The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

I am proposing to merge this article to Jim Crow Era. That term is the closest WP:COMMONNAME to denote this period of time. Nor, does that period limit itself solely to the experiences of African Americans. I am also proposing to merge Nadir of American race relations, Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era, and Jim Crow laws to Jim Crow Era. See Pageviews Analysis from 10/2/2015 to 3/11/2016 of the four terms. Mitchumch ( talk) 06:40, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

ADDENDUM: African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95) is also being proposed to merge into Reconstruction Era and Jim Crow Era. For a separate discussion on that merge, please see Talk:African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95)#Merge discussion in progress. Mitchumch ( talk) 03:50, 13 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I would support a merger of all the articles mentioned except for this one. A "Jim Crow era" article combining the information from the nadir, disenfranchisement and Jim Crow laws articles would serve a useful and logical purpose in describing the situation as it was – the problems with implementing and maintaining Reconstruction, the the white backlash against it, federal ambivalence post- Grant, and so on. It should also make clear that the "nadir," while it is not precisely dated, is generally agreed to have been somewhere in the first quarter of the 20th century, and that conditions therefore began to improve, albeit on a small scale, decades before the Jim Crow era ended. Such an article would be complex and coherent enough to stand on its own, and would become unnecessarily convoluted by the addition of this article, as well.

I propose that a "Jim Crow era" article should report attitudes, laws, social conditions and government policies between the Plessy decision and (perhaps) the legal integration of Southern universities in the mid-1960s. The endpoint of the "Jim Crow era" article, if not the integration of these universities, should at least be some time after the Brown decision, to highlight that legal segregation remained enforced in many areas and establishments after Brown. Meanwhile, this article should remain in place to report the efforts of African Americans and their allies to change the attitudes, laws, conditions and policies reported by the Jim Crow article. There would of course be some overlap of content between the two, but not enough to justify a full merge in my opinion. This article should also keep to its current, shorter timeframe (ending with Brown), partly because the Brown decision had an immediate and significant impact on the nature and scale of Civil Rights efforts, but did not immediately end the Jim Crow era, and partly for the sake of consistency and continuity with the other two "period" articles on the African American Civil Rights movement (1865–95 and 1954–68). The tail-end of the "Jim Crow era" article would therefore correspond to the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68) article, rather than to this one.

A hatnote {{ About}} link to this article from "Jim Crow era" (and vice versa) would satisfy me as far as WP:COMMONNAME and pageviews go. InVerrem ( talk) 21:07, 12 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ InVerrem: The five articles violate WP:Content forking.

Secondly, the beginning, low point, ending, and content of the Jim Crow Era article should be determined by the scholarly and academic community and the literature they have produced. According to this body of literature, all of the content from the five aforementioned existing articles fall directly into the topic of Jim Crow Era. If you can cite scholarly or academic sources to support the timeline and content parameters you've established, then those sources can be incorporated into the new article.

Also, please see "ADDENDUM" immediately beneath my proposal statement. I have placed a Template:Merge on the African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95) article, because there is virtually no content in that article despite being created on 8 October 2009. I had forgotten to add Template:Merge on the destination article(s) for the 1865–95 article. Secondly, there is no scholarly basis for the current naming of the 1865–95 article nor for the 1896–1954 article. The WP:COMMONNAME as used by the scholarly and academic community for the 1865–95 period is Reconstruction and Jim Crow. Mitchumch ( talk) 03:50, 13 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Is the proposal on the table to merge four articles ( Nadir of American race relations, Disenfranchisement after the Reconstruction Era, Jim Crow laws, and African-American Civil Rights Movement (1865–95)) into a single new article called Jim Crow Era? This is unclear to me because African-American Civil Rights Movement (1896–1954) is also marked as a possible merge into Jim Crow Era.

This proposal seems ill-advised to me. There's considerable overlap among these four (or five) articles and of course they all need work. But taken together they don't form any nice clear shape. In "Nadir", the introduction indicates a scope of racial conflict in former-CSA states between 1877 and "early 20th century". The scope of "Disenfranchisement" is specifically voting laws, in former CSA states, from 1877 to the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The scope of "Jim Crow laws" is specifically segregation law, in former CSA states, from 1877 to 1965. The two "African-American Civil Rights Movement" articles are focused on those efforts, in those time periods, with a national scope.

Will the resulting single merged article contain all of the above, namely, racial conflict, disenfranchisement, segregation, and the black civil rights effort in the entire U.S. from 1877 to 1965? Wow. That'll be big! That scope would even include the wholesale murder of Chinese immigrants in the west, and the Detroit race riot of 1943. I would not expect those to be addressed in an article called "Jim Crow Era". IMO that proposed scope is way too ambitious.

Looking at this for a few minutes, I think this proposed five-banger merge is not the best idea, and there's one sick man in the bunch: Nadir of American race relations. The content there certainly belongs in wikipedia, somewhere. But "Nadir" is ill-defined geographically and in time span, it addresses only black-white relations, it wanders, and its very title suggests some kind of objectivity in measurement. I propose that we leave the other fairly well-defined articles as they are, and concentrate on what "Nadir" contains and where that material actually belongs. Lockley ( talk) 09:35, 14 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ Lockley: "Is the proposal on the table to merge four articles[?]" It's five articles.

"taken together they don't form any nice clear shape." and "Will the resulting single merged article contain all of the above, namely" The scope of the article is determined by the literature produced by the scholarly and academic community about Jim Crow. It is what it is. Even if that means the article is large. But, size is not the determining factor. It's the reliable sources that determine the scope of the proposed article.

"Will the resulting single merged article contain all of the above, namely, racial conflict, disenfranchisement, segregation, and the black civil rights effort in the entire U.S. from 1877 to 1965?" Content from the five articles that belong to the Reconstruction Era (1863-1877) or Civil Rights Movement (1954-1968, or earlier) will be merged with those respective articles. It all depends on reliable sources.

"I would not expect those to be addressed in an article called "Jim Crow Era"" As for the Rock Springs massacre and Detroit race riot of 1943. If the literature says it is part of Jim Crow, then yes. If the literature says it is not, then no. What ever the literature says - that's it. Check out WorldCat, Google Books, and Google Scholar to see scope of literature on Jim Crow.

"I think this proposed five-banger merge is not the best idea" At best, perhaps the existing articles could become WP:CONTENTFORK - subsections of a larger article. But the overlap in content is too extensive, not minor, and can't be ignored.

"I propose that we leave the other fairly well-defined articles as they are" - It would be different if one article dealt solely with suffrage rights, another dealt solely with racial segregation and miscegenation, and another with housing, employment, and education discrimination. But, they cover the same stuff with differences in time periods. To let those articles stand as is would be a violation of WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONTENTFORK - multiple separate articles all treating the same subject. Mitchumch ( talk) 11:35, 14 March 2016 (UTC) reply

WP:COMMONNAME is irrelevant to this conversation. Jim Crow era refers to a period of time; this article is about a movement that occurred within this era. Lockley is clearly on point in all of his arguments. These articles may have overlap, but the solution is not to eliminate the articles in favor of some unwritten article. The first thing to do is write the Jim Crow Era article. I'm guessing, based on the material already available in the proposed deleted articles, that this is going to be a pretty good sized article. Those sections in the new article which overlap with these existing articles should be written as summaries of these articles (see Wikipedia:Summary style).

I'm also curious why you picked these particular articles to eliminate. For example, a key player in this whole era, as it relates to race, is the Ku Klux Klan. Why eliminate an article dedicated to the Civil Rights movement while keeping an article about this racist, violent organization? Or why not, going in the direction you seem to favor, eliminate all the topics found at the template "African American topics"? Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 17:51, 14 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ North Shoreman: I just saw this post. I think there is a major misunderstanding here. So, let me address each of your concerns.

"this article is about a movement that occurred within this era"

The term " Civil Rights Movement" denotes a specific event. For example, the American Revolution is a specific event. To create three articles American Revolution (1775-1788), American Revolution (1789-1865), and American Revolution (1866-1968) would violate WP:ORIGINALRESEARCH and WP:COMMONNAME. I'm not sure why this issue has occurred with the term Civil Rights Movement on Wikipedia, but it's the same scenario. The "Civil Rights Movement" term, like "American Revolution", is not a generic term like "Political history of African Americans in the United States" or "Reconstruction Era and African Americans". The time period for the "Civil Rights Movement" is traditionally 1954-1968. Newer studies are challenging this period. However, the earliest time suggested by these newer studies is during the 1930's, not 1896.

first thing to do is write the Jim Crow Era article."

I don't have a problem with producing a merged Jim Crow Era article to show everyone as a demonstration of my ideas more clearly. Actually, I think that would help address a lot of trepidation. I can place it in a sandbox for everyone to review.

"the solution is not to eliminate the articles in favor of some unwritten article." and To your last paragraph

I do NOT, repeat, do NOT want to delete/eliminate/dispose of any content from any of the five articles. I want to WP:MERGE them into an article with more information and better structure. The templates are requests to merge articles. If you look at my edits, then you will see I spend a lot of my time ADDING CONTENT to African American political history articles. I don't understand why you would think I would destroy this content. Mitchumch ( talk) 19:37, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Bottom line -- your proposal eliminates articles from wikipedia that deal specifically with issues relating to African American history. Whether or not all of the material is placed somewhere else, the reader interested in African American history will need to navigate their way through a giant article that has much besides African American history. Call it a merge, but the fact is that your proposal deletes articles about subjects that are covered concisely in thousands of scholarly books and journal articles (regardless of the names given to the articles). You can still write your giant article (I'm playing with it a little at User:North Shoreman/Sandbox2) -- once it's written then we can decide, using summary style guidelines, the scope of the various articles. My suggestion regarding this article would be to incorporate a slightly expanded version of the lead into the giant article with a hatnote reference from the giant article back to this article. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 23:38, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

OPPOSE I am opposed for the primary reason that covers far too much territory. Another major factor: the suite of articles on the African-American civil rights movement have a common thread, of how the blacks managed to work together to build political, intellectual, educational, religious, cultural, and economic forces that eventually won victories in the federal courts in the 1940s and 50s, culminating and national success in public opinion and Congress in the 1960s. In sharp contrast, "Jim Crow" is a very different story it is about the militant White supremacists who organize political power to completely exclude and humiliate blacks. Trying to provide fair and impartial coverage to such bitter opponents would be a difficult challenge for the editors, and I think would not satisfy readers. As it stands, the civil rights movement articles are about black agency and how they managed to succeed after a century of trying--It's a unified coherent story that is broken up into sub-articles because it is so long and complex and detailed, and has been the target of the huge amount of scholarly literature in recent decades. Rjensen ( talk) 04:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ Rjensen: In regards to the article covering too much territory. So does the article on History of the United States. Size is not an issue here.

In regards to the remainder of your statement. Every issue and concern that you've mentioned here are present in the articles on the Reconstruction Era or Civil Rights Movement. Yet, those articles stand as single articles. Articles about conflict are common on Wikipedia. This is just another article about conflict. Mitchumch ( talk) 19:43, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Question What would be the geographic scope of the proposed new article? Its title is in reference to the Jim Crow laws, but they were largely in effect in the Southern United States. That does not mean that other forms of segregation, institutional racism, and race-motivated violence were absent in the rest of the country. Dimadick ( talk) 16:30, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ Dimadick: The scope of Jim Crow Era article would cover the entire United States. Your assessment mirrors the literature on the period. Mitchumch ( talk) 17:28, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Then the idea of a co-ordinated article on the era might be necessary, though it would probably need sub-articles to cover specific aspects. I'd suggest that it should also be a part of the History of the United States and its sub-articles. History of the United States (1865–1918), for example, is missing information of the race relations aspect of the era. Dimadick ( talk) 17:39, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ Dimadick: I agree completely. Mitchumch ( talk) 17:42, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

counterproposal

@ Mitchumch:, this is a good discussion. I don't think your merge proposal is going to make it. It would be a shame to walk away from what we've discovered here. So I have a counterproposal which, I think, addresses the concerns that you started with.

Let's establish United States race relations (1865-1876), United States race relations (1877-1895), United States race relations (1896-1954), and United States race relations (1954-2007). And merge the five existing articles you named into those targets. The scope of these new articles would be national. We would leave Reconstruction Era as it is, with its focus on the south, covering everything about that era not directly related to race relations.

I believe the phrase "race relations" is neutral, encyclopedia, and would emcompass de jure discrimination, important racial incidents, social standing, etc., for African-Americans AND Asians, Hispanics, American Indians, everybody. We've discussed the overlaps in this whole area but we haven't even mentioned some of the large gaps. (The treatment of Chinese on the west coast, the deliberate coordination of the southern states to overturn Reconstruction, etc.) I think this scheme would be a good top-down way to provide a framework for that. This scheme would address @ Rjensen:'s (and my) concerns about the size and scope of the resulting articles. Tell me what you think. All best. Lockley ( talk) 21:21, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose -- we have a large number of articles dealing with Indian Americans, Chinese-Americans, Japanese-Americans, etc that all get merged in there too. All sorts of topics on the concept of race, eugenics, the history of anthropology, racial segregation, White supremacy,, images of minorities in fiction & film & painting, college admissions, etc. etc. get rolled in together. The African-American story has coherence and a very large bibliography of reliable sources. Race relations is a grab bag of themes. Rjensen ( talk) 22:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose -- For the reasons cited by Rjensen. Plus, since you've expanded this all the way to 2007, I assume you would also want to eliminate African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–68), denying an article on wikipedia to one of the most significant events in U.S. history. Also the dates of your proposed articles are significant to African American history but largely irrelevant to racial relationships involving other groups. Which (or how many) of the new articles to you merge Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States? How about Cultural assimilation of Native Americans? How does the 142,000 byte article Racism in the United States fit into the grand plan. I'm just not sure what existing problem any of this discussion actually solves -- especially since we're talking about merging with non-existent articles. It seems like a large number of readers (my guess is the majority) interested in any of this content would prefer articles targeted to specific groups.

BTW, there is an article ( Redeemers) that addresses the southern effort to reverse Reconstruction advances; I assume this would be eliminated. Also Dixiecrat would have to go along with Ku Klux Klan -- or do we just merge out of existence primarily African American articles? Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 23:17, 15 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose -- @ Lockley: I am surprised that you suggested this counterproposal. You said "IMO that proposed scope is way too ambitious" and "proposed five-way pileup is not the best answer" when I wanted to merge content into a Jim Crow Era article. Your proposal:

• Creates four new articles, not one
• Eliminates the Jim Crow Era entirely and NOT retain a well established topic with abundant scholarly sources
• Expands scope from Jim Crow Era to the intersection of race and impact upon all populations in the United States

Your proposal dwarfs my original proposal in scope.

Having said that, I am not opposed to the core principal of your counter proposal - The idea of race and racism impacted people beyond African Americans. However, you left out Europeans or whites. Think National Origins Formula and Emergency Quota Act. Also, the history of racism is NOT solely a history of injury and the injured, but also a history of deliberate benefit and the beneficiaries.

tough crowd (adjusts necktie) Lockley ( talk) 08:24, 16 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I'm sure it's a nice tie, though. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 18:41, 16 March 2016 (UTC) reply

2nd counterproposal

Since everyone is opposed to both proposals, then here is a counterproposal.

• A MOCK-UP of the proposed Jim Crow Era will be produced at User:North Shoreman/Sandbox2
• The mock-up will ONLY merge all or pertinent content from the original target five articles
• All five articles will remain UNCHANGED
• After Jim Crow Era mock-up has merged the five target articles, then we can REEVALUATE the original proposal
• Create STUB ARTICLE of History of race in the United States

Mitchumch ( talk) 07:31, 16 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose nobody likes the basic idea and we're wasting all our time. there never was a thought out rationale for doing any of this. Rjensen ( talk) 07:35, 16 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose -- I am experimenting in my sandbox, but have already determined that an adequate article titled Jim Crow Era needs to go way beyond the five articles. The is no point trying to fit all of the info from the five articles into the new article since it would be much simpler to retain those articles and include summaries of the articles in the new article. I don't think it's possible to write an article incorporating all of the material from the five articles while adding new material that would come in under 250,000 bytes. I do think a reasonable sized article relying heavily on summary style could be a valuable addition to wikipedia, but this is not the forum to discuss it. Tom (North Shoreman) ( talk) 18:27, 16 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Oppose --I oppose the original proposals and this second counter-proposal, largely for the reasons that Rjensen and North Shoreman have described above. These articles deal with specific, complex topics that deserve to be covered in depth. Merging them would result in the loss of too much material, or make an article too large and complex to navigate. It's difficult enough to get the facts covered in separate articles. For instance, there are too many articles about politics and politicians in the South that gloss over the decades of disenfranchisement. I don't want to see the issues buried in a general Jim Crow article. Parkwells ( talk) 15:04, 23 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I'm not going to pretend to have read this entire page, but fwiw I think we need to have a separate article that specifically explains what people mean by the "nadir" of black history. It's a phrase that comes up a lot. Rosekelleher ( talk) 16:41, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Rosekelleher Have you seen the article Nadir of American race relations? For what it's worth, Eric Foner has stated that the "nadir" of African American history wasn't Jim Crow, but slavery. Mitchumch ( talk) 16:55, 19 March 2016 (UTC) reply

I just skimmed this discussion, and it seems that this proposal is defeated, so I'm going to remove the tag from the article. I hope that doesn't violate some protocol. Klortho ( talk) 04:11, 26 March 2016 (UTC) reply

Sorry, let me clarify -- I removed the merge tag from Jim Crow laws. I hadn't realized that this discussion was on a different page, and I don't presume to know whether or not there are still outstanding issues WRT other pages. Klortho ( talk) 02:35, 27 March 2016 (UTC) reply

@ Klortho: I placed the merge templates on several articles. Please feel free to remove them. It appears the discussion is over. Thanks for the concern. Mitchumch ( talk) 03:22, 27 March 2016 (UTC) reply