1. Grant was not like the usual African American during the time. What I mean by this is that although he lived through the same conditions that society during the time got to experience; his educational level rested on an incredibly deviating point if we were to graph the fact on a scatter plot situation. He was known for being well educated on areas that during the time may have been seen as impressive. Many would argue that the fact that he knew so much about many things including the idea that there was a large problem on how society was running was the actual reason to his suffering as a person due to the fact that mathematically speaking there was so little he could do, but impressively he accomplished a great change which was educating Jefferson, hence setting an example on the community. An example which inspired many, but the struggles of the black people in society yet where far from being vanished at that point in time. The many years that he devoted to education helped contribute to his separation from God; it could be argued that the relation between these two sides where inversely proportional to a point where he began to question Gods existence. Grant himself could not stand the suffering that he was able to witness and undoubtly made him question why God would let so much of this struggle take place if he is too good as Reverend Ambrose insisted continuously. As a firm believer of God, I can see where Grant's questionings arise from. There is a God and he is the path of life, and through him we accomplish living on a daily basis, but as a believer you always try to imagine how big or how small what you actually believe in is. God is big, and probably hard enough to wrap our minds around the fact that he is so great that thinking merely about the size of his power, his love and his influence on the world itself is simply a challenge for our humane sized minds. We may not entirely grasp how large God really is but he base our belief and we settle our faith in him no matter what. Grant many times felt as if he was the only one trying to make something out of it and this thought is primarily what keeps bringing him down and closing his mind. He does not realize that he needs God more than anything to be able to accomplish his goals since he alone as we can witness from the text, is not able to carry out entirely his potential and his knowledge to a point where it can actually make a change on a large scale in the society that he is living in at the time he is living it in.
Not until getting a very good grasp of the information presented above is when we as readers begin to understand why Grant dislikes what he calls “Termination Sundays”. Termination Sunday is known to be as the third Sunday in each month. In this day, religious rituals take place and members of the church have the opportunity to sing and express where they felt that they wanted to spend eternity at. More in a sense o Determination than Termination, the ladies that are close to Grant in the story are undeniably part of this religious congregation. They are able through Music to let out any bad feelings or even spiritual and physical pain.
Grant and Reverend Ambrose differ and many ways when we pin down how different their belief system’s work. We could not say that Grant hates everything to do with what he does not believe anymore but I think it’s safe to say that he dislikes it since he feels he is not getting any impulse from it at all and that he is on his own trying to change the world, one student at a time trying to make them different and strong individuals for when they grow up. We notice how he feels to the religious environment that surrounds Grant including the ladies Miss Emma and Tante Lou.
Agnostic would be a proper way to describe Grants situation. Agnostic in the sense that he neither believes nor disbelieves; he doubts on Gods existence which to an extent would prevent him from falling under the atheist category. In the book, Grant expresses “Sunday is the saddest day of the week.” Sad only for him because unlike the ladies and most of the other characters in the book, he does not get to experience that sense of spiritual relief and freedom every single Sunday. Undeniably he longs to have this spiritual peace that everyone portrays but he is being held back by the magnitude and the depth of his other understandings, making it feel difficult for him to approach God on Sundays and experience the spiritual relief and inner peace that he longs to have one day. At this point Grant feels that God cannot help him as much as running away from his community would, but ironically those who do believe in God know that this is impossible, and that God has all of the answers to life if we closely come to him and open our hearts to him.

2. Christmas was the "same old event" according to Grant. He constantly searched for a change in his community, but when Christmas was arriving sadly he was not able to notice any changes; the same music, same people, same clothes, same behavior. It was painful to him to realize that as much as he tried to change things around, things were not shifting as much as he would have liked them to. Jefferson is the only one that slowly is beginning to change and to ask questions to Grant. Jefferson asks about Christmas. Curious to know if Jesus was born on Christmas day or if he had died on that day. As a reader, one begins to feel that Gaines was trying to make Jefferson understand his situation by looking at the example that Jesus had set. Jesus was crucified unjust fully and Jefferson, within himself begins to have several questions about Christ which undeniably puts Grant in an awkward position due to his refusal to believe. Most importantly Grant tries not to stain Jefferson’s belief system and indeed tries to answer his questions as far as he can.
Despite the monotony of the event as Grant makes it look like, Grants class had done something very special for Jefferson that particular year since Grant had asked them to please not forget that Christmas this year was dedicated to Jefferson. Undeniably Christmas is very important worldwide, but for the black community during the time it was really important since they had the opportunity to come together and feel that they were worth a little something in their community due to people’s closeness to God and this for many symbolized the reason for their existence while for Grant this even was nothing more that monotonous through the years and did not get any better. This even still did not answer Grants question about his purpose of life and his existence, but let’s not talk too much about Grant when answering this question since the entire purpose was to do something special for Jefferson.
The weather was somewhat cold and rainy, but the people still managed to put through all of this and try to make it special for Jefferson who was having a very hard time, probably more than any other black person in the community at this point. Being that the Christmas program that year was dedicated to Jefferson, people arrived early, and those who in the previous years did not attend, were definitely attending this year's program. People had raised money to be able to buy Jefferson a little something that was going to hopefully make him feel special and help Grants purpose in helping him die like and man instead to dying as a "hog". As the event is taking place, Grant begins to notice how the program is differing from previous ones. As readers we appreciate the fact that the community may not be rich when talking about monetary values and assets, but when it comes to spiritual richness...well they have it all. They are willing to share the little that they have and try to all make something spiritually large in the congregation. Grant as always stands apart from the community and he is able to see how and understand that the book knowledge that blacks in his community lack from, is replaced with spiritual knowledge and faith to the Lord which is the one that brings them to live one day at a time and they appreciate this. We are able to grasp on this motion when Christmas takes place and it’s hard to understand it any point before in the novel to a full extent. They seem joyful and do not let any negative aspects of society overshadow their positive attitude and their faith to God and life. 3. Grant not only sees Jefferson's execution itself as unjust, but rather the entire situation from beginning to end. Grant first realizes that and execution date was finally set when he approached Pichot at his house. Reverend Ambrose has also arrived at the house and they are waiting for Guidry’s arrival to the scene. When Guidry finally arrives he informs Reverend Ambrose and Grant that the execution will take action around noon and three o’ clock at the second Friday after Easter. The reason the date is set this way is because the Mayor was not willing to let the execution happen any time closer to Easter since Easter is a religious event and does not want any relations to be crossed with Jefferson. It is safe to say that Gaines again wants to portray the difference of Jesus’ death according to the white, with the Jefferson’s death, while black people on the other hand can relate Jefferson’s death as an example to the community just as Jesus' death had set an example. Both in this case represent a great deal of meaning to a certain group of people. Undeniably, Christ's death was to the entire world, as Jefferson’s death is merely to the black in his community which is aware of it. 4. Before Grant heads to buy the radio for Jefferson, for the first time he was able to have a flowing and interactive conversation with Jefferson. Jefferson openly tells Grant that the only thing he would like at this point is a gallon of vanilla ice cream. Little after Jefferson admitting that this is what he wanted, Grant offers to get him a radio so he could enjoy a little bit more his time on the cell. Jefferson accepts the idea but still hold true to his original idea of vanilla ice cream. It is evident how Gaines is portraying the simplistic life that black people in the community had and how easy it was to satisfy them due to the fact that for the most part they were not used to having commodities, and if any, they weren’t any extravagant or numerous.
With the task of having to buy a radio now, Grant heads uptown to Edwin's Department store to buy a radio which Jefferson could use. When Grant enters the store he encounters a white sales woman. Grant tells her that he is looking for a radio, and right off the bat, she offers him the base model instead of the nice and new one. Clearly this is what people in general are not used to experiencing when entering a store looking for something. Usually people in general get offered a nice product and if the product seems to high then other alternatives could be revised and considered, but for Grants case, him being black during those days certainly did not make things any easier for him. It was evident right on that point that the white sales women was being racist and Grant for sure that did not like the fact at all. Undeniably society was racist even in the smallest of the situations, but these are things that Grant refused in many cases to comply and accept. He insisted in getting the new radio instead of the older looking one until he finally got the sales women to sell him the "better" one. 5. At this point in time, Reverend Ambrose continues to insist that Grant should teach him about the word of God. He believes that with so little time left of his life Grant should be using the time to teach about the Lord since the Lord is the only one who can actually do a miracle for Jefferson and make him a better person before the white men execute him. Reverend Ambrose discusses this issue several times through the novel and at this point, when the radio arises, he believes that it is the drop that could make the cup of water spill. Reverend Ambrose tells Grant that the radio will do no good to Jefferson and that what he should be concentrated on should be God, insisting that the radio is no good influence for Jefferson. Grant's anger comes to the scene representing the arising issue and the accusations that Jefferson’s behavior and unwillingness to speak to Miss Emma and Tante Lou is the radios fault, but for Grant, at this point, the radio symbolizes something completely different. The radio symbolizes progress in Jefferson since right before he bought the radio for him, and right after Jefferson’s execution date and time was established, was when Jefferson opened himself in a different way to Grants efforts of changing his ways of thinking and educating him better. Reverend Ambrose's point of view from an unbiased perspective may seem very convincing, but for Jefferson’s situation we have to understand that things are different and that the path that Grant has taken toward making a difference in Jefferson’s life has made him buy a radio for him in reward for his openness and in a manner of good will for his loneliness when nobody is around to provide him company. 6. Paul is the Sheriff’s deputy at the jail where Jefferson is located. He is a white man and he is the only white character that actually understands the pain and the struggle that the black people lived during the days. Throughout the novel it is evident that he was physically very close to Jefferson since he worked around him. Paul got to see Jefferson every single day and witnessed Grant's efforts to help Jefferson into changing who he thought he was after he was convicted and compared to a "hog". Paul's character is never portrayed as an arrogant white male but instead he is an understanding and an open minded person, none the less his job and society have limit him in several different ways to an extent that he could not always do what his heart told him to do. These are some of the reasons to why it is not surprising to the readers the way that he opened his friendship toward Grant at the end of the novel. Paul admired Grant to a certain extent since he was able to witness the change in Jefferson's character for good. At this point, Paul extends his hand to Grant and asks him to be his friend. This is probably one of the most humble acts in the entire novel. The situation would have been perceived differently in modern times, but the fact that during the days of the struggles in their community something of this nature was simply there to admire and to respect. He had become so close to Grant and the African-American community in the quarter and was sympathetic towards them specially at the end of the novel. His values as a person and his belief in God made him able to come close to these people and understand their pain, innately, he felt that the least he could do in his situation was to be nice to them as they received negative vibes from other whites.

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