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The foregoing article deals with two versions of The Autobiography of Miss Jane Pittman: it points up the salient differences between the novel by Ernest J. Gaines and the movie adaptation, exploring the 'suppressed'? side of the book and the 'cultural work'? performed by the film. Gaines strives to give expression to the history of 'black folk'? and recalls - with a view to regenerating them - the fundamental principles that presided over the founding of the United States: equality, liberty and unity. He may thus be deemed a Founding Father in his own right: an intermediary between the individual (citizen) and the collectivity (the nation), articulating the tension between these two protagonists of history. The film glosses over this heritage and ignores Gaines' Founding-Fatherly approach. It does a different kind of historical work, tells a different story, suppressing that of the 'others'? and seeking, albeit implicitly, to expiate what was called 'white guilt'? by portraying it on the screen. While the novel strives to convey the collective imagination, the film is chiefly out to reassure a white audience. As a new Founding Father, Gaines invites his readership to find the shared meaning of ' e pluribus unum'? in the adherence to an enterprise, to an initial vision of America as promise and experience rather than a homogenizing, hence hegemonic, illusion as to what constitutes the American experience. For Gaines, the Founding Fathers represent a world to remember, to inhabit and yet to imagine.