Micaella Bruton

Short Story on A Lesson Before Dying

Louisiana, 1945

My name is Jefferson, and this is my diary. I am a 23 year old black man. Currently, I am sitting in the city jail. My trial was yesterday. I was pronounced guilty and sentenced to death by electrocution. “The hog was sentenced to death. Did you hear?” They said after hearing it on the radio. Do you want to know how this all happened? Well, it started when I went down to the local store to get some whiskey. Vivian Wiggins, the town loon, came in with a shotgun and demanded money, and of all things, some sugar cane. I never thought of her as the kind to be the cause of a robbery. She never had been really ‘crazy’ around me before; I never understood why she was called the ‘town loon’ until that day. Grant, the shopkeeper and the town professor, got out his pistol when she came in and yelled for her to put down the gun. I ran and hid behind a pile of bottles. I heard 3 gunshots before a long silence, but still I stayed hidden. I heard the police sirens coming down the road in the distance, but I still couldn’t move. I couldn’t believe what had happened. So here I am now, sitting in a jail cell, because I’m just a poor, black man, and they didn’t believe me that I didn’t murder them. I’m going to die now. I wish I could go to the town Christmas program, eat some homemade biscuit sandwiches, or take one last look at the magnificent, blue sky…