Diane Gaines
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUPROWELL: Are you a native of New Orleans?
GAINES: I was born and grew up in New Orleans. I lived there until I was twenty-one.
ROWELL: Did you go to school there?
GAINES: Yes, I went to school there through college, Xavier University.
ROWELL: And you later selected law as your profession. Did you do any other kind of work before you started practicing law?
GAINES: I taught high school English, was a counselor with the Neighborhood Youth Corps, and sold real estate after the Fair Housing Ordinance was passed in Miami. I always wanted to be a lawyer; however, I didn't think that the study and practice of law was a realistic goal for a poor black girl from Louisiana. In college I majored in English, because I loved to read. I taught school initially, but I taught in Florida, because as soon as I gradated from college I got married and moved to Miami. That was in 1962. My former husband and I both taught.
ROWELL: When did you go to law school?
GAINES: I went during the 1970s, when the women's movement was ascending. As women, we discovered that we could become lawyers and other kinds of professionals. Like the red engine, we could, we could, and so the desire to become a lawyer had never left me. It seemed more important to me then, because I really never wanted to be anything else. My enthusiasm for social change was encouraged by the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. The Brown decision of 1954, which gave validity to what I already believed—that segregation was wrong—also made me believe that the law was the way to social change. My goal was not to make money; my goal was, instead, to make changes.
In 1977, I started law school at the University of Miami. I took the LSAT without taking a course and did extremely well. The Sisters of the Blessed Sacrament under whom I studied from "primer grade" through college taught us the skills of test taking well. I was worried about finances, but applied any way. Fortunately, I got accepted with an academic [End Page 1215] scholarship. I received my JD in 1980. I had four children at the time and went to school with them. They had little ID cards that allowed them to use the student facilities and sometimes, because they were small children, one or another would come to class with me. After I finished law school, I became a member of the Florida Bar and practiced law in Florida for about sixteen years. After taking early retirement from the Dade County Attorney's office, I went with Ernest to France for a year.
ROWELL: You and Ernest Gaines are married. How did you meet?
GAINES: We met at the Miami International Book Festival. He spoke on a panel with four or five other writers. I really went to hear Ernie. I loved his work and I had been involved in the book festival in different ways as a volunteer. When I met Ernest, I took him out with some other people, just to show him Miami. That's how I met him.
ROWELL: I want to go back to your moving to Florida and your first marriage, after you graduated from Xavier University. Your moving to Florida took you away from the culture and family you knew—and for long time. Did you make trips back and forth from Florida to New Orleans visit with your family?
GAINES: Yes. My parents and my sister and nieces and nephews and uncles and aunts and all my family still lived in New Orleans. We went back to Louisiana at least once a year.
ROWELL: Your leaving Louisiana is, for me, amazing. So few people—especially black people—ever leave New Orleans. They seem married to family, culture and place. [Laughter] How is it that you were able to separate yourself from New Orleans?
GAINES: I couldn't...
