While we all agree that racism is immoral and has no place in a modern society, that was not the case in the United States in the 1940s . At the time, African Americans were treated as second-class citizens, it was almost impossible for them to vote and they were discriminated against in many ways, including in education, society and employment. It was a time when segregation and racism punctured laws and society, a time when African Americans were “separate but equal,” segregation was legal and in full force. Apartheid was also everywhere, from books to society. Black people were not truly seen as equal as they were seen as the lesser of the two and it seemed that way. Black people were oppressed in many ways, including having unattainable requirements to vote, such regulations included literacy tests, poll taxes, and elaborate registration systems, but it only started from there. The novel A Lesson Before Dying is about a young college-educated man and an inmate, Grant Wiggins and Jefferson. Grant is asked to turn Jefferson into a man, convicted of killing a white man during a robbery he was dragged into. Emma Lou asks Grant to make a man out of Jefferson, so if anything Jefferson can die with dignity. Something he was deprived of when he was put on trial and his lawyer used the defense that he is a pig. As he tries to reach out to Jefferson, Grant struggles because he is so far away and separated from his own community. He harbors resentment towards the white man and wants to get away from his city which he thinks is a constant vicious cycle of misery. The novel A Lesson Before Dying by Ernest J. Gaines describes the social and racial injustices faced by African Americans in the South in the late 1940s...... mid-paper ...... Erican Civil Liberties Union, nd Web . March 7, 2014."Civil rights for minorities during and after World War II." Civil rights for minorities during and after World War II. Np, nd Web. 08 March 2014.Gaines, Ernest J. A Lesson Before Dying. Np: Vintage, 1994. Open Library. Network. February 10, 2014."Martin Luther King GPS Tour." Civil rights timeline of 1940s African American events in Atlanta. Np, nd Web. March 07, 2014."The Depression, the New Deal, and World War II." African American Odyssey: (Part 1). Np, nd Web. 06 March 2014.Wells, Colin. "A lesson before dying." Literature and Its Times Supplement 1: Profiles of 300 notable literary works and the historical events that influenced them. Joyce Moss. vol. 2: The Great Depression and the New Deal into future times (1930s -). Detroit: Gale, 2003. 249-258. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Network. March 12. 2014.