Talk:Memphis massacre of 1866

Riots or Massacre?
A historical marker has been placed in Memphis to recall this tragic event. Notably, in the title of the marker it is not referred to as the "Memphis Riots of 1866" but as the "1866 Memphis Massacre." Should this article be renamed to reflect current usage? --Potosino (talk) 23:04, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * See article here: http://www.npr.org/sections/codeswitch/2016/05/02/476450908/in-memphis-a-divide-over-how-to-remember-a-massacre-150-years-later


 * Are you suggesting that one marker represents "current usage"? It's rare in books.   Certainly books don't cap it that way: .  Nor is there any suggestion in the marker or the article that would suggest caps.  So maybe 1866 Memphis massacre; but probably not.   Dicklyon (talk) 23:26, 2 May 2016 (UTC)


 * Significant source refers to event as a massacre: . to my estimation, changing the title is a good example of . (Reasoning: returns agency to populations affected by using terminology reflecting current understanding rather than historic bias) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.169.3.4 (talk) 15:31, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with the above "unsigned" position of 3 May 2017. These are two worthy points yet they have remained unanswered. In addition to the "significant source" mentioned by "unsigned" one could add this 2016 article in The Atlantic and this Google Scholar search which is pertinent to current usage. The vast majority of these usages apply caps ("Memphis Massacre"). Even the most recent book on the incident by Stephen Ash (cited as a source in the Wikipedia entry) includes "Massacre" in the title: "A Massacre in Memphis: The Race Riot That Shook the Nation One Year After the Civil War." One quote from the Congressional Report of 1866 (also cited as a source in the Wikipedia entry) suffices to demonstrate that even at the time, "massacre" was seen as a reasonable description: "Like the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the Memphis massacre had the sanction of official authority" (p. 34). Finally, Two scholars working on this project wrote: "...what happened in Memphis in May 1866 was a massacre and not a “riot,” the term long favored by white supremacists and Confederate apologists. ...It was a massacre, pure and simple. And it is as a massacre that Americans need to recall these events."

None of this is to say that "Massacre" is the only term that has been used nor the predominant term historically only that (1) there are social implications for choosing "riots," "race riots," or "massacre," (2) one can easily find material and historical justification for calling it a massacre, (3) because of the racial bias historically used to downplay white racism and lop-sided killings such as these, it seems to me ethically compelling to use "Massacre" rather than "riots".

Subsequently, I argue to change the title to reflect this and "Memphis Riots of 1866" ought to redirect to the new title "Memphis Massacre of 1866". As "Memphis Massacre" with and without caps is already used in the entry, this ought to be uncontroversial.

At the very least, I would like to see additional arguments not to do so countering both what unsigned and myself have said (without simply repeating what Dicklyon has already written). If scholars are insisting on "Massacre" then we need more than political (or Wikipedian) inertia to justify keeping "riots." --AnthonyTF (talk)

Move discussion in progress
There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:Tulsa race riot which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 02:45, 21 April 2017 (UTC)

The army took back their arms?
Under the heading "The day before the riots" the page says about the soldiers mustered out on April 30 that "the Army took back their weapons, but some of the men had gained private ones" There are no references for this paragraph but it reads very much like the source provided elsewhere: "Art Carden and Christopher J. Coyne, "An Unrighteous Piece of Business: A New Institutional Analysis of the Memphis Riot of 1866". But that source says of the soldiers mustered out that "They had been allowed to keep their side arms ... while waiting to be paid (U.S. House 1866: 6)". I ask because it relates to the subsequent incidents according to two sources cited throughout this page. They are quoted in the references as saying that: Ryan, 1977, pp. 247–248: "the city police, invaded the black community under pretext of seeking arms" and Hardwick, 1993: "Under the pretext of searching for arms, and led by policemen and local community leaders, these men entered the homes of many blacks...". I've only seen the Carden and Coyne source, so I'm not prepared to change anything on the page itself, but is there a source that clarifies this? alacarte (talk) 17:42, 27 December 2019 (UTC)