Talk:Lynching of Jesse Washington/Archive 2

Lucy Fryer photo
Here is a photo of Lucy Fryer from this site. Could you check its copyright status? -- Supernova Explosion   Talk  01:39, 12 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Fascinating, I didn't realize there were extant pictures of her. I'm combing through the pictures of Washington from the Library of Congress right now, but I'll try to get to that one. Even if it is copyrighted, it would almost certainly qualify as fair use (since there couldn't be free alternatives). Mark Arsten (talk) 01:41, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Lead
If we are planning to nominate it for FA, the first thing we should do is to remove the references from the lead. -- Supernova Explosion   Talk  04:43, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, they should go, I usually work on the lead after I build up the body though. I suppose as long as the basic outline is nailed down it will work though. I should have a copy of this book sometime next week. Other sources that look promising: Mark Arsten (talk) 05:06, 7 April 2012 (UTC)
 * Three more to check: . Mark Arsten (talk) 19:27, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there a list of Waco lynchings?
Is there a list somewhere of every person who was lynched in Waco Texas? I am doing some research and I'm particularly interested about any that happened in the 30s and 40s. Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.38.208.30 (talk) 16:08, 14 September 2011 (UTC)
 * On the off chance you check back here after 8 months: this book has a pretty thorough list of lynchings in Central Texas, it stops in the 1920s. Mark Arsten (talk) 00:25, 18 April 2012 (UTC)

FA Review
I plan on nominating this for featured article review in a few days. I came to this article through the front page, and I'm shocked that this actually became featured, but upon inspection of the FA nomination, it doesn't seem that there was very much discussion over whether it deserved the bronze star; most of the comments seemed to simply be suggesting minor improvements. These are the primary things that I think would need to be fixed for this to embody the best of Wikipedia:
 * References need fixing.
 * More inline citations from web sources, so that the reader may check at least some of the statements without having to go to the library or spend money.
 * Inline citations that have multiple semicolon-separated sources should be broken up into multiple footnotes.
 * Article is an eyesore.
 * No one wants to read enormous walls of black text; let's put some blue in there!
 * Also, a paragraph should probably not have 1,938 characters.
 * The lead should be shortened and given inline citations.

I just want to say that, overall, the content and writing style is fine; I'd much rather this article just be improved than delisted. ❤ Yutsi Talk/  Contributions  ( 偉特 ) 14:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Web sources are not featured article criteria, combining footnotes is a stylistic preference and, also, not part of the FA criteria. You may also want to read WP:LEDE before tagging things willy-nilly. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * Was about to echo these exact responses. The use of web sources is in no way a necessity, and the stylistic concerns of the references are not something that have been (or should be) mandated one way or another. Nothing in the lead needs to be cited, and "I like more links" isn't really a concern that should warrant WAR. A much more constructive approach would be to look for phrases or concepts that would make for good links and add them, rather than going through the needlessly bureaucratic review process, which can be seen as a hostile move. for what it's worth, my own review on the FAC page was brief because I already reviewed the article during its Good Article review and was more than familiar and satisfied with it from that. GRAPPLE   X  15:09, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Having gone over the lede a (what is it now, fifth time?), anything which would logically be linked is linked. If we're linking spectators then we've hit WP:OVERLINK territory. — Crisco 1492 (talk) 15:13, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yutsi, WP:SOURCEACCESS is the relevant section of the policy that Crisco 1492 and Grapple X are referring to: "Verifiability in [the context of access to sources] means that other people should in principle be able to check that material in a Wikipedia article has been published by a reliable source. The principle of verifiability implies nothing about ease of access to sources: some online sources may require payment, while some print sources may be available only in university libraries." Erik (talk &#124; contribs) 15:58, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You're welcome to take this to FAR, although you'll likely find it an exercise in futility unless you come up with better criticisms. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * LOLWUT? Look what fell out oh teh sky~! Br'er Rabbit (talk) 15:24, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Photo
Ya know, I'm not into censorship, but is it really appropriate to have a photo of a dead, charred corpse on the main page? - Balph Eubank ✉ 17:29, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The best place to discuss that would be Talk:Main Page, instead of here. There's already a thread open there. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:42, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The instructions that appear when I open the edit window for Talk:Main Page say it's not the right forum for discussing content. I was going to post there, but thought I wasn't supposed to. Very confusing. - Balph Eubank ✉ 17:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The intention there is not to discuss the content of the article; but when it's content directly appearing on the main page then that's the right venue. GRAPPLE   X  18:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Poor expression in the leading paragraph
My advice is, read your intro out loud a couple of times before you leave it. If you have used a crucial, descriptive word more than once, then you need to be consistent in the way you use it.


 * Jesse Washington, a teenage African-American farmhand, was lynched in Waco, Texas, on May 15, 1916, in what became a well-known example of such attacks. He was accused of raping and murdering his employer's wife in rural Robinson, Texas. There were no eyewitnesses to the attack, but he was seen near the house around the time of her death. He was quickly arrested and interrogated by the McLennan County Sheriff, and eventually confessed. ..... After his sentence was pronounced, he was dragged out of the court by observers and lynched in front of Waco's city hall. Over 10,000 spectators, including city officials and police, gathered to watch the attack.


 * 1) "attacks"  is used to describe lynchings in a broad and inclusive manner.
 * 2) "attack" is used to describe the rape of the employer's wife.
 * 3) "attack" is used to describe this lynching, specifically.

If you are going to use "attack/s" for lynchings, then keep it that way. To throw in the identical word to describe a different event (rape and murder) when there are other possibilities, is poor expression, because it creates confusion.
 * Your optional words to describe the rape and murder include "the event" and "the crime".
 * Your optional sentence construction includes leaving out the repeated noun altogether and using "although" as in: "Although there were no witnesses Washington was seen near the house around the time of the woman's death."
 * In this option your reader knows that you are referring to "rape and murder" because you  haven't repeated the word that you previously used for "lynching".

On the other hand, my feeling is that the word "attacK" is not well-used to describe an act of violence that was prolonged and involved a large mob including spectators. The word "attack" is usually used for something of relatively short duration. e.g. if someone had stabbed, punched or kicked Washington as he was removed from the courtroom, it would be described as an "attack". You need a word (or several words) here that suggest the concerted retributive action of a large group of people.

Amandajm (talk) 06:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Also, I am not sure if the dwelling on "attack" and Washington being a "victim" is meant to imply he was innocent of the murder? If this lynching was "racially motivated", it stands to reason it was at least as much motivated by the murder. At the time, a white murderer would also have faced execution, albeit in a more "civilized" manner (but he would still have been made a public spectacle). The manner of execution "by mob" was certainly "racially motivated". The fact that Washington was considered for execution in the first place, rather less so. It seems rather biased to choose "the event" for the actual rape and murder, while reserving "the attack" for the lynching of the confessed perpetrator. --130.60.149.195 (talk) 06:59, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Regarding the use of 'victim', I think we would all prefer to be hanged than tortured and dismembered over a fire, and there is no inaccuracy in using that word to describe Washington. I didn't get the impression that the article is portraying him as innocent. --86.150.60.103 (talk) 07:23, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the detailed comments, but in the future feel free to go ahead and make minor changes like attack -> crime. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Also, in no way does the description of Washington as a victim imply that he was innocent of the earlier murder. If a murderer in prison is tortured by prison guards, he's still a victim of a human rights violation, regardless of his past actions. Mark Arsten (talk) 13:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * The lead implies that this rightfully convicted murderer was likely innocent. It overemphasizes his ethnicity and claims he was an innocent, persecuted black youth, pressured into a false confession. He was sentenced to death by a court and there is no proof he was lynched due to his race as opposed to because he murdered an innocent woman. Not all people lynched in the United States were black. Jeffrey Dahmer was a white convicted murderer who was murdered by black convicted murderer Christopher Scarver, but the first sentence of Dahmer's article does not mention his murder, his occupation, or the ethnicities of him or his killer. The lead of Scarver's article does not mention race, despite the murders committed by Scarver in prison likely being racially motivated. Articles about murderers usually begin something like: 'John Doe (1 January 1950 - 31 Decmber 2000) was an American murderer.' They don't usually state age, occupation or ethnicity. Why does the reader have to go a long way into the article before working out that Washington was a rightfully convicted murderer, rather than an innocent victim of a racist mob who killed an innocent black youth? If he had not been lynched, he would have been rightly executed by the state. 188.28.197.85 (talk) 19:54, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * I disagree with your interpretation of the lead, I don't think it implies what you say it does. Most sources do treat it as a racially motivated lynching, have you read them? Also, this isn't a biography article, it's specifically about an event, Washington's death. I would think that Murder of Jeffrey Dahmer would probably mention some of those things, you're comparing apples to oranges here. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not the mention the wholly different instances in the two deaths—Washington was subjected to a prolonged torture which was documented for profit and made a spectacle for a crowd's amusement; Damher was bashed in the head in private by one man. One is a lynching which reflects on an entire community; one is a simple case of one-on-one murder. GRAPPLE   X  20:05, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * If there were a Murder of Jeffrey Dahmer article, it would begin something like: 'Jeffrey Dahmer (May 21, 1960 - November 28, 1994) was a serial killer murdered by Christopher Scarver (July 6, 1969) while both were imprisoned for murder in the Columbia Correctional Institution, Oregon.' It would not mention ethnicity or occupation of either in the first sentence. A prison is not a private place, and not everyone in the community took part in the lynching of Washington. 188.28.197.85 (talk) 20:17, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Two men alone is privacy, especially compared to an audience gathering specifically to witness the event; as for your prediction of what a non-existent article "would" say, good luck with that. It's clear that this incident was motivated by race, the sources support this fully; to omit it because something that doesn't exist doesn't say the same thing is ludicrous enough to make my head hurt. GRAPPLE   X  20:19, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Scarver and Dahmer weren't alone in a private building, they were in a government-owned prison with other inmates and staff. Even if Washington's lynching were motivated by race and it had nothing to do with him having murdered an innocent woman and been convicted of that, it certainly had nothing to do with him being a teenager or a farmhand. Why tell the readers that in the first sentence, but make them read hundreds of words before they can work out whether or not he committed the murder. A whole settlement does not bear the blame for a killing or any other type of crime. Spectating isn't a crime; only a small minority of Waco's residents lynched Washington, and I'm sure that many people were angry at what he had done and would have lynched him if he'd been white. Is everyone in Tottenham to blame for the riots there in August last year? No, only the rioters are to blame. 188.28.197.85 (talk) 20:31, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * It actually had a lot to do with his occupation, and his young age is part of what attracted so much attention to it. As far as who is to blame, well, that's not really the job of our article to say--that's up to the reader to conclude. I'm not sure why you're so intent on talking about Dahmer, that's really not relevant here. Mark Arsten (talk) 20:39, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * You're saying he was lynched because he was a farmhand? Where's the evidence of that? It's not unusual for a murderer to be subsequently killed (whether deliberately by the government, other criminals, vigilantes - or in accidents). Dahmer and Washington were similar - murderers who were rightly convicted and deliberately killed by others, that's why I compared them. Why mention in the lead that there were no eyewitnesses to the woman's murder? Most murders are not seen by people other than the killers and victims. It unreasonably makes the reader strongly doubt Washington's guilt. The lead should clearly summarize what happened - a person was arrested for a murder he recently committed, convicted, sentenced to death, killed by local people before the sentence could be carried out by the state. Were an innocent person lynched, it would be a different matter. 188.28.197.85 (talk) 21:10, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Being a farmhand placed him on the farm on that fateful day, and may have motivated him to commit a crime. (I'm not sure whether he was innocent or guilty.) The fact that no one witnessed the murder is a pretty key detail, had someone been there there would be no questions about guilt today. Mark Arsten (talk) 21:14, 25 September 2012 (UTC)

Congratulations
This is one of the most significant articles to make it to Featured Article in a long time. Awien (talk) 00:40, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Baffling 'importance' ratings.
This may seem trivial, but this article is rated: mid importance for us history. low importance for us texas history. Doesn't make sense to me. Or, am I confused about importance rating criteria within different wikiprojects?1812ahill (talk) 17:00, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Yeah, that is odd, not sure how it works. Mark Arsten (talk) 17:30, 26 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Importance criteria are often "go with your gut" things; whoever updates an individual wikiproject's templates generally makes their own judgement call. That said, I'd consider swapping those two for now, if involved editors from either project wish to change them back it might spur discussion as to what the "boundaries" are for each project's importance classes. GRAPPLE   X  20:48, 26 September 2012 (UTC)


 * sofixit &#60;br /&#62; 00:58, 27 September 2012 (UTC)

Pre-mortum pics?
Are there any pre-mortum pics of Jesse Washington? -- Zanimum (talk) 18:08, 25 September 2012 (UTC)
 * Not that I know of, unfortunately--I don't recall seeing any in the sources. Photography was not very common around that time, and he was from a very poor family, so it's not very likely that they would have been photographed before his arrest. I guess they didn't do regular mugshots then either. There are extant photographs of Lucy Fryer, but I didn't include them since I couldn't figure out their copyright status. Mark Arsten (talk) 18:15, 25 September 2012 (UTC)


 * The first pic of him hanging from the tree is clearly post mortem. He certainly looks dead to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Newzild (talk • contribs) 05:16, 20 March 2013 (UTC)

Now a FA in Chinese Wikipedia
I have translated this article to Chinese Wikipedia here and promoted to FA status, and I want to thank User:Mark Arsten for his effort to write this amazing article. --Jarodalien (talk) 08:46, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Assessment comment
Substituted at 21:50, 26 June 2016 (UTC)


 * Patricia, how much was left of Washington's victim Lucy Fryer?66.141.235.58 (talk) 15:49, 4 October 2018 (UTC)


 * The entire body.69.138.196.15 (talk) 22:12, 14 November 2019 (UTC)

Source Links and Details
This article presents an interesting overview of the Lynching of Jesse Washington. However, certain statements could benefit from better source linkage. It is clear that a range of sources were consulted when composing this article, but each fact is not always referenced or linked, particularly in the beginning. For example, in the second paragraph of the opening section, there could have been links to the news articles that referenced the potential monument to the lynching or to the source that describes the lynching as the "Waco horror." The sourcing appears to be stronger as the article goes on, specifically in the description of the trial, but the beginning portion could use more attention to this in giving the reader a more detailed preview.

Certain facts in this article also appeared to be a little generalized and could benefit from expansion of detail to remove some potential bias arguments. In the opening paragraph of the Background section, it is asserted that lynching was tolerated by "much of southern society" - is there data that can answer the question of degree or what percentage found it tolerable? It was certainly a terrible and repeatedly used tactic, and some expanded detail could really emphasize the exact scope of acceptance that could have contributed to this horrible event. In the second paragraph of the Background section, the factors given to explain the rise of racism in Waco could also be elaborated upon a little more. What was KKK activity like in the area before the lynching occurred? To what degree were racial tensions present?

Overall, this article is strong, especially in the Trial and NAACP sections - very fact focused and well sourced. Making these changes to the opening and Background sections could improve it even further.Ktwilcoxson (talk) 17:53, 1 February 2017 (UTC)


 * This article is terrible, because it neglects or downplays first hand accounts and instead relies on historians 90 years after the fact interpreting the events. Let's count a few examples:

This is in reference to journalist Patricia Bernstein, who was writing in 2006. Why not use the contemporary papers instead? 2006 is a long time following 1915, and is clouded by history and cultural changes. So someone writing in 1998 has more information or insight than the people experiencing this during that time? This may be the worst example. White supremacy as a term was rarely used before the 1940's. Whatever the reason parents allowed their children to attend, it is unlikely due to blanket "white supremacy."66.141.235.58 (talk) 15:59, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * Bernstein states that the trial had a "kangaroo-court atmosphere."
 * The Waco Semi-Weekly Tribune maintained that a number of black Waco residents attended, a claim that historian Grace Hale of the University of Virginia thinks is dubious.
 * Many parents approved of their children's attendance, hoping that the lynching would reinforce a belief in white supremacy."


 * Your other comments on this article repeatedly attempt to justify and minimize the live mutilation and burning to death of a human being over a period of two hours. And minimize the role race played in the barbarism and extremity of the illegal actions of the mob. I think we can assign your opinions expressed here very short shrift. Killing for killing is one thing, even the barbarity of extra judicial summary execution is one thing, but torture is decadent and beyond the pale and should not be justified under any circumstances. It is truly a sign of how barren a moral wasteland modern society has become that opinions like yours exist. You crudely mock people's horror at the manner of his death. Don't you realize that this is of course one of the problems with gratuitous torture as a method of punishment, the suffering honors the criminal and inherently centers that story, drowning out the victim. If he had been shot in the back of the head, no one would know his name. That wasn't good enough for Waco, they had to get more f-u-n and entertainment out of the killing, this is their deserved fruits of their cruelty. 69.138.196.15 (talk) 22:30, 14 November 2019 (UTC)


 * I just noticed the following sentence: "ceremony to apologize to Washington's descendants". Since he obviously did not leave descendants, this must be a misinterpretation? FunkMonk (talk) 20:40, 8 August 2023 (UTC)

Racially motivated
Was this a racially motivated lynching? Were any lynchings racially motivated? Remember that some 28% of recording lynchings were of non-blacks - a very similar proportion to the percentage of crimes committed by non-blacks during this era in the South. It seems to me that lynchings were mob "justice" - extraordinary primitive and barbaric for the era (hundreds of years behind the times by European standards) - but a form of justice nonetheless, and not the purely racial attacks they are now represented to have been.101.98.175.68 (talk) 04:17, 26 April 2014 (UTC)
 * "Were any lynchings racially motivated?" Perhaps you need to perform some in-depth research on the subject. Emmitt Till would be a nice start.--Chimino (talk) 02:39, 27 April 2014 (UTC)
 * By and large, no. Most lynches were due to the specific heinousness of the crime--this wasn't a robber attempting to gain financially and evade capture--this was a member of the community who brutally murdered an innocent neighbor or family member. America was very tight-knit back then, especially the more rural parts of it. Waco at the time of the lynching was less than 30,000 people so it still had a small-town feel.66.141.235.58 (talk) 15:46, 4 October 2018 (UTC)
 * This denialism is truly absurd, it's not like white supremacy was a secret at that time, it was the official regime and widely approved of by the white population. Somehow your are going to claim that race played no part in lynching in a society explicitly based upon white supremacy? Please tell me of any white murderer who was punished by being slowly burned alive over a period of two hours. It doesn't exist, where white lynching happened it was mostly a quick affair and they did not go through all this sadistic theatrics. I swear there is a portion of our population who are wilfully blind to an absurd degrees, I could show you anything and you would have as argument as to how racism has nothing to do with it.69.138.196.15 (talk) 22:05, 14 November 2019 (UTC)
 * So the authors of this article convey that they know for sure had the murderer been white he would not had been lynched. Astounding. Why not write all articles of whites lynching white criminals in a manner that would suggest racial motivation? Facts - throw them out of the window. Common sense - hurl it under a train. 84.58.20.203 (talk) 14:54, 4 July 2020 (UTC)
 * Delusional racist behavior. You'd probably enjoy yourself at one of these events 2601:8C:B80:6660:F026:FC16:B793:54B4 (talk) 14:34, 7 October 2023 (UTC)