The 46th stamp in the United States Postal Service’s Black Heritage Series honors author Ernest J. Gaines, 1933– 2019. Best known for such novels as “The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman,” and “A Lesson Before Dying,” Gaines drew from his childhood as the son of sharecroppers on a Louisiana plantation to explore the untold stories of rural African Americans.

Gaines is recipient of the National Humanities Medal, National Medal of the Art, Chavalier of the Order of Arts and Letters from the government of France, and is a National Books Critics Circle Award winner. His brilliant portrayals of race, community and culture in rural south Louisiana – of both dispiriting and triumphal experiences of black personhood – made him a greatly respected and beloved world-renowned author. The author of ten books of fiction, he was writer in residence emeritus at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette.