When Miss Emma first tells Grant to visit Jefferson and make him a man, Grant is extremely reluctant. He sees Jefferson as another victim of the society in which blacks are viewed as a lesser people than the whites. Grant does not see anything that he could do for Jefferson. His self-centered cynicism prevents him from being able to see his responsibility as an educator to help his society in any way he can. Instead of facing his and his society’s problems, all Grant wants to do is to run away from these problems with Vivian. He is shirking his responsibility to help the society he lives in, and he becomes angry with Tante Lou and Miss Emma when they attempt to make him fulfill his role in that society. Miss Emma and his aunt are making it more difficult to run away from his responsibility, so he becomes angry with them and shows it by slamming the car door and driving over every rut in the road.
As Grant visits Jefferson, he begins to see that he should stand up to the injustice that the blacks are being subjected to by helping Jefferson to realize that he is not a hog, as his lawyer has labeled him. When the white people realize this, they will realize that no black person is a hog; they are all deserving of the privileges that the white community gets. He gets Jefferson to realize this when Jefferson says that he wants a “gallona ice cream” before he dies. Jefferson realizes that he is a human after all, and he starts to pay attention to things that he wants, something he has never done before. Grant helps Jefferson by showing him that people do care for him. The radio that Grant buys for him, the food that Miss Emma makes for him; these are all signs that there are people who love Jefferson. There are people who do not think he is a hog. They take the time to care for him and talk to him. When Jefferson realizes that people care for him, he begins to open up; he writes all that he feels in the notebook that Grant gives to him. A character change in Grant is evident when he echoes Miss Emma, saying, “(Miss Emma) cares. And I do too, Jefferson.” He is beginning to care for others. The cynicism and self-centeredness that Grant had before is replace by concern for what happens to Jefferson and the rest of his community. Grant realizes that if he teaches Jefferson to die with dignity, he can make the whites see that they do not have the right to make the black community so inferior. He wants to help his community become equal with the white community, and one of the first steps is to show the whites that Jefferson is indeed a man, not a hog. He begins to openly question the society that treats blacks so unfairly. In doing this, Grant is leaving his shell of cynicism and he is beginning to care about what happens to other people. He is no longer a self-centered copy of his former teacher, but someone who will fight for the rights of his community.
When Paul, the white deputy, tells Grant that Jefferson was the bravest man in the room when he was executed, Grant looks over the town with a heavy heart and he begins to cry. Paul, a white man, has realized that Jefferson is not a hog. He has come to respect Jefferson. He even wants to read the notebook that Jefferson left for Grant. When Grant got the notebook for Jefferson, it showed that Grant was willing to teach Jefferson to be a man. Grant wanted to help Jefferson reach his potential. Jefferson connects back with the outside world through this notebook. Finally, when Paul asks to read the notebook, it is showing that there is hope for acceptance from the white community. This instills in Grant a sense of hope that the rest of the white community can realize that being black or white is no difference. In helping Jefferson see that he was just as much of a human as any white man, Grant stood up to the social injustices facing his community. He showed the white community that he would no longer let his friends and family be mistreated by the unfair structure of the society they were part of. Grant finally accepts his responsibility to help his community, no matter how painful the process is.
When Grant first started visiting Jefferson, he was a cynical and self-centered person who did not think that he could make any difference in his community. By the time Jefferson was executed, Grant had come to realize that he could help his community. It was not futile to stand up for the rights and privileges that his friends and family were entitled to. He learned that he must accept his responsibility to stand up for his people and fight the injustices that his community was facing, no matter how difficult or painful that fight might be.
