A Lesson Before Dying

by Ernest J. Gaines

We must live with our own conscience. Each and every one of us must live with his own conscience.”

Determination Sunday was the third Sunday of each month, when members of the church would stand and sing their favorite hymns and tell the congregation where they were determined to spend eternity.

But I had been running in place ever since, unable to accept what used to be my life, unable to leave it.

She was right; I was not happy. I had heard the same carols all my life, seen the same little play, with the same mistakes in grammar. The minister had offered the same prayer as always, Christmas or Sunday. The same people wore the same old clothes and sat in the same places. Next year it would be the same, and the year after that, the same again. Vivian said things were changing. But where were they changing?

How do people come up with a date and time to take life from another man? Who made them God?

Twelve white men say a black man must die, and another white man sets the date and time without consulting one black person. Justice?

Yet they must believe. They must believe, if only to free the mind, if not the body. Only when the mind is free has the body a chance to be free. Yes, they must believe, they must believe. Because I know what it means to be a slave. I am a slave.

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, Grant Wiggins. Straight he walked. I’m a witness. Straight he walked.”