But the crowd became a mob. They descended upon him, pummeled him to the ground, started stomping him with their feet and hitting him with signposts. And Keshia Thomas faced a decision: to join the mob or to be a human being.

This was Keshia's choice: She fell atop the prostrate man, used her body to shield him from the blows. Ask why she did it and she says, ``I was just doing what my parents taught me: Do what's right. You can't change a man's view by killing him.''

It happened a week ago in Ann Arbor, Mich., the compelling sideshow to a human carnival. Fifteen Ku Klux Klansmen had come to rally for the cause of hatred. But an estimated 1,000 anti-Klan demonstrators, a multiethnic tidal wave of outraged humanity, went after them. They broke windows, threw rocks and eventually had to be driven back by police using tear gas. Eleven people were arreste

d; at least two were reported injured.

She is, in some ways, a standard-issue teen-ager. Eighteen years old, laughs easily, dreams of becoming a forest ranger, wants to go to college but worries that she can't afford it. She says when she rushed at the man in the Confederate flag shirt, ``I wanted to say, `what did I ever do to you? There's no reason to fear me.'''

That a scattered few do not, that some in Ann Arbor have been heard grumbling that she should have left the man to his fate, only speaks of how far they have drifted from their own humanity. And of the crying need to get back.

Don't you wonder what went through his mind as that black woman saved his body and maybe even his life? Don't you wonder what he says to the face he meets every morning in the mirror?

But the most effective champion for human equality our nation has ever known believed that embrace inevitable and redeemed the hateful without once raising a hand in anger. The would-be disciples of tolerance who rampaged last week in Michigan should

Some common words found in the essay are:
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Approximate Word count = 694
Approximate Pages = 3 (250 words per page double spaced)