Talk:Civil rights movement/Archive 14

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Misrepresenting the source

I added a sourced statements the lead, with citation, [1] Randy Kryn then made edits that then misrepresent the source. Don't misrepresent sources, that's a POV and V problem. Neither the Oxford encyclopedia nor the Encyclopedia Britannica take the limited view Randy Kryn seeks to promote. --Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:10, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

You put up a "cites needed" tag for the years '1954-1968' - these are the years this article covers. There was no agreement during the discussion to change the definition of this page, it covers those years, and has been stable in covering those years. Just because the name has been shortened doesn't mean the scope of the page has changed. And for sources, the main historians should be among those cited if any cites cover the lead (David Garrow, Taylor Branch, Adam Fairclough, etc.). Here is an interview link (NBC and Dr. King) which should cover calling it a nonviolent movement. It was never anything but a nonviolent movement. I would think that changing major points of a lead would be questioned on any major page, picking a source and changing the direction and definition of such a critical article and an era in the world's history should be discussed at length. Randy Kryn (talk) 17:19, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

It was previously focused on those years because those years were in it's title - you have clearly not addressed anything with respect to your POV of the movement that neither Oxford nor Britannica support. Don't POV push. And don't change sourced sentences to say things the source does not say. Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:24, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Point by point please. And consider removing my name from the section head if you would, which does create a confrontational spirit to the discussion. As for the non-neutrality tag, this page has been non-neutral since I first saw it, it's a mishmash of POV pushing from many editors throughout the years. Maybe you or someone can watch the King interview link above and add some of that. I've actually tried not to dig into the page and edit it to a POV, although I did work on the lead a few months back. I do have a personal "map" of the Civil Rights Movement in my understanding of it, which is why I really have not tried to shape it. But that it was a nonviolent movement is central to the understanding of the page. And yes, the years have been stably defined as 1954-1968 notwithstanding the shortening of the name. (EDIT: actually the lead is shaping up a bit with what you left and added). Randy Kryn (talk) 17:31, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, this scope problem was foreseeable. In fact, it was foreseen: [2] [3] [4] [5]. It seems like this needs to make at least some effort to be a parent article now, given the title change. Because it's so long already, it may need more daughter articles to compensate. Dekimasuよ! 17:41, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I want to return to the point of disagreement between Randy and Alanscottwalker. The words "broad term" and "efforts to secure human rights" seem to be the point of contention. Am I correct Alanscottwalker? Mitchumch (talk) 18:08, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

The nub of the disagreement as far as I can tell is keeping the time period when we are now covering "civil rights movement", which sources admit of broader time periods: Oxford calls it an "umbrella term"; and human rights was already in the article. I changed:

The Civil Rights Movement (also known as the American civil rights movement and other terms[n]) was a human rights movement from 1954–1968 that encompassed strategies, groups, and social movements to accomplish its goal of ending legalized racial segregation and discrimination laws in the United States. The movement secured the legal recognition and federal protection of all Americans in the United States Constitution and federal law.

to

Civil rights movement (also known as the American civil rights movement and other terms[n]) is a broad term for the efforts to secure human rights for African-Americans that encompassed strategies, groups, and social movements to accomplish the goals of ending legalized racial segregation and discrimination in the United States, and secure full citizenship.[Wendt, Simon. Civil Rights Movement: in 1 Encyclopedia of African American History. Oxford University Press. 2009. p.411] The movement secured new legal recognition in federal law and federal protection of all Americans, regardless of race.

Which also has the advantage of not saying things like 'civil rights movement' is a 'movement for civil right' (also because we dropped African American, from the title we need to mention it early). Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:05, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

That's why plenty of editors pointed out that the term 'Civil Rights Movement' is a capitalized proper noun, and it was a stable capitalized noun for years until last November's catch-all RM. The noun refers to the period when the same people organized what became known as the Civil Rights Movement which began in 1955 with the Montgomery Bus Boycott (another proper noun that was changed here to lower-case). King, Abernathy, Shuttlesworth, Lowery, and a few others organized SCLC from the effects of the Bus Boycott, then King called for full voting rights in a 1957 speech at the Lincoln Memorial. Enter the student movement which, from 1959 to 1962, ran the Civil Rights Movement, with James Bevel eventually emerging as the main strategist and organizer of the student movement. King asked to meet with Bevel at the suggestion of James Lawson. They met, agreed to work together but without restricting or having veto power over each others work, and then, from the Mississippi organizing right into Birmingham, then the Alabama Project which became the Selma Movement, then into Chicago in 1965 and '66, Bevel not only came up with every successful strategy but ran and directed the subsequent movements right up until he and King went into and ran the anti-war movement for a time. Proper noun, same people, effective and evolving nonviolent strategy, and before very long the Civil Rights Movement and the US federal government (Congress and administrative) managed to end legal segregation - just as they set out to do. Before 1955 there were things like the Brown v. Board decision, the Till publicity, and quite a few other events, but those were not an organized attempt to end legal segregation. When a small set of people got together (and I would put the Nashville Student Movement as a 'Top' level article for the Wikiproject Civil Rights Movement - and let's not forget Clara Luper! - and I hope that you and others join the Wikiproject, it could use your energy and focus), used Gandhian nonviolence as their tactical heart and soul, they organized (the youngsters nowadays would say "launched") a quickening series of events to accomplish exactly what they set out to do. Deciding to make his a lower-case noun was what confused the chronological timeline of the topic, yet, as I mentioned, the RM didn't change the topic it just shortened the name of what should be an upper-case noun. The Wikiproject has it right. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:01, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker The CRM is an historical event. What start date and end date are you proposing? Mitchumch (talk) 21:48, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

"The same people..." In 1954 MLK was still in divinity school and I'm pretty sure that James Bevel was in junior high.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 21:39, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's why 1955 seems the "start" year of the actual CRM. Bevel was 18 and just in or out of the Navy in '54. By the same people I meant the Montgomery Bus Boycott of 1955-56, which was organized and run mostly by people who stayed with the movement throughout, and then when the students took over in late 1959 they ran the thing for the next few years until Bevel "jumped" from SNCC to SCLC, which irritated quite a few SNCC activists. Randy Kryn (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Bevel "jumped" from SNCC to SCLC, which irritated quite a few SNCC activists. Actually I think they were more upset that he took Diane Nash with him. Funny that you never mention her Randy Kryn.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 22:49, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

He didn't "take" Nash, she joined SCLC as well. Bevel's main accomplishment occurred after the Nashville Sit-ins, chaired by Nash, and continuation of the Freedom Rides, which Nash spearheaded. Bevel organized things from there, and Nash continued working with him and his projects until after the Chicago Open Housing Movement. She's a major historic figure, and was there when things were accomplished, although Bevel did the initiating, strategizing, directing, and taught the movements participants how to do what they did. Thanks for mentioning her. Other major people that Bevel and Nash worked with include King, Horton, Lawson, Vivian, Lewis, Lafayette, and many others. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:03, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

(e/c):::::According Oxford and Britannica in their civil rights movement articles (Oxford, is titled CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT so does not have to deal with the caps thing in the title but the first line of the article is "Civil rights movement . . .") we have to deal in this article with, the African American office holder's of Reconstruction, the campaigners against lynching, the NAACP, the National Urban League, the 20/30s labor movement, the National Negro Congress, the March on Washington Movement, the federal Fair Employment Practices Committee, the WWII Congress of Racial Equality sitdowners, desegregation of the armed forces, etc, all before 1954 (Eg before Brown, there was Sweatt v. Painter, and there was Shelley v. Kraemer, etc) as one of the sources cited in the move discussion said "the civil rights movement did not suddenly spring up in 1954 or 1955". Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:45, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

There are already articles here for the pre-1954 years. This page is for the success. We are not Oxford or Britannica, and even with a flawed CRM page, it is still more accurate than those. The RM was to correctly name the "African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968)" page to "Civil Rights Movement", not to change its topic (and check out Canada's Noble v Alley). Randy Kryn (talk) 21:50, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

No. Multiple reliable sources show your contentions have no basis. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:58, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

See America in the King Years series by Taylor Branch. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:02, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Also Bearing the Cross by David Garrow, the television documentary series Eyes on the Prize (with its first episode entitled "Eyes on the Prize: America's Civil Rights Years 1954–1965"), and most other major CRM works which do limit the CRM years to this time period. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:09, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker You missed my question. The CRM is an historical event. What start date and end date are you proposing? Mitchumch (talk) 22:04, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I think I already said what this needs to cover based on encyclopedic sources about the civil rights movement. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:11, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

You've only listed individual events. I'm asking you to state the time frame you are proposing. I can't discern your proposed dates from a list of events. Mitchumch (talk) 22:14, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Actually I have listed movement organizations, activists, labor and federal actions. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:18, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Same difference. Do have a proposed time frame? Mitchumch (talk) 22:22, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I think I have been more than clear - we cover what the encyclopedic sources cover - and they cover what I have briefly outlined. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:27, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Wikipedia is the world's largest and likely most accurate encyclopedia. I don't understand why you would say we follow rather than lead. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:32, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Come on. By policy, Wikipedia is not a reliable source. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

How does the discussion of the Long Civil Rights Movement figure into this discussion? Please see Google Books here and Google Scholar here. Mitchumch (talk) 22:36, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

That's a theory by Jacquelyn Dowd Hall. See the [award winning books by Branch, Garrow, and others, the tv series, and other sources I link to above. And thanks for the flow to the JD Hall page, lots of italics to add! Randy Kryn (talk) 22:40, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Taylor Branch has gotten some nice pop-establishment awards, but he's always received mixed reviews from serious scholars:

[There has been] criticism of Branch’s narrative as analytically inadequate to explain the social and political trends that defined the period...Branch fails to acknowledge adequately the important role played by [ black militants and nationalists ] in both in the wider context of American history and the Civil Rights movement.

Also, Eyes on the Prize has a second series which goes up to 1983, an illustration that there is no consensus on precise dates, and we ought to stay away from them, just as most of the academic encyclopedias do. - GPRamirez5 (talk) 23:14, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Tangentially. When we cover topics we cover them NPOV, so if there is a real need to go into multiple interpretations we go into them, but since we already have multiple high quality neutral encyclopedic examples of what to cover, we do well to follow those. We are not doing the Original Research, ourselves. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:46, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

I have no idea what you mean by "multiple high quality neutral encyclopedic examples". Wikipedia should never be used to write Wikipedia articles. That is why it is expressly forbidden to cite Wikipedia articles as stated in WP:USERGENERATED.

My point of bringing up the Long Civil Rights Movement is to show that there is an existing body of literature surrounding the very question that this section is debating. The best solution for this debate is to solely defer to the academics and cease using misconceptions or personal beliefs about the CRM. Using misconceptions or personal beliefs is how the article was titled "African-American civil rights movement" despite being a relatively unused term to denote the CRM as I shown here. Mitchumch (talk) 22:59, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

What? Seriously? How can you not know what I am talking about - I have mentioned Oxford and Britannica several times. And I have already in this discussion rejected using Wikipedia for anything. What are you doing? Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:20, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

If you would like to get into the weeds of Long Civil Rights Movement what makes sense is to go to that article and fill it out.

As the Civil rights movement article topic is necessarily high level WP:Summary we may then ultimately add a bit here - for now, we can just treat the Civil rights movement article encyclopedially, since we already know how that is done in the real world of RS. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:37, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

My misunderstanding. I thought you were referring to Wikipedia articles as the "multiple high quality neutral encyclopedic examples".

I think you are raising an important concern surrounding the CRM in regards to its start and end date. Popular knowledge about the CRM and academic knowledge do not mirror each other. I think it would be fruitful to turn this discussion into an attempt to answer basic questions about the CRM as reflected in monographs, journal articles, thesis, dissertations, and printed conference papers. To my knowledge, there are around 100 general and specialized encyclopedias that have an entry on the CRM. I think a survey of the literature is needed along with a section on Historiography and the Civil Rights Movement. Mitchumch (talk) 23:57, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Well, for now the solution does not seem complicated. We already have established some things: 1) modern encyclopedia have written about this topic, so we already have a corpus of encyclopedic information to relate; 2) There is an academic debate, which is not surprising, given academic debate; 3) It is most unlikely that anyone who seriously addresses the issue will say this topic is like a war, where they can say there is a first-shot-fired in 1954, and if they do, they will be disagreed with by multiple other sources - because we already have those sources, who do not treat it like that; 4) It is most unlikely that anyone who seriously addresses the issue will say the movement is like a political party or an organization, where they can say something like, 'In 1954, Mr. _____ founded the civil rights movement' and if they do, they will be disagreed with by multiple other sources - because we already have those sources, who do not treat it like that.

Since we already know the hard-line is unsupported and contradicted, we should not now in the current form, have that part that is now in the first paragraph of this article[6] -- it needs to be modified or changed -- I proposed a way to do that that is sourced, subject appropriate, and policy compliant (and general enough for intro). (As for 'historiography' -- eg. 'the story of telling the story'-- might I suggest a separate article, again, and then we can perhaps work some of it into this article?) -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:53, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

I agree with this summary. Dekimasuよ! 17:19, 16 March 2018 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, I accept that you believe the several claims you made to be true. However, nearly all of your claims are not self-evidently true. The two encyclopedia articles you presented do not provide conclusive evidence to support your claims.

We need to determine through the preponderance of reliable sources what the consensus is among academics. This work has never been done. Academics on the CRM routinely state the year or decade the movement started and/or ended. I see no reason why Wikipedia cannot do so as well. Mitchumch (talk) 05:31, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

All I have said is supported. Flying in the face of reliable sources, you claim work has not been done (which were it true means we can't write anything because we cannot do Original Research), but it's incontrovertible that modern scholarly work on the civil rights movement surveying scholarship has been done by Oxford and Britannica. You make a vague assertion, about 'the year or decade' which admits the 1954 year is controverted by scholarship - a decade is not a year. And nothing you say controverts the source you have previously expressly relied upon that "the civil rights movement did not suddenly spring up in 1954 or 1955" - thus, the unsupported assertion in the lead paragraph has to go by every content policy Wikipedia has V, NPOV and OR. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:23, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The body of literature includes the Garrow, Branch, and dozens of other books that "pin" the years to somewhere between 1954 and 1968. Those are not only sources, but major scholarship sources. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:14, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

We are writing an tertiary encyclcopedia article, which means we have to write it encyclopedically. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:52, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

Garrow's book is a political biography of Martin Luther King, and doesn't pretend to be a full picture of the movement.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 23:32, 15 March 2018 (UTC)

• The Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center and recognized as one of the few major Memorials to the Civil Rights Movement, is defined on its article page as The names included in the memorial belong to those who died between 1954 and 1968. The choice of years is not surprising or given to much argument. The time period and era known as the Civil Rights Movement, as defined by that page and this page is between 1954 and 1968, the time period that accomplished the goal of ending legal segregation in the United States. Per Julian Bond's speech at the dedication of this esteemed and important Memorial: "In 1954, the Supreme Court ruled against segregation's legality. Soon a movement arose to challenge its morality as well." Randy Kryn (talk) 12:12, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

• No. Not even that memorial agrees with itself, it has additional memorial to "the forgotten" going back to 1952. But more importantly for our purposes, it is not an academic survey of the civil rights movement and our topic is not a list of martyrs. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:30, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

• The only pre-1954 death mentioned in "The Forgotten" is the tragic death of a man shot down by a policemen because a bus driver said he didn't pay his fare and then wouldn't get off the bus. Not an activist or Civil Rights Movement related, unless to show the stupidity of pre-Civil Rights Movement actions and events which cheapened life because legal civil rights were never "fought for" and achieved. The legal barriers were then strategically and nonviolently faced and removed, with honor and courage, in the well-organized and well-run Civil Rights Movement soon after the Supreme Court knocked legal segregation down about a hundred pegs with its 1954 Brown v. Board of Education ruling. Randy Kryn (talk) 12:59, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Again no. Your lack of perspective is not even supported by modern American High School Advanced Placement coursework on PBS, let alone other reliable sources: "The Civil Rights Movement: . . . This video covers the people and events that caused sweeping reforms and civil rights laws. It begins in 1909, with the establishment of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, and follows through to the mid-twentieth century" --[7] -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:10, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

And PBS also ran the Eyes on the Prize program, so they are at odds with themselves. ASW, can you please restrain yourself from again making this discussion personal. My perspective is fine from many points of view, please don't pretend it's not. Randy Kryn (talk) 15:05, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Well it's not personal, so sorry, but I have tried to stress again and again, per policy, we are not to be writing one POV. Even your assertion, "they are at odds with themselves", were it true, would support my position because we write WP:NPOV. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:16, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

Thanks. There are probably hundreds of examples of contradictory sources on Wikipedia which don't extend an article's scope. The sources for the years of World War II, for example, are also contradictory. In the area of precedent, this page was stable and labeled, aside from capitalization disagreements, 'African American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968)' until literally a few days ago. The scope was stable and limited to those years. The name change did not, nor was meant to, change that, as it was understood what was being decided and what to call the movement of 1954-1968. The page already goes into background, even in the lead, and the background is fully covered by another page. The confusion emerges from the closer's decision not to upper-case the proper noun naming this movement when in fact it is discussing a proper noun, or at least was understood by its participants as deciding between upper and lower case for the name of the event. Going off-line now, happy St. Pats to ya! Randy Kryn (talk) 15:40, 17 March 2018 (UTC)

The scope was previously delimited by the WP:NDESC title. It was pointed out during the discussion that the scope would change, as I said above: [8] [9] [10] [11]. At least five editors above noted that a title change would result in broadening the scope; Coffee was also open to this. When you don't have a descriptive title, you have to rely upon all of the sources. I don't see a reason why an introductory subsection that deals quickly with early years and points to the daughter article can't be incorporated into the article where "The beginnings of direct action" is now. Then the scope of the article can remain nearly the same without making explicit reference to certain years. Dekimasuよ! 01:52, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

The encyclopedic sources seem fine with treating the movement episodically, what they don't support is not treating the movement wholisticly. The explicit contention in this article that there was no movement until Brown, makes nine white men the makers of the movement -- they were not, they did not even come into the role they played in deciding the case but for multitudes of African-American people, who had fueled the movement, and fought long and hard before 1954, and yes, with successes (and defeats), even before Brown. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:24, 18 March 2018 (UTC)

Yes, that's called 'background', which this article discusses. Background doesn't mean something has the same name. The organization run by editor Brucehartford (who I wish would join discussions and the WikiProject), Civil Rights Movement Veterans, places the movement years between 1951-1968. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:51, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

No. Actually, per reliable sources, it's called 'civil rights movement'. And even that group's POV disagrees with the POV pushing assertion in this article. The defense of the current language in the lead has no basis, and is getting worse, and worse all the time. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Reminding editors in this discussion of the RM/RfC close

Closing this RM/RFC. There is consensus that it is appropriate to move the article, as the great majority of references to 'civil rights movement' are referring to this period, and the point some editors made that the term currently redirects here is very persuasive. Although there are other movements around the world that are about civil rights, the arguments around WP:COMMONNAME are similarly persuasive. So, we have a consensus to move to the more concise name. It is pointed out that there is already a hatnote at the top of the article, pointing towards civil rights movements, which covers other such movements.

The closer understood what the RM meant. It was about the name of the period 1954-1968. Both lower and upper case 'Civil Rights Movement' already redirected to the article about those years -- this one. Randy Kryn (talk) 11:32, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

No. Absolutely not, unless you are contending the closer is incompetent - RM closers do not decide matters of article content and closers most certainly are not reliable sources. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Again, a reminder. This was an RfC close. The closer found that the move of the name covered the same years as the name of the article in question, 1954-1968. Since another RfC can't be held for awhile (unfortunately, as I would like to address the lower-case error as soon as possible) a workable suggestion may be to change the two other civil rights movement (lower-case) pages for consistency, but keep the years in the titles for all three (in parenthesis). When eventually upper-cased as a proper noun (i.e. see: Landless People's Movement, Homeless Workers' Movement, Landless Workers' Movement, Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign), which it stably was for the vast majority of this pages existence, then it won't need the years descriptor, just as World War I or World War II don't need years in the title to describe their span. In any case, the scope has been decided by RfC, and so-ruled on by the closer. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:42, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

You have argued in this very section that the previous discussion didn't address the scope, in which case the close should have no effect on how the scope is defined going forward. The closer was talking about defining the topic precisely in opposition to other civil rights movements, etc, so "this period" may have meant any number of things to the closer, including anything as vague as "the twentieth century" or "the mid-1900s." The close did not say anything about 1954 or 1968. In either event it wasn't the topic of the RfC; I would say we could ask the closer for clarification, but the period covered by the article wasn't to be mandated by RfC, so there's little point. Also, any subsequent question about changing the title should be done through WP:RM, not the RfC process. I cannot understand why it would offend you to have this be the parent article for all related articles. Dekimasuよ! 23:04, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

Of course it addressed it, by Coffee's wording of the RM/RfC itself: African-American civil rights movement (1954–1968) → Civil Rights Movement – This is seemingly the most proper term for the movement, and is also the most common way the movement is referred to/searched for. Seeing as Civil Rights Movement already redirects here, I don't see why this would be controversial. Which the closer then affirmed. What I meant was that the question was closed because that was already explicit in the wording of the RM. X to Z, years spelled out as implied and thus included. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:09, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

It befuddles me that you are making claims that the RfC close must be obeyed as it pertains to things tangential to the main topic of the discussion, while at the same time you are explicitly asking for the close to be overturned. Dekimasuよ! 23:41, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

There is no "tangential" about it. The RM/RfC was to change the name of the page but explicity kept the scope of the page - the defined years. What I asked to change was the lower-case to the correct upper-case, per Landless People's Movement, Homeless Workers' Movement, Landless Workers' Movement, and Western Cape Anti-Eviction Campaign. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:59, 19 March 2018 (UTC)

The title change eliminated the part of the title that was descriptive (WP:NDESC), and as a result the scope must be determined by how the title is used in reliable sources. Your continued references to what is "correct" are indicative of an unwillingness to hear the other editors here. I ask that you reread WP:NOTIGERS. You appear to accept aspects of the RfC close that you agree with, and reject the aspects you disagree with. That is an impossible path to dispute resolution; talk pages are not themselves an exercise in civil resistance. Alanscottwalker has asked that the scope be determined by verifying how it is defined in reliable sources. This is not only reasonable, it is what is required by our policies: WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NPOV, WP:NOT. Dekimasuよ! 00:37, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

This is nonsense, Randy. There is no "explicitly" anything. Implicitly the title describes some years that overlap with your faves, but it could mean 1948-1969, or 1955-1968 (your old fave, before you were reminded about Brown and Mamie Til), or 1960-1972. The Age of Imperialism, Age of Enlightenment, Age of Revolution and the Renaissance are all proper nouns here, but they don't have specific dates defining them. - GPRamirez5 (talk) 00:42, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

My comment about 1955 was because it was the year that actual organized "movement" activity was attempted on a large enough scale to make a difference - the sustained withdrawal from using a product, the Montgomery Bus Boycott. 1954, which is the scope of the page moved after the RM/RfC by Coffee, is fine and well accepted as the 'start' of the successful movement due to Till and the Supreme Court saying legal segregation had to go. Randy Kryn (talk) 00:50, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

You are saying it is "fine and well accepted" because you reject the veracity of reliable sources that disagree with you. WP:TERTIARY says: "Reliable tertiary sources can be helpful in providing broad summaries of topics that involve many primary and secondary sources, and may be helpful in evaluating due weight, especially when primary or secondary sources contradict each other." Alanscottwalker has shown that the years you cite are not how Britannica or Oxford treat the movement. Your reply was simply, "We are not Oxford or Britannica." WP:NPOV: "Neutrality requires that each article or other page in the mainspace fairly represent all significant viewpoints that have been published by reliable sources, in proportion to the prominence of each viewpoint in the published, reliable sources." If what you assert is "fine and well accepted," it should be easy to show that with reference to a strong majority of reliable sources. Otherwise, saying that something is "correct" and "accepted" is not helpful when you can see that other editors are disagreeing with you here. Dekimasuよ! 01:27, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Dekimasu GPRamirez5 Alanscottwalker I'm trying to figure out what each of you want to happen in concrete terms. I understand Randy wants to leave the date range as is on the article page. I am opposed to an unstated date range as I do not see that reflected in reliable sources. Also, please specify what is to happen to the 1865 and 1896 articles. I'm not seeking an argument. Only a concise statement of what each of you want. Randy, if I have misunderstood your position, then please correct me. Thanks. Mitchumch (talk) 05:43, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

1) I have already said how I think we should use Oxford in the first paragraph.

2) I have already expanded the second paragraph going back to Reconstruction, we probably need a sentence or two more just there on 'WEB Dubois and forward'.

3) As we already have the other articles, we can treat them WP:Summary style in this article, each with a section, and a 'Main' or 'Further' article pointer at the top of each section (which in general would be rearranging what we vaguely call "background", now) -- and I have already specifically laid out things to highlight. (Note, this point 3 is only referring to the two articles, '65 and '96 -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC))

4) We can leave the bulk of the lead and article, well above 50%, to the 50s and 60s. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:45, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

This appears to be reasonable to me. I believe this article, because it is now at the base title, must serve as the parent article for the others. Clearly the scope must be determined by due weight as assessed via reliable sources. Dekimasuよ! 17:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

5) I should perhaps mention something about dates, in case it is unclear -- there will remain in the lead plenty of date makers (and it will be plainly clear to the reader that most are the 1950s and 1960s). -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:33, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Again, to remind editors, the RM/RfC was worded to change the name of the article which covered the Civil Rights Movement from 1954 to 1968 from 'African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968)' to 'Civil Rights Movement'. The closer confirmed this scope, although they lower-cased the name (which is causing confusion among some editors). To change the scope in the way some editors are proposing would take either another RfC or to organize the good faith proposed editorial and layout changes previous to 1954 as 'Background'. Randy Kryn (talk) 16:56, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

No. We do not need another RfC, and there is plainly nothing in the that RM about any section, "Background" - that is not what an RM is -- so the closer could not have addressed it, and they certainly could not have addressed any question of content, without being utterly incompetent, and apart from that odd procedural claim you make, there is no reason anything has to be called 'background' --Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:06, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

As shown throughout this section, the closer did not "confirm the scope" and that's not how scope is determined: WP:V, WP:NOR, WP:NOT. Repetition of your contention does not make it the case. The start of WP:NPOV: "All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all of the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.... This policy is non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus." Dekimasuよ! 17:17, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

I don't want to rehash any arguments here. I only want to summarize everyones positions in a clear and concise manner to see where things stand now. There is no need to challenge any positions stated here as this has already taken place above. GPRamirez5 What do you want to happen in concrete terms? Also, please specify what is to happen to the 1865 and 1896 articles. Thanks everyone. Mitchumch (talk) 21:13, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

With the exception of 3), I like Alanscottwalker's frame. The problem I have with reliance on pure summary and forks is some parts of this article are necessary synthesis and/or bridging between events. A good example is the "'Rising Tide of Discontent' and Kennedy's response" section. We don't have a main article on what happened nationally in the months after Birmingham (yet), but it's generally acknowledged that it was one of the most intense periods of the movement. There are main articles on Gloria Richardson, the Cambridge Riot of 1963, the Baldwin-Kennedy meeting, the Stand in the Schoolhouse Door, the assassination of Medgar Evers, the Civil Rights Address, and so on, but it'd be too much to give each of those their own section, and the synergy between them within a single month in June 1963 has been noted by historians many times. Similarly, the Robert F. Williams section isn't so much about Williams as it is about the role of armed self-defense in the movement, and the Malcolm X section is about the rise of black nationalism in the movement more than it's about a single person.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 18:04, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

GPRamirez5 My point 3 is only intended to cover the question that was posed about the two articles, the 1865 article, and 1889 article - so I don;t think point 3 effects any of your points (I have clarified point 3 above). Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:05, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker thank you for making that clear. I support your proposal then.-GPRamirez5 (talk) 21:24, 25 March 2018 (UTC)

? Why would anything happen to the 1865 and 1896 articles? They are fine as is, although Coffee's name change, which was reversed, should be the subject of an RM. What we are engaged in is a "What if?" game among a limited amount of editors. To make any kind of change would require another RfC as, yes (one editor is fond of saying "No"), the scope of the page did not change in the last RM, per the wording of the RM and per the close. Randy Kryn (talk) 22:21, 20 March 2018 (UTC)

Repeating this does not make it so. Further, to the extent that any editorial decisions are involved, editorial decisions can and should be made through normal discussion without resorting to RfCs, unless the process of discussion is derailed by intransigent editors. Mitchumch is trying to find a consensus solution (your position is clear; he asked to hear the position of others). You seem to be the only editor pursuing a filibuster. We know your position on the RfC, but that position is contrary to policy. Dekimasuよ! 00:12, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

I think the lead, for the most part, is fine now, and fits with the close. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:37, 21 March 2018 (UTC)

But, your arguments are not consistent. Multiple times in this discussion you have argued this very civil rights movement article already covers pre-1954, and multiple times you have argued that we have two other articles to cover the earlier civil rights movement. Your objections to my organizational proposals substantively make little sense. In actuality, you don't actually object to covering anything I have suggested covering, here in this article, nor do you have a real scope objection, since you already have argued this article, forever, has covered pre-1950s. (After all, who could possibly and with principal, object to mentioning Dubois and the NAACP in the intro, here -- Rosa Parks was organizing for the NAACP in Alabama the early 1940s. Alanscottwalker (talk) 13:46, 21 March 2018 (UTC) here.

Movement participation numbers

W. Haywood Burns estimated in 1963 that between 1960-1963, 70,000 people had participated in nonviolent public protests for African-American civil rights, and 6,000 distinct participants had been jailed.

References

I thought this might be helpful to this article. While I realize it might be nicer to have a later historian, I think Burns is a reliable source and some numbers are better than none. Daask (talk) 18:35, 21 June 2018 (UTC)

Span of civil rights movement

At one time, there was a discussion/dispute about the use of 1954 or 1955 and 1968 as the movement's starting and ending dates. (For some reason I can't find it in the talk page archives.) Anyway, Peniel E. Joseph has an op-ed column in today's Washington Post in which he refers to "the civil rights movement's heroic period, which span the years between the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education Supreme Court decision and the April 4, 1968, assassination of Martin Luther King Jr."[12] If the question comes up again, that's a source that can be cited. — Malik Shabazz ^Talk/_Stalk 18:40, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

The hatnote is a bit long isn't it? Wouldn't linking to the dab page be enough? Seraphim System ^(talk) 18:46, 4 July 2018 (UTC)

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Article on Civil Rights movement in Pennsylvania

I found:

• "African American and Civil Rights in Pennsylvania". Pennsylvania Heritage. Spring 2010.

WhisperToMe (talk) 20:12, 5 August 2019 (UTC)

What's the consensus?

Does the latter version of these two properly carry enough of the encyclopedic data enough for us to not use the non-free quoted text in the article? Or, does the quote in some way express the data better? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 17:54, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Coffee Welcome back! Your edit seems fine to me. Mitchumch (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Mitchumch: Thanks for your input. It is truly good to see you again too! (also did you see I wrote up a decently referenced article on Charles H. Mahoney?) — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:42, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
    • Coffee Given the lack of secondary works, you've done a good job finding contemporary sources to flesh out Mahoney's life details. Mitchumch (talk) 05:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

What's the consensus?

Does the latter version of these two properly carry enough of the encyclopedic data enough for us to not use the non-free quoted text in the article? Or, does the quote in some way express the data better? — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 17:54, 28 November 2019 (UTC)

• Coffee Welcome back! Your edit seems fine to me. Mitchumch (talk) 03:16, 2 December 2019 (UTC)
  • @Mitchumch: Thanks for your input. It is truly good to see you again too! (also did you see I wrote up a decently referenced article on Charles H. Mahoney?) — Coffee // have a ☕️ // beans // 01:42, 5 December 2019 (UTC)
    • Coffee Given the lack of secondary works, you've done a good job finding contemporary sources to flesh out Mahoney's life details. Mitchumch (talk) 05:35, 8 December 2019 (UTC)

What's with the mass deletions?

There were over 1,000 deletions earlier today, so a mass deletion without further explanation. Was it a coding thing? Randy Kryn (talk) 20:42, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

Pinging Nthep, maybe it's a coding thing that I'm not aware of. I didn't search within the edits to find out what was removed or kept. Randy Kryn (talk) 23:19, 12 December 2019 (UTC)

user:Coffee identified a number of copyright violations going back to 2017. The copyvios need to be revdeled, unfortunately that means not just the original edits but also subsequent revisions up to the point when the offending text was removed. Nthep (talk) 10:06, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:17, 13 December 2019 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 3 June 2020

Please update the years to “1954-present” 24.101.181.71 (talk) 23:12, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. This article seemingly refers to the historical movements; not the current ones. RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 00:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

The article omits significant activity from the 1930s through 1950

In my research for an article on Louis E. Burnham, I've read a number of scholarly articles referencing organizations and describing actions during the period preceding what the article covers. (For the moment, references are available at Draft:Louis E. Burnham.) The organization that he was involved with in Birmingham, Alabama, the Southern Negro Youth Congress or SNYC (pronounced like SNCC!), was involved in various marches, desegregation efforts, criminal defense investigations and the like. SNYC's activities are not well documented in Wikipedia's SNYC article, which is mostly about the organization's conventions.

A lot of this history has been forgotten, in part, I suspect, because many of its Black protagonists were members of the Communist Party USA. The party opposed the injustice being done to the Scottsboro Boys, greatly raising its visibility among Black Americans. In the 1930's, it initially supported the Sharecroppers Union and other Black organizations, not necessarily connected to the struggle for Black civil rights. Restricting the history of the civil rights movement to the period beginning more or less with the Brown vs. Board of Education decision and the Montgomery bus boycott omits some significant earlier history. Larry Koenigsberg (talk) 02:57, 17 October 2020 (UTC)

You did not notice the article's links to other Wikipedia articles. Pre-1954 events are covered in Civil rights movement (1865–1896) and Civil rights movement (1896–1954). Dimadick (talk) 08:46, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

This article used to only cover the specific and documented 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement planned, strategized, organized, and successfully carried out by basically the same individuals during each major event of that movement. Then a few editors fought hard to lower-case the name and removed the years from the title. In doing so the article lost its scope, and Wikipedia lost its article on that specific and honored movement (which now retains titled coverage only on a template and in a popular culture article). Wikipedia purposely lessening its effectiveness as a encyclopedia by no longer having a full article covering the historic 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement remains one of the strangest "unintended consequences" I've seen here. Randy Kryn (talk) 10:47, 18 October 2020 (UTC)

Crossover and collaboration between the US civil rights movement and the anti-colonial movement in Africa

This is a particularly interesting topic that has not been included in this article. It certainly warrants attention and discussion. Major figures of the civil rights movement in the US including Martin Luther King, Harry Belafonte, Jackie Robinson and Malcolm X were directly involved in anti-colonial movements in Africa. Liberation leaders in Africa such as Tom Mboya and Pio Gama Pinto from Kenya were in active correspondence with these figures. Tom Mboya gave a speech at a civil rights rally in DC, sharing the podium with Martin Luther King. Their collaboration bore fruits for example in the Kennedy Airlift scholarship program and the first Kenyan constitution. Thurgood Marshall was instrumental in drafting the first constitution. Tom Shachtman discusses this in his book Airlift to America. How Barack Obama, Sr., John F. Kennedy, Tom Mboya, and 800 East African Students Changed Their World and Ours. Barack Obama's father got his scholarship to study in the Hawaii because of these collaborative efforts. Unfortunately, mainstream historians discuss these two pivotal movements in the 1950s-60s as though they were unrelated. The writings and speeches of these key figures suggest otherwise. Surely this is worth inclusion. Cheers! Lilac breasted roller (talk) 02:44, 7 November 2020 (UTC)

References

NPOV for first line

"was a decades-long struggle" isn't a neutral (or professional) way of putting it. Perhaps "campaign" would work better? Historical Cartograph (talk) 21:32, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

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Work on the lead section

I started to do some cleaning on the lead section. I tried not to remove or restructure it too much, but I did end up removing some small chunks. I tried to remove some facts that were tangential (like the Nobel award for MLK) and some duplicate info (like Brown being mentioned twice). If some of these bits are too important to let go of, please re-add them in some form.

There is also the issue of the start of the 4th paragraph of the lead. I'm not sure what the original author was going for (did the protests and riots increase support from foundations? If so why and how? Is it relevant enough to be in the lead?). I left a clarification note there so that someone who feels more confident in changing the factual content of the lead rather than just restructuring it can work on it. ForksForks (talk) 17:18, 21 July 2022 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Introduction to Historical Studies

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Capitalization consistency

If "Civil rights movement" (no capitalization) is what has been decided for the article title, should the rest of the article (and sidebar boxes, etc.) also respect that? –LogStar100 (talk) 20:02, 14 February 2021 (UTC)

Agreed, LogStar100. Davide King (talk) 12:05, 2 June 2022 (UTC)

Was this actually decided, or just enforced? natemup (talk) 12:53, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

It was incorrectly decided (in my op.) when it was added to an RM which included the two other earlier "movement" articles. The 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement is easily arguably a proper name for a series of defined events initiated, organized, and carried out by the same people. Randy Kryn (talk) 13:08, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

I agree. Any way to actualize this? I know AP Style now mandates the capitalization. (I know that's not necessarily what Wiki adheres to, but yeah.) natemup (talk) 17:00, 3 April 2023 (UTC)

Relation to the Political Left

As far as I know, American leftists were prominent campaigners for civil rights. From MLK Jr. being a democratic socialist, to the New Left supporting and intersecting with the civil rights movement, I feel that this article is deserving of a section detailing the relationship between the political left and the civil rights movement.

To begin, numerous civil rights activists affiliated with leftist politics, including Albert Einstein (protested lynchings in the United States), etc.

That said, I suggest that a section about the movement's relation to the left is important, since it allows us to know who was on the right side of history, gain knowledge about political ideologies, and give a fuller story on this historical moment in history. Western Progressivist (talk) 19:19, 10 July 2023 (UTC)

Western Progressivist} IMO, go for it, if that's where the sources take you, and I have no doubt they will. Allreet (talk) 14:53, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

As counter examples, the strategist of the 1960 Civil Rights Movement and King's equal partner was James Bevel, a lifelong Republican (with a 1992 detour into fringe Democratic politics to promote his education ideas). Sixteen years after the movement's conclusion Bevel, Ralph Abernathy, and other movement figures endorsed Reagan for president. The 1954-1968 Civil Rights Movement had nothing to do with left or right or sideways, it was a movement to achieve the overturning of legalized segregation and obtain, through nonviolence and real-time usage of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, national adherence to the United States Constitution. Please don't add 2020s logic and bias to events in history which had nothing to do with present-day labels. Randy Kryn (talk) 14:56, 6 September 2023 (UTC)

There's been kind of a leftist tradition over the past decade I think of exaggerating the extent to which the left was behind all this, and downplaying basically the extent to which the right was part of it. It should be remembered that a significant portion of the right at that time were descended from old school Republicans basically, they were conservative and not hot on economic remedies of course. But this was the party of the Union that defeated the Confederacy in the civil war, and *attempted* a very early and unfortunately unsuccessful version of civil rights shortly after the war. They were still had an element of being sort of yankee merchants, libertarian in orientation. But they were postmillenial Christians who believed ultimately in the *perfection* of the American project, they freed the slaves partially because under their Christian faith they understood it could not be conceivably the case that a world in which slavery existed could be one good enough for Jesus to return to. This is partially I think why Lincoln adopted such a religious mindset late in his term, as under his religion it must have seemed to him that through much bloodshed and suffering the world ultimately had been brought so much closer to being one ready for Christ's return. The second inaugural address in particular is a *sermon*, and it is quite strange, I do not even actually believe, but I tear up every time I read the line:

If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman's two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said "the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether."

The south's theology was, in contrast, perverse. Under it, masters kept their slaves in heaven. So baffling, to conceiver somehow of a vision of heaven, which included in it people who's experience was to consist of an eternity of slavery. In heaven.

I would have preferred had they had the will to do something more substantive economically. For instance, breaking up the large plantations into individual plots of land, to provide the freed slaves with a "homestead" with which they could build independence. But such a vision was too radical for them - they were after all, *actually* conservatives. At least a large segment.

Anyway, for a long time reconstruction was seen as the great sin. Even far outside the south. W U Dubois introduced critical narratives in the 30s which resurrected a view of it as a worthy goal, and eventually support for giving a second go at substantively remedying the effects of slavery and Jim Crow. Resulting in Brown v Board, and the Civil Rights acts. Which was really a polymorphic coalition of the American left, liberals, and Republican conservative (Goldwater being the notable exception), against the embarrassment was the Dixiecrats and what was essentially a white supremacist dictatorship in their state where democracy and freedom could not be said to truly exist.

The new left was critical here *in terms of activism* and creation of philosophical frameworks for the pursuit of civil rights. They didn't really have congressional representation, so you couldn't say "it was them". It must be noted of course that the New Left could be quite radical, and were not at all pacifists. This violent streak put harsh pressure on the government to deliver substantive results, but it of course lead eventually to their suppression more or less. Marcuse and associated activists had substantive effects on the civil rights era. But technically this was not their goal, they wanted to create a revolution, using the theories of Gramsci combined with existential thought, he believe he could do this through the culture. He could not of course, he had profound cultural effect, but most of his legacy just wound up getting sort of tamed down and then co-opted and absorbed into the liberal tradition. By 1972 he considered himself a failure, when he came to the conclusion that the revolution was impossible.

A lot of the sort of woke language we use these days does trace itself back to him, he provided useful ways with which people could express their civil rights aspirations, and with which to assert their experience (ie, phenomology). This of course drives conservatives crazy, and they literally cannot stop going on endless rants about how the use of this language is a communist conspiracy. Conservatives tend to have an analysis where they go backwards and seek "poison roots" which apparently it is mandatory to purge from the tradition, lest secretly you accidentally do communism with your words. I think this is kind of foolish ofc, language always eventually gets detached from its original intent, and in any case it is apparent that the methods with which he thought he would start a revolution, were not able to accomplish this. He spent his life engaged in cultural creation more or less with "the revolution" as an excuse, and in the end he just wound up creating culture. Conservatives who insist that any tradition influenced by Marcuse must be excised, as it secretly does communism, are kind of facetious. Like where did their favorite term, "political correctness", originate? It's Marxist-Leninist jargon, they themselves imported from former members of the New Left who became neoconservatives and continued reappropriating such language in their new context. I'd like to point out as well, the entire concept of Fusionism which undergirded movement conservatism? If you are familiar with the construction of Marxist/Hegelian dialectics in philosophy, you should immediately realize fusionism is a formulation of one. The guy who created was a former communist, he continued having knowledge of and utilizing the philosophy in his new context. Is conservatism secretly a communist conspiracy therefore? Somehow conservatives imagine that it's fine and OK when they do this, but the libs use of literally the same sources in their own thought is proof of an evil conspiracy that is afoot. It's always bircherism, always has been. Somehow we are to imagine that that a communist would spend his life being a lib to get elected president and bam, communism. But that couldn't happen on the right ever, it's not like if I were a commie and that were seriously my game plan and I had to hide my beliefs anyway, I would necessarily do this with the libs. In reality, I'm not sure there's ever been a communists who's even been capable of shutting up. Besides Alger Hiss I guess, that's what really set the birchers off, they heard of him and immediately in a paranoid frenzy realized they could literally be *anywhere*. Except at the end of the day it actually was pretty much Alger Hiss. If there were more all over the place you would imagine Whittaker probably would've provided more than the one. But once a right wingers McCarthyism gets rolling, it cannot be stopped.Markwater1917 (talk) 00:06, 13 September 2023 (UTC)

Okay, the left didn't have any congressional representation, but they did play a huge role in keeping the movement afloat and all. It is not solely congress that gets things done; people do it too.

Also, you're saying the red scare was deserved; that's just like saying that black people deserved segregation because they had to use violence to be rid of it. Western Progressivist (talk) 00:45, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Nobody used violence in the nonviolent 1950s-1960s Civil Rights Movement to address legalized segregation. The major movement participants did not act from or proclaim left-right-center political points-of-view. The Civil Rights Movement was not a political movement in terms used in the 21st century. The movement's intent was simply to point out and create a dialogue among all Americans about the constitutional unfairness of legalized segregation. Randy Kryn (talk) 03:44, 24 September 2023 (UTC)

Wiki Education assignment: Fire Semester 3

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The last paragraph on the first section is weird. Wrong facts.

Hi! I just want to give some attention to the last paragraph on the first section on this page. It's talking about the black power movement, and it says:

"The emergence of the Black Power movement, which lasted from 1965 to 1975, challenged Black leaders of the movement for its cooperative attitude and its adherence to legalism and nonviolence. Its leaders demanded not only legal equality, but also economic self-sufficiency for the community. Support for the Black Power movement came from African Americans who had seen little material improvement since the civil rights movement's peak in the mid-1960s, and still faced discrimination in jobs, housing, education and politics. Martin Luther King Jr. was the most visible leader of the movement. However, some scholars note that the movement was too diverse to be credited to any particular person, organization, or strategy."

This entire paragraph is talking about the black power movement, which makes it weird why Martin Luther King is mentioned there and makes it look like he was the most visible leader for the black power movement instead of the civil rights movement, which is of course wrong. And right after mentioning him as a leader it says "However, some scholars note that the movement was too diverse to be credited to any particular person, organization, or strategy.", and the link is a article about the black power movement, so I think it's just a honest mistake about the person writing it thinking he really was a leader for that movement, and that it's not just weirdly written. Can someone please change this? At least to organize it in a way so it doesn't seem like he was leader for the wrong movement, so there's no misunderstandings when reading it. But you can keep the rest of the text there. Thanks!

(Also if this is now changed it just means that someone changed it already) <3 Thank you! MeManBlaze (talk) 21:12, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Yup. As you mention, it appears it was part of a good faith and much needed attempt to trim the lead down to a more manageable size. This particular edit added far, far too much confusion, so I have restored the prior wording and moved it to its own paragraph. Grayfell (talk) 21:51, 8 January 2024 (UTC)

Cheers! MeManBlaze (talk) 02:48, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

It's much easier to read now, thanks! I just got to ask (just to be sure) is the source cited with "However, some scholars note that the movement was too diverse to be credited to any particular person, organization, or strategy." really talking about the civil rights movement? I believe it's talking about the black power movement. Look at the source. Maybew we could move up that sentence to the other paragraph as well?

I'm not really sure though since I didn't read too much of the article linked with the source. But the title makes it seem like it (but it could be there, I don't know), and I've only skim-read it a little bit, and that's why I'm asking :p I just want to be sure. I'm not really experienced with editing at wikipedia, so I'd rather ask than make a wrong edit when it's about an important subject like this. And once again, thanks for the help with the edit! I appreciate it. MeManBlaze (talk) 03:16, 9 January 2024 (UTC)

Is the article too domestic focused?

Hi! I can't currently edit the page, as my account is new and I haven't made any edits elsewhere, but I have some suggestions on some improvements. When reading the page, I got the impression that it presents Civil Rights almost entirely as a domestic issue, when a lot of modern scholarship doesn't see it that way (eg Dudziak, Gaines). There are a few ways I think this should be addressed. Firstly, I think the lead section should at least mention how the Cold War/foreign relations impacted the movement, seeing as international opposition to segregation was an important reason why the movement succeeded (figures eg Eisenhower only acted as they did due to external pressure). Similarly, the 'Background' section is completely domestic focused. It doesn't mention appeals to the United Nations (eg An Appeal to the World), or how American Civil rights campaigners were influenced by campaigns against racial discrimination elsewhere. Another part missing its international context is the section on Little Rock, which doesn't mention any reasons why Eisenhower made the decision (partly to enforce the law, partly to demonstrate progress to international observers). I definitely think the 'Avoiding the Communist label' section needs changing, as this only reflects part of the movement and not figures eg Mayfield, Robeson, Du Bois etc. Finally, I think the 'Truman administration' section leaves out the more complicated reality of his relationship with Civil Rights, including but not exclusively his administration voting against UN declaration against racial discrimination. So while obviously this page is about the movement for legal change in the United States, I think it is currently missing a lot of the context and limiting it purely to events within the US is not helpful. Alexmolinario (talk) 22:01, 9 January 2024 (UTC)