♪ happy birthday to you >> reporter: perhaps his most famous novel, "the autobiography of miss jane pittman charts the dawn of the civil rights movement from her days as a slave. >> i've been carrying a scar on my back ever since i was a slave. >> reporter: miss jane pittman was inspired by gaines' aunt augusteen, whom he calls the greatest influence in his life. >> she could not walk. >> reporter: she could not walk. >> she crawled over the floor all her life, but she did everything in the world for me. >> reporter: she could not walk, but you say she taught you how to stand. >> right. by her action, by her overcoming all the obstacles. >> reporter: gaines remembers his aunt and other forebears as he sits in the church which he has restored on plantation land where he once picked cotton. >> when i'm sitting in the church alone, i can hear singing of the old people. i can hear their singing and i can hear their praying, and sometimes i hum one of their songs. >> reporter: and gaines feels so indebted to his elders that, on his own property, he has also lovingly restored and now maintains th