The Big Read
Macon County
One book. One community. A conversation about who we are.
Macon County has been selected as one of only four Illinois communities to participate in the 2026–2027 NEA Big Read, a national initiative of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
Our community's selection, A Lesson Before Dying by acclaimed American author Ernest J. Gaines, invites readers to explore questions of justice, dignity, race, identity, courage and community responsibility—and to consider how those questions continue to shape our lives today.
From October 10th through Spring of 2027, Macon County will come together through reading, discussion, creative expression, community conversations and events inspired by Gaines' powerful novel.
Read the book. Join the conversation. See your community in a new way.
NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
About the big read
The NEA Big Read brings communities together around the shared experience of reading a great book.
Since 2006, the National Endowment for the Arts, in partnership with Arts Midwest, has supported more than 1,800 NEA Big Read programs across the country. More than 6 million people have participated in NEA Big Read events, bringing readers, artists, educators, organizations, and neighbors together through literature and conversation.
For 2026–2027, the NEA Big Read celebrates 250 years of the American story—exploring the country's culture, history and resilience through the eyes of its citizens. Macon County is proud to be part of that national conversation as one of just four Illinois communities to receive an NEA Big Read grant for 2026–2027.
But this isn't simply a program about reading a book. It is an opportunity to bring people together across generations, backgrounds, and experiences. Through A Lesson Before Dying, Macon County will explore the complicated questions of justice, identity, dignity, education, courage and what we owe to one another. The book provides the starting point.
The conversation belongs to all of us.
Big Read Macon County is an initiative of the Heart of Illinois Community Foundation, in partnership with Three Link Media and NowDecatur.com. NEA Big Read is a program of the National Endowment for the Arts in partnership with Arts Midwest.
Set in rural Louisiana in the late 1940s, A Lesson Before Dying follows Jefferson, a young Black man sentenced to death for his involvement in a murder he did not commit. After his conviction, Jefferson's godmother asks teacher Grant Wiggins to help him understand his own worth and face his final days with dignity.
What begins as an assignment Grant does not want becomes a profound relationship between teacher and student—and a story about the power of courage, compassion, education and human connection.
Gaines' novel asks a deceptively simple question: What does it mean to be a man, a neighbor and a human being when the world has told you that you are worth less?
Through Jefferson and Grant, readers are invited to consider not only how a person finds dignity, but how a community helps—or fails to help—its members find it.
A Lesson before dying
By Earnest J. Gaines
About the Book
THEMES
About the Author
Ernest J. Gaines
Ernest J. Gaines was one of America's most respected African American authors and an important voice in contemporary American literature.
Born in 1933 in Pointe Coupée Parish, Louisiana, Gaines drew heavily on the people, places, language and experiences of his Louisiana upbringing. His fiction frequently explored the complexities of race, class, memory, identity and community in the American South.
His work includes The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman, A Gathering of Old Men, In My Father's House and A Lesson Before Dying, which won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 1996.
Gaines' writing is deeply rooted in a particular place and time, yet the questions he asks are universal.
His characters wrestle with questions that remain relevant decades later: Who are we? What do we owe one another? How do we carry the weight of history? And how can individuals create dignity and meaning in circumstances they did not choose?
Why this book matters today
Although A Lesson Before Dying is set in Louisiana in the 1940s, its questions do not belong only to the past.
The novel asks readers to examine the ways communities define justice, opportunity and belonging. It explores how prejudice can shape institutions and individual lives—and how education, empathy, relationshipsand courage can challenge those forces.
For Macon County, the book offers an opportunity to look beyond the pages and into our own community. What does dignity mean here? How do we listen to experiences different from our own? What responsibilities do we have to our neighbors? How do our communities shape the people who live in them—and how can individuals help shape their communities in return?
The NEA Big Read is an invitation to ask those questions together.