Call it: A Lesson Learned

Life is all about lessons and learning... The oft-quoted cliche even says, "You live and you learn." Ernest Gaines writes a book about life lessons. If you have read The Five People You Meet in Heaven, you understand a little about the lessons we learn through life, and most importantly, through death. Mitch Albom's text discusses the life-changers and game-shifters one encounters walking the Earth. Who are some of the people who would put on a list of the five people you would meet if you made it to Heaven? In Gaines' text, we meet Grant Wiggins who would put a man named Jefferson [no last name], who has been convicted of a murder he did not commit, at the top of his list. Jefferson was a victim of the classic #wrongplacewrongtime syndrome that affects black men every day in this country. His biggest crime was that he was uneducated and coupled with his ethnicity, he was condemned before he sat before the jury.Commercial break: Note I did not say a jury of his peers, this is simply a jury, no peers present. After he is convicted, his lawyer pleas for his life. His lawyer's uses this statement as his argument:

"What justice would there be to take his life? Justice, gentlemen? Why, I would just as soon put a hog in the electric chair as this."


Not only was Jefferson not entitled to a jury made up of his peers but he is being compared to a hog. Jefferson is an adult black male and he is being compared, by his lawyer no less, to a farm animal. I am sure my reader is familiar with the legacy of chattel slavery in America which debased African slaves to being no better than livestock. Commercial break: Do you wonder why dating auctions are frowned upon in the African American community? This is why. Jefferson's aunt is present when the comparison is made and she cannot accept her godson being no better than a farm animal. She asks her friend, Tante Lou, to ask her nephew, Grant, to make a man out of her godchild. And this is how both men are taught a lesson before they die.

Jefferson accepts his condemnation and awaits his electrocution. Grant Wiggins feels that having to make Jefferson a man is a death sentence for him. Grant wants to escape Louisiana but the woman he loves is in Baton Rouge. He wants her to escape with him but she has obligations. She is married and also a schoolteacher, so Grant is biding his time waiting on the day she will be free to run away with him. Until then, he will teach Jefferson. Initially he has no use for Jefferson and Jefferson has no use for him. Grant is a teacher at the black school and Jefferson was one of his former students. Now instead of teaching Jefferson how to become a productive citizen, he has to teach him how to become a man.

The problem comes when the reader realizes Grant is not a man himself. And there is no way Grant can teach Jefferson something he doesn't know. But Grant and Jefferson forge a special relationship. Jefferson teaches Grant just as much, if not more, than Grant teaches him. Both men learn valuable lessons through their interaction with each other. Jefferson learns how strong the power of love is. Grant learns how important purpose is.

Through each other, both boys become men. And they learn that the best lessons are taught through experience and not education.