# Talk:Chicago race riot of 1919

There's quite a bit more on this at Lynching in the United States, including a photo and more detailed discussion of certain aspects of the events.--Bcrowell 16:57, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

anyways!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 207.63.110.194 (talk) 15:40, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

What is needed is not more about the details of the events, but the context and background.  Walter White's article is excellent for that in the sources.--Parkwells (talk) 18:28, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

I just finished reviewing the article. Here are my comments:

I think the lead needs the most work. Right now, roughly half of the article is devoted to the background of the riot but the lead doesn't mention any of it. Several facts are mentioned in the lead but nowhere else in the article.
I think I have addressed this basic concern now.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  22:49, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
Why is Chicago Race Riot of 1919 in bold on the second picture?
When you wikilink something on its own page it get bolded instead of creating a circular link.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  06:49, 6 May 2008 (UTC)
I notice Negroes, Blacks and African American being used in the article. Can just one term be used?
fixed (except for quotes)--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  04:32, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
There are several one or two sentence paragraphs in the article. They need to be removed or merged together.
done.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  04:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
The references are mostly good. I've asked for several citations. Could the ninth reference be formatted?
citations added and reference reformated.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  15:17, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I noticed the Encyclopædia Britannica mentioned the aftereffects of the riot. Could a paragraph be written about the riots significance?
I added some information form EB.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  05:32, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
State’s Attorney Hoyne - Who is this?
He is a regular state's attorney employed by the office of the Illinois Attorney General.  He is a non-notable person by 1919 standards although he might be the equivalent of Marcia Clark or Christopher Darden if they had WP back then.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  04:09, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
Mentioning Daley is very interesting but is the second mention of him needed? It doesn't seem important to understanding the riot.
I have incorporated the later mention with the ramifications.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  22:48, 8 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't feel like there is a good timeline of the riot. The background, the cause, and the end result is there but there's nothing about how or why the riot ended in the article. Newspapers articles of the times might have some salvageable information regarding this. The New York Times has some coverage [1] but I'm sure Chicago newspapers would be better.
I have got most of these articles incorporated.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  04:04, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
The article feels like there could be more sections. Only divided into two sections of prose seems to few.
I have reorganized it.--TonyTheTiger (t/c/bio/WP:CHICAGO/WP:LOTM)  04:48, 7 May 2008 (UTC)
I don't want to have the article to be overwhelmed with pictures but I'm guessing there is an abundance of public domain pictures that could be added.
Everything else looks good. I'm going to ask for a second opinion as I'm rather new at good article reviewing. Right now I'm leaning toward failing the article but I'm sure the editors can address my comments ~ Eóin (talk) 22:24, 5 May 2008 (UTC)

I haven't given the article a careful review, but I think that most of your comments were spot-on. Luckily, Tony is a very responsive editor who addresses issues raised in GA reviews, as we can see from the comments above.
There's still remaining issues to fix. The interchangable use of the terms Negroes, Blacks and African Americans is jarring - I suggest standardizing. The prose could use sharpening; for example, minimize use of the passive voice.
Eóin, you may find it useful to show that you've addressed each of the GA criteria. Cheers, Majoreditor (talk) 03:19, 9 May 2008 (UTC)
I'll be sure to use a checklist next time. I noticed several mentions of Black changed to African American so I changed the rest of them. I also combined two small paragraphs.  With that, I believe the article can pass. Congratulations. ~ Eóin (talk) 22:53, 10 May 2008 (UTC)
Comment: in the lead, there is a paragraph that starts with "United States President Woodrow Wilson and the United States Congress attempted to promote legislation and organizations to decrease racial discord in America" with a cite.  Given Wilson's racism and the Congress of the time, I am skeptical they did any such thing.  And it just has an encyclopedia as reference which is not exactly an historical study.  Either the sentence should be removed or supported by additional more specific information as to what was actually done with citations.  More detail, but not enough, is found in the later 'Ramifications' section, but it has no citations at all. Hmains (talk) 04:48, 9 June 2010 (UTC)
Is "militancy" the best word to describe African-American veterans' attitude and behavior?  To me, "militancy" includes a connotation of incivility, aggression, or violence.  If the veterans were advocating civil rights and equal treatment, is that "militancy?"  On the other hand, if the veterans were agitating for violence then "militancy" would be the right word.  Could the original author please clarify?  Derrick Chapman 11:50, 27 July 2010 (UTC)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Derrickchapman (talk • contribs)  

You found some powerful photos and made excellent additions to the article.--Parkwells (talk) 18:32, 18 May 2008 (UTC)

The terminology in this article is all over the place - "African American," "Irish," "black," "white," etc.  A glaring example is the photo caption that begins "A white gang looking for African Americans..."  This needs to be cleaned up and made consistent.  If they are "whites," then they are looking for "blacks."  If they are looking for "African Americans," then they are "European Americans" or "Irish Americans."  96.35.172.222 (talk) 14:32, 27 July 2010 (UTC)

We should clarify if the committee proposed was actually formed and if so was it the  Chicago Commission on Race Relations. Rich Farmbrough, 02:07, 12 August 2012 (UTC).

After a careful screening of the article, I found a few specifics that were missing but easy to provide. I edited one, but maybe others will watch for the remainder?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Exoskeleton2013 (talk • contribs) 00:33, 7 October 2014 (UTC) 

The change of name of this article makes no English sense.  It is correct English that a 'proper name' is capitalized and a 'proper name' is the name of a particular person, place of event.  This article is about and thus the name is the name of a particular event.  The name change needs to be reverted. Hmains (talk) 02:21, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
Riot was lower-cased but Race was not? Something's  not right. Hugh (talk) 03:02, 16 October 2014 (UTC)
See also recent moves by same editor: Springfield Race Riot of 1908 -> Springfield Race riot of 1908, Cicero Race Riot of 1951 -> Cicero Race riot of 1951, and Charleston Riot -> Charleston riot. Sigh. Hugh (talk) 21:51, 16 October 2014 (UTC)

Oooops! Agree with Hugh, "race" should also be lower-cased then. My apologies. "Charleston riot" is instead correct: "Charleston" is a proper name, while "riot" is not. By the way "race riot" is also a common noun--Darius (talk) 15:59, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Since when in the English language are these changes correct.  A 'proper name' is the name of a particular person. place. or event.  For proper names, correct English language capitalization is that each word in the proper name is capitalized except for little connection words like 'the', 'in', 'a' and so on.  I am still waiting for the justification for these changes from the Manual of Style so that I can check it out.  In the meantime, all these name changes are wrong and should not continue.  Hmains (talk) 23:57, 17 October 2014 (UTC)
Further discussion of this and other related recent moves by the same editor at [User_talk:DagosNavy Name_changes_of_various_articles].
Further discussion of this and other related recent moves by the same editor at Requested_moves/Technical requests#Requests to restore capitalization which was removed before :: best discuss this lot here. Hugh (talk) 18:14, 23 October 2014 (UTC)


### Data
It does not seem to be the case that book editors and authors agree that this descriptive term is a proper name.  See book n-grams.  The idea that "correct English" is to capitalize proper names is true, but the determination of what's a proper name is not so simple.  Dicklyon (talk) 05:01, 24 October 2014 (UTC)

This is a good informational article and how it portrays the racism in this country during that time from a historical standpoint. However the article it self is presented with anger and racism toward people that are not African American. Particularly people with light skin.
As all the references to Caucasians people are derogatory under the picture captions. for example "White boys" or "whites" Where all the people with dark skin are referred to as African Americans which acknowledges there humanity, identity and an equal people of the human race as it should. However the Irish immigrants or Irish Americans are only referred to as Whites or white boys stripping them of there racial identity and just assigning a slang word to them no different then honky or cracker. If you want to group all the Irish, German French etc. in to one  category to refer to them, Wouldn't it be more constructive to use a non racist term like Caucasian?
Rex  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.213.222.94 (talk) 16:47, 10 November 2014 (UTC) 

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I have tried to incorporate information that I believe is relevant and have had it removed with the last person removing it calling it a "creepy fixation". It is not MY creepy fixation but that of the white men of the time. Everyone talks about how the film Birth of a Nation (1915) has scenes depicting the fear of a black man showing sexual interest in a white woman. And many lynchings were over accused rapes of white women. So, including  in the article that the young men in the raft were naked seems relevant to that issue that was so prominent at that time. Please advise without pejorative remarks? Pmdavis500 (talk) 04:41, 24 September 2020 (UTC)

You have not shown that anyone at the time commented on it, nor have you provided any modern source or scholarship that has commented it.  So, it does on the evidence presented so far appear to be solely your editing fixation. You rely solely on a single unconfirmed primary statement that is vague, at best, nor does stripping to your underwear or even naked to go swimming with other boys, and no women at all, let alone white women, suggest sex. And you provide no sources at all that make the interpretive or commentary claims you make about that statement. What makes you even think that stripping down to go swimming was unusual, there is no reason to think that was not ordinary. On this record, your addition violates multiple Wikipedia policies. Ping @JayBeeEll: who reverted these edits. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 10:18, 24 September 2020 (UTC)
The modern source I was using is the same one used as a reference for other information for this wikipedia page, Chicago Magazine July 23, 2019, the article by Robert Loerzel "Blood in the Streets".
I don't think it is about whether either of us think that being naked suggests sex to our minds. We are dealing with how people thought 100 years ago. It is about the minds of the people at the time. These are people who thought that the film "Birth of a Nation" was a great movie. Even if you ignore the plot, the acting is absurd. In our time, we are inundated by almost nude images and we prize very subtle acting. They wore bathing suits that look ridiculous to us and liked grotesquely over acted films. I think that there is no question that men alone liked to swim naked then and now. Lots of women do, too. It's normal. I am not saying that the young men on the raft were doing anything that young men wouldn't have been doing at the time if they thought no women were around. That's the point. It is not a criticism of them. The relevance is that the raft drifted over to an area where they were exposed. And in a racially segregated situation, the lack of clothing is an added issue that exactly fits in with the white male racial obsession with black men as a threat to white women of the time as depicted in the film "Birth of a Nation". That obsession is very well documented. Even in the 1950's the whole Emmett Till lynching issue was a Black man being seen as a sexual threat to a white woman. People dispute the details of what happened but I think everyone agrees that is the social terrain.Pmdavis500 (talk)

You still have not provided any modern source nor scholarship that has commented on it, nor have you provided any source at the time that cared about boys removing clothes to go swimming, at all.  There is no reason why the people at the time must care about that, and no evidence that they did care about getting ready to go swimming.  You have provided nothing sourced to support your connection, you have turned a solitary vague primary statement about boys getting ready to go swimming, as people were known to do, and then leaped to sex.  Nowhere does the Chicago magazine article say anything about sex, nor does it even say naked, nor does it make the interpretive sex commentary you do (it is mostly a collection of primary statements). We can't take that vague primary statement and then make that leap to sex, not without reliable secondary sources that analyze that particular primary statement as exactly that. Despite what you may think you're doing, it's rather like you are inventing an excuse for the drowning, an excuse found in no sources. The sources don't even agree with you, they say it was breaching the beach segregation (and in that, it does not matter what one is wearing, at all, what matters is race, just race), not what the boys were wearing. (Besides, there is noting to suggest in the record or sources at all, that if these bathers had been girls breaching segregation, it would have been any different.) And that's just the raft, according to that witness it was not what happened on the raft itself that made it all blow-up, rather there would have been no days of interracial violence, if the black police officer had not been prevented by the white police officer from making the arrest. Your Emmet Till example goes entirely against you, for Till we have multiple secondary sources directly about sex and words of the murderers directly about sex -- we do not have that, here. Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:59, 30 September 2020 (UTC)