" I was seventeen then . . . I was just one. Hoping and praying for the only hero [I] knew. I [can] still remember every bit of it, the warm evening, the people, the noise, the pride I saw in those faces"(Gaines 88-89).

As Grant Wiggins sat back at the bar, he reminisced about his childhood hero's. Out of this experience, much of the novel's themes are expressed. Heroes, or idols, are a very important part of life to many people. In a time and place where African-American's had very little to call their own, Jefferson represents a hero to the community in A Lesson Before Dying. An examination of a famous African-American hero, the way Jefferson changed the way Grant, and others in the quarter felt about the future of the race, prove this to be true.

In the novel, Grant mentions how much of a hero Jackie Robinson...