A Lesson Before Dying is a 1993 novel by Ernest J. Gaines. The novel is based on the true story of Willie Francis, a young Black American man best known for surviving a failed electrocution in the sta
Ernest J. Gaines, author of A Lesson Before Dying
Riverlake Plantation, located in Louisiana, in Pointe Coupee Parish. This Plantation is Ernest Gaines' childhood home and serves as inspiration for A Lesson Before Dying.
Willie Francis was an American teenager known for surviving a failed execution by electrocution in the United States. He was a convicted juvenile sentenced to death at age 16 by the state of Louisiana
Francis in 1946, after surviving the electric chair