The Autobiography of Jane Pittman- Reflection on Book 4

Fight for Freedom

In Book 4 of The Autobiography of Jane Pittman, by Ernest Gaines, the topic that stood out the most was Jimmy’s decision to become an activist for black people’s civil rights. As with some of the other books, although Jane was present through all of the events, another character took the lead role in the theme of Book 4. In this case, Jimmy took the lead role or as Jane called him, he became the “One”. From my perspective, Jimmy became the savior of all the black community, and Jane supported all his decisions without fear. This is seen when Jane accepted to support and be present in the passive march that Jimmy was promoting in Bayonne. The day of the march, Jane said “I wasn’t scared I might get hurt – when you get to be a hundred and eight or a hundred and nine you forget what scared is . . . (Gaines 241)

Unlike Jane, many black people were scared of the drastic changes that Jimmy wanted to make for the black community. The black people that lived in Samson’s plantation were scared of fighting for their freedom because they knew it would cost them their lives or their commodities (the land Robert Samson lent to them). In Elder Banks’ own words, “All we want to do is live our life quietly as we can peacefully as the Lord will allow us . . . He owns the house we live in . . . And the day he tells us to leave, we got to go . . .” (Gaines 226). Naturally, even though Jimmy’s movement helped future generations, the present generation would have to sacrifice some aspects of their life and Jimmy knew that, and tried to instruct the others in the importance of their sacrifice by saying “Some of us might be killed, some of us definitely going to jail, and some of us might be crippled the rest of our life. But death and jail don’t scare us – . . . but every day we put up with the white man insults they cripple us just a little bit more” (Gaines 226-227).

Not only that, Jimmy’s experience reminded me of when Ned was promoting education for the black community and ended up being murdered. Therefore, through Ned’s experience, any reader can foreshadow Jimmy’s death. In conclusion, Book 4 ended The Autobiography of Jane Pittman with the movement for defending the black community’s civil rights, but in real life it marked just the beginning of equality for the black community.