Ernest James Gaines is one of the most important African American authors of this century. (Benet's 365) He succeeds as a writer as well as a college English Professor at University of Southwestern Louisiana in 1983. Gaines was born on January 15, 1933 in Oscar Louisiana. He had a hard childhood which later led him to become successful as a writer. By his working experiments it showed him that hard work does pay off. It showed him to be strong and gave him strength to go farther. Ernest Gaines writings had a lot to do with influences, experiments, and characteristics of his life.
Ernest James Gaines had a hard childhood. ( Andrews p.146) Gaines was raised by his Aunt Augusteen Jefferson which is his father's sister. She was physically and mentally crippled. Gaines was the oldest of twelve children. There were nine boys and three girls in his family. They consisted of the fifth generation. At the age of nine he worked in the fields earning fifty cents a day. ( Bourque p.30) While working in the plantation fields, he picked cotton and went fishing in the swamps. Gaines" mother was sixteen years old when she gave birth to him. Gaines" mother and father both worked in the sugar cane fields until they got a divorced. After they got a divorce, Gaines" mother later remarried and took a job in New Orleans. The children lived on the plantation. (Auger p.80) Their home while living on the plantation was rough, they lived in a small gray cabin with unpainted wooden shack, tin roof , no electricity, no running water, no inside plumbing, and no inside plumbing. When Gaines was fifteen years old, he moved .
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to San Francisco to join his mother and stepfather. They had gone there a few years before. Gaines left Louisiana during World War II.
Gaines education had a big impact on his career as well as his future. ( Bourque 29) Gaines first six years of school were in the plantation church, where a visiting teacher taught five to six months a year, depending on when the children were needed to work in the fields/Schools for black children didn't continue past the eighth grade.
