"Coatesville" by John Jay Chapman

                Although only two people attended the delivery, John Jay Chapman’s speech spoken at Coatesville, Pennsylvania in 1912 was meant for and applicable to every American citizen. Chapman, a Concord and Harvard graduate, begins his address by describing the lynching of a black man that had occurred in that very town, and then begins to analyze why it happened and what needs to be changed in society to prevent its reoccurrence. He delivers this address in order for people to realize the error of their ways and correct it, doing this through enumeration. He breaks down the event into the past problems humanity has faced that has caused this, and the current problems humanity faces that continues it.  He believes this lynching occurred because the nation has not given up the prejudices that slavery had permitted just fifty years ago. He writes, “A nation cannot practice a course of inhuman crime for three hundred years and then suddenly throw off the effects of it […] With the great disease (slavery) came the climax (the war), and after the climax gradually began the cure, and in the process of cure comes now the knowledge of what the evil was” (Chapman 73). This speech becomes a work of satire when Chapman begins to expose the flaws of the human race. He effectively ties in his purpose at the end as he writes, “this is the discovery that each man must make for himself – the discovery that what he really stands in need of he cannot get for himself, but must wait till God gives it to him” (Chapman 74). Essentially, he is telling the people they need to give up the hatred and prejudices in their hearts and let love as well as God in for the sake of humanity. John Jay Chapman does a flawless job of taking a single event (the Coatesville lynching in 1911) and showing his audience the bigger picture to hopefully help them correct the error of their ways.

Bibliography

Simkin, John. "Spartacus Educational." Spartacus Educational. N.p., n.d. Web. 01 Sept. 2014.

Coatesville Record
A newspaper article about the event that inspired Chapman's address.
Source- Middleton A. "Spike" Harris papers, 1929-1977. / Coatesville record