Small Great Things: Chapter 26, Kennedy Summary & Analysis

Kennedy receives a call from Ruth around 2 am. She heads straight to the police station and explains that she's the family lawyer. The officer says that they have security footage of Edison spray-painting swastikas and racist slurs on the hospital, which makes this a hate crime. Kennedy is stunned but pays for the magistrate to come so she can get Edison out.

Kennedy finds Edison in his holding cell, crying. He explains that he wanted to help Ruth by framing Turk. Kennedy tells the reader that if one is willing to pay extra, it's possible to organize an arraignment at the jail. At Edison's arraignment, Kennedy explains the situation and Edison is let go. Kennedy drives Edison home and asks him why he stooped so low. He says he was angry that racism never came up during the trial. When they pull into Ruth's driveway, Ruth slaps Edison but also holds him close.

It's almost 4 am by the time Kennedy gets home, so she cleans up in her office. She knocks over a stack of papers, including Davis's infant screening, and reads the rest of his results. She notices one other abnormal result—Davis is a carrier for sickle cell anemia—and looks it up on the internet. Then, she calls Wallace Mercy.

On Monday morning, Judge Thunder agrees to delay closing arguments so that Kennedy can deal with Edison's formal arraignment first. Edison is released with no issues and everyone slips into Judge Thunder's courtroom. As Judge Thunder checks that everyone is ready, Ruth says she'd like to get rid of Kennedy. Judge Thunder refuses and grants another half hour so that Kennedy and Ruth can talk. They lock themselves in a bathroom and Kennedy apologizes, asks for another chance, and says that Ruth deserves to be treated fairly. Ruth agrees.

When Kennedy begins her closing argument, she feels surrounded by the stories of Tamir Rice, Michael Brown, and Trayvon Martin. Addressing the jury, she asks them to consider what life would be like if people born in the first half of the week were given special treatment, but everyone still said that things were equal. Kennedy says that she wants to know why Ruth is the only person who's taking the fall for Davis's death, when plenty of other doctors and nurses cared for him.

Kennedy says it's easy to see overt racism, but it's not easy to see the small things that black people deal with every day. However, she says, even if all white supremacists were shipped to Mars, racism would exist because racism is about who has power. Kennedy goes through the differences between active racism, like Turk espouses, and passive racism, which is not noticing that, for example, the only black history that students study is slavery. In closing, Kennedy asks the jury to return to her thought experiment and see that arbitrary discrimination is a big deal.