He has not previously shown any great desire or motivation to seek out on his own the reasons for who he is, why he is here, and what came before him.
In the process of his discoveries, Milkman also learns that his grandfather, Macon Dead, after he was killed, had his shallow grave dug up and had his body dumped into Hunters Cove. That kind of information can be very disturbing, and it was. But meanwhile, Milkman shows his naivete about race relations in America -- and the history of bigotry and Jim Crow dynamics that were part of America prior to his maturation -- in the dialogue that follows (Morrison, pp. 231-232). "Did anybody ever catch the men who did it -- who killed him?" Milkman asked Reverend Cooper in the parsonage. "Catch?" The reverend asked, "his face full of wonder…Didn't have to catch 'em. They never went nowhere."...
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