Talk:Lynching of Laura and L. D. Nelson/Archive 1

Recent edits
To 67.10.149.207, I found some of your edits very interesting, but they were unsourced. We can't add anything to articles without reliable sources, so I had to revert the changes. Can you say where you took the material from? SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 13:55, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * I have added the necessary references from the US Federal Census Records which contain information on the Nelson Families from 1870 thru 1910. I would recommend going back through some of the information cataloged on the Nelson page as the information does not line up with what is available in what the contributor is labeling the citation, ie. the information they provide is extremely descriptive, but the source citation is vague and general in its report of the lynching case. Some erroneous bits I see off hand are that of L.D. as Lawrence, references to Carrie Nelson as having been collected and saved by a 'neighbor' of an onlooker, and the way in which things are worded which give the impression that they are fact, when they have not yet been proved. Perhaps we need to add a section titled 'Second and Third Party Accounts'? Please advise. Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Andrewhardaway222 (talk • contribs) 17:14, 9 June 2011 (UTC)


 * Hi Andrew, thanks for your note. We need sources for everything we add to Wikipedia, and we have to cite them. You can read WP:SOURCES to see what kinds of sources are acceptable, and WP:CITE for how to write them, though I'm happy to help with the latter.


 * You're also up against the issue of using primary sources, which raises a further complication. They're allowed, but they have to be used very carefully because of the high risk of making mistakes; see WP:PSTS. We're not allowed to add what we call original research to articles, and your edits had that flavour to them.


 * Are the sources you are using available online? SlimVirgin  TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:27, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Examples of the problem
You wrote:


 * While Laura's genealogy is not obvious, her husband, Austin Nelson, can be traced to his father, David Nelson, who is described on the 1870 US Federal Census of Meridan, Bosque County, Texas. David Nelson (c. Apr 1850 in Georgia) is living with his wife, Rhoda (Randall) Nelson (c. 1848 in Alabama or Louisiana), whom he married on September 16, 1869 in Texas. The couple reside with Rhoda's alleged mother named Hannah Randall (c. 1820 in Georgia) and have two children of their own named Delona Nelson (c. 1869 in Texas) and Mary Ella or Marietta Nelson (c. February 1870 in Texas). Of significance is that the Nelson surname in the 1870 census is written to reflect 'Wilson'."

Sourced to the census records. But how do you know this is connected to these Nelsons, and what is the relevance of describing Laura's husband's father's family, if that's who it is? What is an "alleged" mother, and which source discusses her in those terms? And what is the source for the last sentence i.e. who said this was significant; also what does it mean?

You also wrote:


 * "As yet, there is no concrete proof that L.D. wore the name 'Lawrence' and this has been attributed to third party's lack of research, much as the case with some reports alleging Laura's name was Mary."

Which source said this? SlimVirgin TALK |  CONTRIBS 17:35, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Charge sheet
Hi Prioryman, re: "The State of Oklahoma, Plaintiff, vs Austin Nelson, Defendant." I can't find any online reference to this, or to the name of the owner of the cow. Could you say where it came from? (I'm not doubting it, just interested.) SlimVirgin (talk) 03:03, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * It's online in scanned form - see . Prioryman (talk) 10:46, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks. The problem is that we have conflicting secondary sources (who first went to the farm, did the sheriff die of thirst, when was the posse formed?), who are to some extent feeding off each other, and it's hard to know which source is authoritative for the basic facts.


 * We have two key primary sources, apart from the photographs: the charge sheet you found (but it's on a personal website), and this account from the guard (currently only in Further reading): Payne, W.L. "Okemah's Night of Terror", June 23, 2911, in Hazel Ruby McMahan, Stories of Early Oklahoma. Daughters of the American Revolution, 1945. Impossible to know at the moment whether the online version is authentic.


 * If you look at the charge sheet, you'll see that Lawrence Payne was one of the complainants, which may mean he was one of the men who went to arrest the Nelsons. And then he was also the guard gnawing his way through the rope, by his own account.


 * There's also this, from the self-published Lynchings In Oklahoma: Vigilantism and Racism in the Twin Territories and Oklahoma, 1830-1930 (2008) by Charles N. Kiktode, but he doesn't cite his sources, at least not on the website. The same website had an earlier version from 2007 with different details (e.g. that a butcher's was broken into, rather than a cow being stolen from someone's yard, and Mary rather than Laura).


 * Another interesting thing is that the website that hosts the charge sheet has a slightly different photograph of the bridge. Here is the one in the article (it is no. 2897; Laura is no. 2898; Lawrence is no. 2894). The one on the website, with the number missing, is identical in some ways and different in others (there's a clickable version on the site here, but it won't let me link to the larger size). For example, look at the figures on the far right: two children on the website version, but adults among them on ours. And yet other figures are in an identical posture. The same image is on the Kirktode website here and it has a number on it, 2899, so that makes sense in terms of the sequence. But what is strange is that some of the postures are identical, but some of the figures are missing. So if both images are genuine, some people had time to leave the scene, while others remained frozen with their hands in the air (or whatever posture they were in for no. 2897). I may be making too much of this, but it struck me as odd. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Actually I've just blown up the images and looked at them side by side, and I can see that some of the people who looked as though they were in the same posture have slightly shifted their positions, so it makes sense now. SlimVirgin (talk) 17:05, 5 January 2013 (UTC)

The Crisis, June or July 1911
I'd like to try to find a copy of the original report from The Crisis in June or July 1911. April to November are online, except for June and July. If anyone knows how to track down a copy that would be very helpful. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:48, 5 January 2013 (UTC)


 * I found a brief account from July 1911; have added a link to the article. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:04, 5 January 2013 (UTC)
 * This site (Modernist Journals Project) has a pretty good archive of the Crisis, I think it has both June and July 1911. Mark Arsten (talk) 15:30, 11 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Mark, that's really helpful; it means we can link directly to the page. There's a bit of confusion about the Crisis reports. We have the July 1911 report, here on p. 99. On Google there is also this brief report attributed to The Crisis, July 1911. But I can't find this second report in The Crisis for that month or for June. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:40, 11 January 2013 (UTC)

Sourcing issues
Parking some thoughts here about sourcing for future reference:


 * 1) I'm curious to know why some secondary sources, including academic ones, call Laura Mary.
 * 2) There seems to be confusion about the son's name – some sources say Lawrence, some L.D. and others L.W. James Allen says L.W. and says his account is taken from local newspapers.
 * 3) The years of birth: I took these from findagrave.com, which I believe is self-published, so I've added a footnote to that effect. The secondary sources agree that Laura was around 35 and Lawrence 14–16. I haven't found anything more precise.
 * 4) A lot of secondary sources say the lynching took place on May 25th, but the Clinton Mirror report is datelined the 26th (published 27th), and The Dispatch report says Friday, which was the 26th. So I've changed it to the 26th for now. Note: back to the 25th based on an NYT report from May 26th, datelined 25th. The Crisis also said the 26th, though that was published later, in July. Will try to obtain copy of the Oklahoma Ledger from 25th, and also find out whether it was an evening newspaper.
 * 5) The historian who obtained the charge sheet and the appearance docket has confirmed that she was the website's source, so I'm happy to rely on them.
 * 6) Note that Lawrence Payne is one of the signatories on the charge sheet, implying that he was there during the arrest of the father; and yet he was also the guard who said he was overpowered and tied up, unless W.L. Payne and Lawrence Payne are not the same person.
 * 7) The timeline is still confusing. The charge sheet is undated. It refers to a theft alleged to have taken place on May 1. The father was convicted on May 11 and 12, according to the appearance docket. We don't know when Sheriff Loney first went to the Nelson's home, who was with him, how Loney died (bled to death during a gun battle or died of thirst), and how long Laura and Lawrence were in cells before the lynch mob arrived. Some sources indicate that it was weeks; the testimony from the guard, W.L. Payne (assuming that's what it is) says it was a few days, and Joe Klein's taped interview with Charley Guthrie says one night, according to Seth Archer. But the guard's testimony has its dates wrong – he says the men took the Nelsons from the jail the Tuesday after their arrest on the 25th, i.e. the 30th, which is wrong; the lynching was reported before then in several places, and the appearance docket has the father charged on May 11. So that document can't be relied on for detail.
 * 8) Lynchings would often take place soon after an arrest; when there was a delay, it was often because something happened to make local residents suspect that (their view of) justice would not be done. The delay doesn't make much sense in this case: the father would probably have been taken to the local jail along with his son, and moved to the penitentiary after sentencing, so he would have been at risk at first too. More research needed on this point.
 * Note: apparently there was a preliminary hearing for the son on May 11 or 12, during which not much evidence could be produced to support a murder charge; perhaps at that point certain citizens felt it best to take the law into their own hands. That would explain the delay from arrest to lynching.
 * 1) I'm satisfied with saying Charley Guthrie was part of the posse and the lynch mob, not just an observer. Joe Klein claims it in his book, but doesn't mention the taped interview with the brother for some reason; and Seth Archer heard the taped interview after finding it in the Woodie Guthrie archives. It may mean that the brother was the sole source, but Klein is unlikely to have made the claim unless it tied in with other information he had. Also, Woodie Guthrie saying his father was an under-sheriff at some (unknown) point is arguably consistent with the father being involved too, given the death of Loney, a deputy sheriff.
 * 2) I'm trying to track down the precise location of the lynching, and making headway with the help of off-wiki sources.
 * Note: this seems more or less established now.
 * 1) Also trying to get confirmation of where they are buried.
 * 2) I'd like to know where this quote comes from: "After they had hung them up, those men just walked off and left that baby lying there. One of my neighbors was there, and she picked the baby up and brought it to town, and we took care of it." Quote is from a woman who witnessed the lynching. Our source is Linda Williams Reese, p. 179. She has a footnote 46 at the end of the paragraph, on p. 315. It cites Bittle and Geis, Longest Way Home, pp. 34, 55–56, and The Crisis, July 11, in Black Women in White America, ed. Gerda Lerner, 1973, pp. 161–162. Check those.
 * Note: Reese took it from Bittle and Geis (1964), and they added that the woman said the baby was still living in the area. Still don't know where it came from originally.

SlimVirgin (talk) 00:42, 7 January 2013 (UTC)


 * Note: the above are either resolved, or most probably can't be resolved until we see the original news reports or court documents. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:09, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

RS - Sources
Terrific work on the article! but, Wikipedia guidelines say that Find-a-Grave is not an RS. I don't think adding a footnote that it is user-generated resolves the issue, as it blurs the effort to keep articles based on RS. I've moved these links to the "External links" section.Parkwells (talk) 15:50, 10 January 2013 (UTC)


 * It's not ideal, which is why there's a footnote directly after each use, but it's all we have for some of these people. There's no policy or guideline that says it may not be used; see Template: Find a grave. Also, it's not user-generated the way WP is. There's more oversight and people have to register and build up a reputation of some kind; I'm not entirely sure how it works but it's not a situation where anyone can add anything. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:11, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Recent edits
Hi Parkwells, I'm sorry about this but I've reverted your edits. They introduced some writing and factual problems, and changed the reference formats. I've spent the last few days fact-checking and copy editing in preparation for a GAN review, and someone has just agreed to review it. I'd really appreciate it if you could leave in place the text that was submitted for review. SlimVirgin (talk) 16:02, 10 January 2013 (UTC)

Date formats
Does anyone mind if I change the date formats? It's something we're asked not to do without checking first. It's an American article so we should write May 25, 2011, but it's neater the other way.

Compare: "Austin stole a cow on May 1, 1911, from Claude Littrell" (which strictly speaking should have two commas) with "Austin stole a cow on 1 May 1911 from Claude Littrell." If anyone objects, please let me know. SlimVirgin (talk) 01:49, 12 January 2013 (UTC)

Title
Several secondary sources call the son Lawrence, but I'm unable to find where that name comes from, and I'm thinking of moving the title to Lynching of Laura and L.D. Nelson. The further back I go, the more the sources refer to him only as L.D., as does the 1900 census, according to historian Frances Jones-Sneed. The earliest source I can find that called him Lawrence is Joe Klein's book on Woody Guthrie, which I believe was first published in 1980, though I don't know whether the 1980 edition is the same as the current one.

I've called him L.D. throughout the text, and in the first line I call him L.D. "Lawrence" Nelson. I also say that several secondary sources call him Lawrence, and the first footnote explains the confusion. It's possible that secondary sources confused him with Lawrence Payne, the jailor. The only thing left to decide is the title. If anyone objects to moving it, please let me know. SlimVirgin (talk) 03:39, 14 January 2013 (UTC)

Political message
The statement that "The political message—the promotion of white supremacy and black powerlessness—was an important element of the ritual, so that even the quieter lynchings might be photographed and the images published as postcards" is quite wrong. Lynchings were predominantly a form of justice. Nothing at all to do with race. Many white people, including women, were lynched. Lynching statistics broadly reflected crime statistics. Notably the article confirms most lynchings in the state were of white castle rustlers, not black people. The Nelson lynching was due to the murder of the law officer, not race. I propose the deletion of the sentence referred to.Royalcourtier (talk) 18:39, 22 August 2016 (UTC)


 * The previous sentence is: "Most perpetrators were white and the victims black." And the sentence following the text you highlight is: "According to the Tuskegee Institute, 4,745 people are recorded as having been lynched in the United States between 1882 and 1964, 3,446 (72.7 percent) of them black." SarahSV (talk) 18:45, 22 August 2016 (UTC)
 * That Tuskegee statistic looks correct; seems to confirm the text...Modernist (talk) 20:07, 22 August 2016 (UTC)

Conflicting Numbers - Women Lynched
The Seagrave book states on page 19 that 115 women were lynched between 1851 and 1946, and that 90 (79%) of the victims were Black. Seagrave reports 115 as the overall number, and doesn't appear to be selecting from a larger overall population. Saying Seagrave “highlighted” 115 seems to suggest he selected certain cases and ignored others. Then there's another line just before that says "at least 150 Black women were lynched between 1880 and 1965." If we take 90 Black women to be correct, the 150 figure is way too high – there were very few (if any) lynchings of women between 1946 and 1965, and 1880 is 29 years after 1851.

I suggest either removing the sentence claiming 150, or, if 150 is a legitimate alternate estimate, we need to make clear that sources differ as to the exact number, not just toss them together without explanation. If there are no objections, I’ll remove the 150 sentence in a few days and clean up the wording. The 150 sentence (and the corresponding source) potentially could be reinstated at a later date with a better explanation as to how that figure was arrived at. Tidewater 2014 (talk) 20:26, 15 December 2017 (UTC)

Citation templates
I'm considering adding citation templates so that the article can use sfn. Per WP:CITEVAR, I'm leaving this note in case anyone has objections. SarahSV (talk) 19:05, 26 April 2018 (UTC)

Was this a railroad bridge?
I removed the description of the bridge as a railroad bridge. The photos show a bridge that is lighter construction, more like a wagon bridge. The 1900 and 1967 topo maps do not show a railroad in this area. The 1967 map shows an abandoned rail line several miles east of this location running SE to NW. Railroad bridges were sometimes the site of hangings but they were not the only type used.

Anyone have a contemporary source for this being a railroad bridge? TBoaN (talk) 05:20, 8 July 2019 (UTC)
 * Hi TBoaN, thanks for spotting and fixing it. SarahSV (talk) 17:17, 11 July 2019 (UTC)