Coatesville by John Jay Chapman

In the year of 1911, a throng of well-dressed Americans indifferently watched the horrific beating, lynching, and burning of an accused black man in complete solitude. A year after the torture, the Harvard graduate and author, John Jay Chapman, held a memorial service at the exact location in Coatesville, Pennsylvania. There, he delivered a vehement speech that expressed his appall and rage towards the cruel event. Despite having only two other people attend the commemoration, Chapman’s idea of sharing repentance and his vision of restoring humanity spoke to many nationwide.

The speech Coatesville is applicable to each and every citizen in America as Chapman believes that the white spectators that were present during the public lynching are not the only people at fault; the entirety of humankind is held responsible for the Coatesville tragedy. He conveys his bewilderment as he states, “But here an audience chosen by chance in America has stood spellbound through an improvised auto-da-fé, irregular, illegal, having no religious significance, not sanctioned by custom, having no immediate provocation, the audience standing by merely in cold dislike” (Chapman, 72). As Chapman is delivering a piece of literature orally, he utilizes asyndeton to heighten the speech’s dramatic effect when spoken. The cluster of phrases that are not separated by a conjunction leaves an impression that the list of the possible excuses of why no one took the risk, is not complete. This absence of conjunctions emphasizes the feeling of parallelism that acts as a bridge to connect the mentioned phrases. Essentially, Chapman is articulating his incomprehension towards the reasoning as to why the mob mercilessly abused the incriminated man.

In Memory of Zachariah Walker
http://www.mikewallteacher.com/the-stories-that-ensnare-us-zachariah-walker-and-coatesville-post-171.html

Overall, Chapman’s purpose of addressing humanity’s tendency of inaction and the shared guilt of society as a whole was accomplished. He was successful in taking a single event (the 1911 lynching in Coatesville) and exposing the issue as a global dilemma. His ideology of shared repentance stretches not only to the spectators who failed to disrupt the continuation of the torture but to everyone worldwide that might not have been involved at all. Chapman’s indignation that is clearly visible in his text moves the audience to support his purpose.