Consider whether Maycomb is changed by the conclusion. It shapes people and events, but it is also shaped by its inhabitants and their...

While the prevailing attitudes--Maycomb's "usual disease" as
Atticus refers to these attitudes--are yet existant after the trial of Tom Robinson, there has
been an encouraging sign for its cure when the jury remains out for a "few hours."  In Chapter
23, Atticus tells his disheartened son,

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"That was the one thing that made me think, well, this
may be the shadow of a beginning.  That jury took a few hours.  An inevitable verdict, maybe, but
usually it takes 'em just a few minutes.  This
time--"

Atticus intimates that one of
the Cunninghams may have been the one juror who held out for hours before being pressured by the
majority.  So, if there is one such as a Cunningham who can have his attitudes altered, then
there probably someone else will begin to rethink some of his/her attitudes.  For, as Miss Maudie
remarks to the children, Maycomb has paid Atticus "the tribute to do right." And, he has done so
publicly and in a manner that will have a profound affect on the people of the
town:

The handful of
people in this town who say that fair play is not marked White Only; the handful of people who
say a fair trial is for everybody, not us us; the handful of people with enought humility to
think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness am
I."

Certainly, after people learn of
Bob Ewell's brutal attack upon the children of the trial defender as well as his causing
indirectly Tom Robinson's desperate attempt to run and his unfortuante shooting, many of the
residents may well wonder if it is time for a change.