Coalhouse Demands

[NEWSBOY #1, spoken]
Extra! Arsonist destroys Emerald Isle Engine Company!

[NEWSBOY #2, spoken]
Negro gunman shoots three dead!

[NEWSBOY #3, spoken]
Extra! Terror stalks New Rochelle! Murderer's demands revealed!

[COALHOUSE, spoken]
One—that my car be returned to me in its original condition. Two—that the white excrescence known as Fire Chief Will Conklin, the one who instigated this crime, be turned over to me for my justice. Nothing less, nothing more.

[ENSEMBLE]
Somewhere in the city
There's a madman waiting
Standing in the shadows
With a gun in his hands
A man of color
Who is calmly stating
Coalhouse demands!
Coalhouse demands!

[NEW ROCHELLE MEN & WOMEN]
He demands!

[HARLEM MEN & WOMEN]
He demands!
Coalhouse demands!

[NEW ROCHELLE MEN]
Who is he to demand?

[HARLEM MEN & WOMEN]
He demands!

[NEW ROCHELLE WOMEN & MEN, NEWSBOYS]
He demands!

[NEWSBOYS, spoken]
Killer Negro demands!

[HARLEM MEN & WOMEN]
About time a black man demanded!

[ALL]
He calls Conklin the white excrescence

[LITTLE BOY]
What's excrescence?

[FATHER, spoken]
Edgar, go to your room!

[MOTHER is greatly agitated. GRANDFATHER and SARAH'S FRIEND are with her. LITTLE BOY does not leave.]

[MOTHER, spoken]
Three firemen were killed. One of them was Mrs. Gallagher's nephew. Six more were badly injured when the boiler exploded.

[LITTLE BOY, spoken]
And one of them will be dead by tonight. It was Coalhouse, wasn't it?

[FATHER, spoken]
I said, go to your room.

[MOTHER, spoken]
Edgar.

[MOTHER and LITTLE BOY leave together.]

[GRANDFATHER, spoken]
I told you we hadn't heard the last of that Negro.

[ALL]
Coalhouse demands

[COALHOUSE'S MEN & YOUNGER BROTHER]
It's an eye for an eye—
Call it justice, friend

[HARLEM WOMEN & SARAH'S FRIEND]
People's lives for a car ain't justice
An eye for an eye, that ain't!

[FIREMEN]
He wants Willie Conklin

[CONKLIN]
Willie Conklin!
He even misspelled my name
Wouldn't you know it!
With a "K"!
He can't take a joke, now can he?
Sensitive, ain't he?
Does he think only niggers get shit?
We Irish had to get used to it

[FIREMAN, spoken]
You goddamned, gutless Mick, look what you got us into!

[WILLIE]
You're gonna protect me, ain't ya?
Hide me, ain't ya?

[FIREMAN, spoken]
Get out of town, Will, before they kill us all.

[COALHOUSE'S MEN surround him.]

[COALHOUSE'S MEN]
What they did to you
What they took from you
We are one with you
Now the world will know
There are Negroes out there
To make them listen!
We're all Coalhouse!

[COALHOUSE'S MEN brandish their guns.]

[BOOKER T. WASHINGTON is surrounded by REPORTERS.]

[REPORTER #1, spoken]
Do you have a statement for us, Mr. Washington?

[REPORTER #2, spoken]
What do you think of these Negro renegades, Mr. Washington?

[BOOKER T. WASHINGTON]
For the sum of my life
I have lived in hope
We might all be Christian brothers
I have worked to persuade
Every white-skinned man
That he need not fear our race

(spoken)
I deplore Mr. Walker's actions, and the irreparable harm he has done to my people.

(sung)
And I wish that I might tell him face to face

[HARLEM WOMEN]
Not one of ours (Not one of ours)
Never heard of him
We don't want any trouble (Don't want any trouble)
Not one of ours (Not one of ours)
Don't know anything
And I wouldn't tell those peckerwoods
Even if I did

[ENSEMBLE]
No one knows what he looks like (Somewhere in the city)
No one knows where he is (Waiting in the dark)
No one knows how to stop him

Somewhere in the city (Somewhere in the city)
There's a madman waiting
Standing in the shadows (Standing in the shadows)
With a gun in his hand
A man of color
Who is calmly stating
Coalhouse demands

[COALHOUSE & HIS MEN, ENSEMBLE]
We'll play them the music
Of something beginning (Somewhere in the city)
An era exploding
A century spinning (Coalhouse)
Listen to that ragtime!