Absolutely! When Huck begins his journey, he is naive and unseasoned as most 13-year-old boys are. He hasn't really thought of the consequences of his actions, or even how others will react or be effected.
He first meets Jim, who thinks Huck is a ghost. Huck plays tricks on Jim (especially the one where they are separated by the fog and Huck pretends he hadn't left the raft the whole time) Jim shows through his reactions to these tricks that he is a living, breathing, feeling human being who just happens to be a black man. Huck learns to respect Jim as a person and promises not to play Jim for a fool any more.
Jim protects Huck from the knowledge that the dead man on the floating house was Huck's dad. Much later, toward the end of the book, when Huck is much more mature and had gained some life experience, Jim shares with Huck that the dead man was his father. Huck has a hard time dealing with this, but having lived through the adventures with him, we know he wouldn't have been able to hear this information earlier in the book and dealt with it as well as he does when Jim tells him.
When Huck and Jim begin their journey, Huck is a white boy who has known nothing but whites are in control and blacks are their slaves. No questions asked, that's how it is and always has been. By the time he and Jim are at the Phelps' house, Jim is more than a slave to Huck. He is a friend for whom Huck would do anything.
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