The Shifting of Leadership in Gaines's The Autobiography of Miss Jane

The history of black emancipatory struggle in the United States has recorded the contribution of both men and women. The contribution of women has been long obscured so that the only worthy representatives of the black race were practically men. The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman is a revalorization and a new interpretation of this history that for a long time has remained a sexist ideology. The woman is enveloped in silence and is invisible not because she has no face, but rather because she has no voice. By giving a woman the opportunity to tell her story and, in turn, the story of the entire black community in this fictional work, Gaines gives her a voice; therefore, a conscience. It is the rehabilitation of the female gender that regains the voice. The voice that is really the expression of a presence, of a power.