Ernest J. Gaines Stamps

The 46th stamp in the Black Heritage series honors author Ernest j, Gaines (1933-2019), Best known for such novels as TheAutobiography of Miss Jane Pittman and A Lesson Before Dying, Gaines drew from his childhood as the son of sharecropperson a Louisiana plantation to explore the untold stories of rural African Americans.The stamp art is an oil painting of Gaines based on a 2001 photographErnest J. Gaines was born on River Lake Plantation in the town of Oscar just outside New Roads, Louisiana, where his familyhad ived in the former slave quarter for five generations. He moved to California in 1948, but for decades afterward, his fictionreflected a deep and unbreakable connection to the rural Louisiana of his youth.

After serving in the Army for two years and graduating from college, Gaines received a prestigious fellowship in 1958 to studycreative writling at Stanford Wniversity, He published his first novel, Catherine Carmier. in 1964. but he achieved true fame.widespread acclaim, and a Pulitzer Prize nomination in 1971 with The Autobiography of Miss jane Pittman, a novel chroniclingthe recollections of its 110-year-old African American protagonist, whose life spans slavery to the civil rights era

In 1981, Gaines took a position teaching creative writing at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (then known as theUniversity of Southwestern Louisiana) and soon became the university's Writer-in-Residence. in 1983, he published the novelA Gathering of Old Men. in which a aroup of African American men assert their humanity and pride in the face of long-standingprejudice and violence.

In 1993. Gaines published his most critically and popularly acclaimed novel,A Lesson Before Dying, about a college-educatedAfrican American teacher who provides education and inspiration to a voung farmhand awaiting execution for murder. Overthe course of their dificult visits in prison, they form a bond that shows both of them the need to resist those who would denythem their dignity and self-respect. In addition to earning the National Book Critics Circle Award, A Lesson Before Dyingresulted in Gaines receiving a prestigious MacArthur Foundation “Genius" Fellowship.

In 2013. Gaines accepted the National Medal of Arts from President Barack Obama, calling it the greatest honor he had everreceived. Today the Baton Rouge Area Foundation continues to endow an annual Ernest y. Gaines Award for LiteraryExcellence, which recognizes excellent African American fiction writers who are just beginning to rise to national prominenceMike Ryan designed this stamp with art by Robert Peterson based on a photograph by Raoul Benavides. Greg Breedingserved as art director.

The ErestJ, Gaines stamp is being issued as a Forever@ stamp in panes of 20. This Forever stamp is always equal in valueto the current First-Class Mail® one-ounce price.

Made in the USA.