Blog #11

The story “As the Lord Lives, He Is One of Our Mother’s Children” was very interesting to me.  Before reading this story I was not too familiar with lynching and anti-lynching activism in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s.  Pauline E. Hopkins actually did a great job putting into perspective how horrible and often lynching was in that time with quotes like, “[the] only way you can teach these niggers a lesson is to go to the jail and lynch these men as an object lesson… kill them, string them up, lynch them.” (245)  she also does a great job in demanding sympathy from the reader by allowing stone to tell his own story about how he and his friend were framed for the murder that put them in jail.  Hearing Stone admit and accept is past in front of the minister allows the reader to build trust with Stone.  

I will raise a question though.  Since this story was published in a magazine for black people, how successful was it in the anti-lynching movement.  I am assuming that the white people doing the lynching were not the biggest fans of “the Colored American Magazine,” which means they would not have read the story and further be called to action by it.  This story is very moving, but I’m not convinced that the people who needed to read it most actually read it.