After reading "As the Lord Live, He Is One of Our Mothers Children", I was struck by the difference between the townspeople at the beginning of the story, during the mob and the townspeople at the end of the story. At the beginning the warning whistles bring all the people together, away from their jobs in the mines and from every corner of the town to join a mob that is actually being helped by the police. I cant imagine that they all understood what was going on before the man from Dover City began speaking, so it is here that we can see the beginning of the mob mentality. The mob rushed "down the the serpentine boulevard for nearly two miles... swelling like an angry torrent". It was just an angry mob until the man spoke: "I have come here today to assist you in teaching the blacks a lesson. I have killed a nigger before and in revenge of the wrong wrought upon you and yours I am willing to kill again." This gave the angry mob a purpose and mission, which creates a very dangerous situation for everybody. Hopkins mentions two incidents of innocent people being killed in the mayhem and others being severely beaten. The town is under a single, mob mentality where no one is thinking for themselves.
Towards the end of the story when the poster for the "Gentleman Jim" is seen, the people seem very reasonable. "Jones and him was two of the smartest and peaceablest niggers I ever seed." This man, who was almost certainly a member of the mob that lynched Jones has just stated that they were two of the nicest Blacks he has ever seen and goes on to say that Jerry Mason, the man they are charged with murdering, harassed them for no reason. The transformation from the mob mentality that would violently hang a man to the this individuals conscious is astounding.
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