trying to make sure that their community and others would be able to educate themselves and be free thinking so they could escape from the shackles of slavery and white supremacy. They were able to shed their fear and mobilize the people to reach a goal. Both Ned and Jimmy understood that nothing could be done to make a change without support from the people and someone to lead
Get Access