When and where does A Lesson Before Dying take place?

A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines is set in Louisiana's rural South and the events occur in the year 1948. This was after the Second World War, but before the Civil Rights Movement took effect in America. African Americans were still being subjected to slavery. They worked in the plantations on a daily basis and suffered myriad injustices. Point Coupee Parish, the small fictional town in Louisiana with Bayonne as its parish seat, is where the events unfolded, and also shows the level of segregation in the South. There were two separate public facilities for the different races, movie theaters, schools and even churches catering to whites and coloreds separately. In the story, a young black man is tried for murder, and although he is innocent he is eventually executed.

The novel is set in bayou country, Louisiana during the 1940s.  This was a pivotal time in America: a time of war abroad and in the South (for civil rights).  The Jim Crow era was a time of segregation, and Gaines shows the disparity primarily in the education system.  It would not be until 1954 with the Brown. vs. Board of Ed. that schools in the South would be made to integrate.

Grant Wiggins, the novel's narrator, is a school teacher who ironically learns from an uneducated "subhuman," Jefferson, who is about to be executed.   The execution is to be on April 8, two weeks after Good Friday and the Easter holiday.  T.S. Eliot said, "April is the cruelest month," as Gaines well attests.  Grant, though not reborn, does break down and cry at the end, after reading Jefferson's journal.

What is the setting of A Lesson Before Dying?

The setting is a small town in the South called Bayonne in the 1940’s.

Bayonne, which is named after a town in France, is a Cajun town.  It represents many small towns in the South during the mid-twentieth century, when racism was rampant.  Bayonne is representative of many small Southern towns, divided and unequal.

Bayonne was a small town of about six thousand. Approximately three thousand five hundred whites; approximately two thousand five hundred colored. … There was only one main street in Bayonne, and it ran along the St. Charles river. (Ch. 4)

Most of the people in Bayonne are Catholic, but there are two separate Catholic churches—one for blacks, and one for whites.  Everything is separate.  The main industry is the cement plant, and there is a hog butcher, we are told.  It is definitely not a wealthy town.  It is tiny, it is divided, and as we are told from these numbers, there are twice as many whites as blacks.  The main street is only six blocks and only has a few stores.  The movie theater is only for whites.

The black quarter is where the blacks live.  Their school is the church.  They have essentially nothing.  The students use the pews as desks.

The students either got down on their knees and used the benches as desks to write upon, or used the backs of their books upon their laps to write out their assignments. (Ch. 5)

The inequality of this community was common in the South.  Jefferson being sentenced to death when he was only in the wrong place at the wrong time is a perfect example of the worst of the inequality.  Justice does not exist for the blacks, just like education does not exist.  Jefferson cannot read and write, and cannot defend himself.