Here are some ways that LaGuardia students can get involved in some of the issues raised by A Lesson Before Dying.  Every reading will move each individual reader differently.  The first time I read Gaines’s novel I was incensed (very angry) about the racist police and criminal justice system in the rural Louisiana of the 1940s in the book.  If that bothers you too, you can research police misconduct at Copwatch.org using their publically searchable database.  Or you can go to Badcops.org (a site that tries to look fairer). This site offers ways to “provide the tools, research, resources, and news to help good cops, community leaders, victims, and other concerned citizens address the complex issue of police misconduct.” 

The last few times I read A Lesson Before Dying I was struck by the horror of the death penalty.  Here is a collection of really interesting death penalty activism and research that you can use either to get involved or in researching the death penalty.

Another issue that A Lesson Before Dying raises is education.  As I reread Gaines's novel this summer I was drawn to issues surrounding. Why are some students given first rate educations and others underfunded and inferior schooling?

There are a few ways to look at this.  One is segregation and the racism that creates it.  This is not a problem exclusive to the South, other locations, including New York City have this problem. You can learn about it in this Johnathan Kozol article. You can try to do something about this problem at the comprehensive New York Anti-Bias Law site.  They have lots of ways to document the economic and racial segregation in New York.  This map was particularly intriguing, showing the racial segregation of New York City, detailing the percentages of whites, blacks, Asians and Latinos that live in the five boroughs. 

It is also a nation-wide problem as "Brain Drain and Brain Gain: Rising Educational Segregation in the United States, 1940–2000" a really challenging article with graphics, statistics and demographics details.  You can listen to a discussion of the report from Inside Higher Education with the author here, and here is a more easily read version digested from Inside Higher Education.

Stafford Gregoire, Ph.D.

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