Talk:Montgomery Academy/Archive 3

Segregation academy in lead
According to WP:LEAD, The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important aspects. The fact that this school was founded as a segregation academy is practically the only reason why it's notable. It's the only reason anyone outside the school ever writes anything about the school. It's essentially only reason why the school matters to the world outside the school. Therefore it's one of "its most important aspects" and should go in the lead. wants to remove it, and the reason given in an edit summary is: ''Information included in the opening summary is redundant (included in history section immediately following). The reference to founding as a segregation academy is prejudicial and not relevant to the article preface.'' But WP:LEAD tells us that only material that's in the body should go in the lead. Thus the argument is a non-starter.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:13, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

Plus, the IP address is owned by the school, so maybe you should read WP:COI about editing articles when you're associated with the subject of the article before you do anything controversial?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 19:17, 14 February 2014 (UTC)

alf laylah wa laylah My apologies, I would like to first state that I am not a "pro" at wikipedia. I wanted to make some changes I know should be made. The article about leads also states "Instead, the lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view;" I don't feel the inclusion of this is neutral; rather it feels predjudicial to assume it is an important aspect to what the school is about today. This information is clearly documented in the History sub, I am not trying to shy away from it, I am only attempting to make the lead neutral. Your statement that "It's essentially only reason why the school matters to the world outside the school" seems to be based on opinion with no source to defend it. I don't believe I did anything controversial. I did not remove any of the facts you stated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.83.254 (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Yes, don't worry. The fact that you're willing to discuss it means everything will probably be fine.  I'm basing my judgement of the relative importance of the fact that the school's past as a segregation academy is one of its most important features based on the amount of coverage the school gets in newspapers and books (what we call reliable sources, see WP:RS for an explanation).  Other than football scores and routine coverage, the only reason the school gets discussed is because of its origin as a segregation academy.  The argument you seem to be trying to make to keep the material out of the lead is that it's not especially relevant nowadays.  The technical term for that on Wikipedia is giving the matter "undue weight."  You can read about that here: WP:UNDUE.  That's the best case for leaving the sentence out of the lead.  I think it's due weight, you think it's undue.  Anyway, probably we're not going to convince each other, or maybe we are, but in case we can't, we'll just leave things and wait for others to weigh in.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 20:58, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thank you for reading this. I completely understand what you are getting at, the way you phrase it makes a lot of sense. I did update the lead to the format most other schools I've seen have. I made sure to use citations and relevant links. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 209.12.83.254 (talk) 21:26, 14 February 2014 (UTC)


 * Thanks for engaging on the talk page. The foundation date is good for the lead, but I don't think that the number of trustees is really important enough to go in there.  The accreditation information is fine, too, I guess.  But I do think it's important to mention in the lead that it was founded as a segregation academy.  It may be hard for you to understand this, but it's the aspect of the school that's the most important as far as actual coverage in reliable sources.  I propose that we replace the clause listing the number of trustees with a statement that it was founded in 1959 as a segregation academy.  Have you had a chance to read WP:COI?  It's important that you don't let the fact that you work for the place color your views about what's important vis a vis this article.  You can ask for help (as I may do) at WP:COIN if there are aspects of the conflict-of-interest policy that are unclear.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:14, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

I agree with alf laylah wa laylah that the lead must summarize the entire article, which includes the school's history. However, I should point out that this current discussion has happened here a number of times in recent years. The previous consensus version of the lead can be found here. Perhaps that could be a starting point for a new consensus?--SouthernNights (talk) 14:05, 15 February 2014 (UTC)


 * I think that's a good starting place; I'll make a proposal below with rationales.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:50, 15 February 2014 (UTC)

Why is MA notable?
This may be a good time for me to check in, as it were. I was party to the original consensus, which I never felt was fairly drafted. I have new material to contribute, and will appreciate dialogue on this talk section. alf laylah wa laylah, you stated, "The fact that this school was founded as a segregation academy is practically the only reason why it's notable." Two questions. 1) How do you know the school was founded as a segregation academy?  and 2) What makes you think that the circumstances of its founding constitute the only notable aspect of the 55-year-old school? Verdad (talk) 21:20, 4 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Two answers: (1) I don't know it. We don't go by personal knowledge on Wikipedia.  We go by what sources say.  Sources uniformally say that Montgomery Academy was founded as a segregation academy.  Thus our article says it.  (2) I don't think its founding as a segregation academy "constitute[s] the only notable aspect of the 55-year-old school."  I think it's "practically the only reason why it's notable."  This is again due to the sources.  There are two contexts in which this school is discussed in sources that are produced independently of the school itself: (a) athletics, mostly routine listings of scores, and (b) the fact that it was founded as a segregation academy.  If you want to see what a generally notable high school looks like, consider Deerfield Academy for instance.  There are whole books written about the school which discuss its history in minute and scholarly detail.  With Montgomery Academy there's essentially zero in-depth independent coverage, and what superficial coverage there is is related only to its origin as a segregation academy.  Now, I may have missed sources, and I could be completely wrong about this.  If so, please bring sources to the discussion that demonstrate my error.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 16:39, 5 May 2014 (UTC)

I really like the Deerfield article. Deerfield is an Ivy League feeder school. It is quite notable. Founded by Samuel Adams, of Constitution signing (and beer label) fame. Nothing to sneeze at.

I noticed a few things, and want to chime in with some observations.

The first is that Deerfield is 4 times as old as the school in this article. There will be less books or news articles about the Montgomery Academy. Neither you nor I can argue with simple math.

Deerfield is also in Massachusetts- a little state full of good schools and newspapers. By contrast, Montgomery no longer has a printed newspaper. What leads on al.com these days, I'm afraid, isn't good encyclopedic source material. :)

Say what you will. There is more written about Deerfield. There is more written about Deerfield this past decade than Montgomery Academy over the last 10 years, simply because of the differences in population density and - I hate to say it- regional differences in interest in higher education.

Nonetheless, the Deerfield article cites the school's own web page, I believe, 3 times out of the 22 references listed. This is to cover the "basics." The same seems necessary of the Montgomery Academy. That is, the "basics" include school colors, sporting accomplishments, rival schools, and- yes- quite a bit of school history.

You taught me a new trick in your conversation with IP 209.12.83.254. I love that "what is my IP address" site. I checked out Deerfield's edit history. I saw a 208 number. Being as 208 is close to 209, I researched it. Deerfield's article is practically curated by someone or various individuals on campus. I would go easy on 209 for COI... He's likely not a teacher, but rather a student who is distressed to read that the 1st thing to come up when he googles his school is a story about segregation. I suspect the source of vandalism over the years, as well as the open discussion about this topic is due in large part to this. What do you think?

I tend to disagree that the Montgomery Academy was founded as a segregation academy. I think the subject bares quite a bit more discussion. If you feel the school is not notable enough to have a Wikipedia article once it is shown the school wasn't founded as a segregation academy, I am open to the article's deletion. Though, I think Wikipedia readership will miss this article. I especially think this because peer schools, Saint James School (Montgomery, Alabama) and Trinity_Presbyterian_School have their own Wikipedia articles. I have no interest in deleting those articles.

The school doesn't have to be notable, according to WP:SCH/AG. --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Hey, that brings me to another question... On January 30th of this year, you edited the Saint_James_School_(Montgomery,_Alabama) article. It appears you deleted all information about the school's history, including gifts from notable prominent citizens because the information was "copied and pasted from the school's website." Wouldn't it have been more appropriate to assist the other editor, then, to cite the source and perhaps summarize the information rather than deleting it wholesale? Seems a little severe. The information that is left in St James' school history is similar to what we are talking about here. I hate to think there are 2 articles that have to deal with similar issues which are proving to be contentious. Verdad (talk) 23:23, 5 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Regardless of the reasons that Deerfield is both more widely and more deeply covered in independent sources, the fact remains that it is. MA is not covered in sources at all except for brief discussions of the fact that it was founded as a seg academy and named in Allen v. Wright and, additionally, its athletic program.  The reasons why that may be are not our concern.  There's no question that MA is notable enough for a Wikipedia article, since high schools are by default notable and as Alabaman high schools go, this is an important one.  You may not think it was founded as a seg academy, but until you have sources to say it was not, it neither bears nor bares more discussion.  Uncontroversial statements can certainly be sourced to the school's website or other self-published sources, but the statement that it was not founded as a seg academy is controversial, given that 100% of independent sources that anyone editing this page has revealed that discuss the issue say that it was.  If you have sources that no one else has been able to find that argue seriously that it was not founded as a seg academy, that's fine, we can put their point of view in here, but certainly not until you produce them.   As for your other comments, try to remember that the purpose of this talk page is to talk about how to edit this article.  That and only that's what it's for.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:00, 6 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I delete copyvio a lot. Sorry, but life is too short to always or even often fix such problems. I always say why and that leaves other interested editors the chance to fix it. If there aren't any, then it won't happen but if I tried to fix every bad edit I removed I wouldn't have a life outside Wikipedia. I endorse Alf.laylah.wa.laylah's comments directly above mine. Dougweller (talk) 07:09, 6 May 2014 (UTC)

This is getting good! We have synonyms, misused homonyms, and issues of contextual polysemy. We have a private school founded by a Bear. We have a public school named Bear. And, now, my grammatical shortcomings are laid bare. To be fair, alf laylah wa laylah, you typed "uniformally", which technically isn't a word. hehe

Since it was a stub, this article has always had issues. We have chatted before about undue weight. WP:NPOV, WP:BIASED, and is a recurring issue. I will always contend that opinions surrounding the school's founding bear no more weight than- say- relevant notable figures who founded it, or academic and athletic success, or the school's location on a major thoroughfare in an historic city, or the school's architecture, or (thank you) notable alumni. I don't think what I am saying here is controversial. (I don't think I am contradicting a consensus opinion that civil rights are good and segregation is bad.) I don't think the aforementioned information is so controversial that it needs to be removed, despite being sourced from the school's site. We see the same kind of material sourced from Deerfield's school webpage, that is not removed from its Wikipedia article.

I have two problems with your comment, "the statement that [Montgomery Academy] was not founded as a seg academy is controversial, given that 100% of independent sources that anyone editing this page has revealed that discuss the issue say that it was."

The first problem I have is that "segregation academy" isn't clearly defined. It's not in Merriam Webster, E. Britannica, Black's Law Dictionary, etc.- just a Wikipedia article, which alf laylah wa laylah and I have both edited. The current version being based on a major rewrite which SouthernNights authored 8 years ago, Friday. (By the way, my edits were reverted.) Are we to say that Montgomery Academy is this "thing", the description of which you are the major author?

Of course the school will pass the duck test. You are in control of how the proverbial duck "walks, talks and swims." WP:DUCK

A quote that I feel most accurately describes segregation academies, based on my interpretation, is from page 275 of Market Education: The Unknown History. "When US Federal courts ordered the desegregation of public school districts in the 1960s and 1970s, some white parents fled to the private sector, and new private schools, dubbed "segregation academies," were opened for the chief purpose of preserving white only classrooms."

I have nominated the seg academy article for deletion because I believe the term is a neologism. The main reason I feel it is a neologism is that "segregation academy" is most often placed in scare_quotes and prefixed with terms like "so-called". The WP:NEO issue, along with the lack of collaborative cooperation on the part of alf laylah wa laylah have bearing on the content of this article.

The second issue is related to our discussion yesterday. The reason I want to make absolutely sure we have the same understanding of the English language is that we need to have the same basis of reality in order to be able to communicate and collaborate effectively. It is not the case that 100% of the independent sources anyone editing this article has used to contribute regarding the issue explicitly say Montgomery Academy was founded as a seg academy. In fact, 0% do. None of the sourced material uses the term "segregation academy."

Let's take a moment to view the language of a couple of the sources in question, in full and in context.

The Douglas Quote:

Many of Montgomery's private schools that were started in the late 1950s were founded in response to national desegregation of public schools, brought on by the 1954 Supreme Court ruling in Brown vs. Board of Education, [University of Alabama Professor of elementary education] Sunal said. ''"Private schooling has a lot of history here and I think Southern history shows that one of the ways people tried to deal with huge changes in the public schools was to start a private school," Sunal said. "But not every private school was a reaction to desegregation."''

Archie Douglas, the headmaster of The Montgomery Academy, said the school was started in 1959 in what he believed was a reaction to desegregation of the public schools. ''"I am sure that those who resented the civil rights movement or sought to get away from it took refuge in the academy," he said. "But, it's not 1959 anymore and The Montgomery Academy has a philosophy today that reflects the openness . . . and utter lack of discrimination with regard to race or religion that was evident in prior decades."''

What do you gather from this? We have spoken about face value of statements. Do you look at this and think, "The school was founded as a segregation academy."? I don't. I gather from it that the recent former headmaster of the school felt that those who resented the civil rights movement sought to get away from it by enrolling their children in the academy."

J Mills Thornton's book:

''[Martin Luther, jr.] King's announcement [that the Montgomery Improvement Authority was making plans to have a large number of black children apply for transfer to white Montgomery schools] and the response to it badly frightened a great many white Montgomerians. Incoming Governor John Patterson used the occasion of his inaugural address two weeks later to warn black Alabamans ominously to "stand up and speak out now against the agitators of your own race whose aim is to destroy our school system. If you do not do so, and these agitators continue at their present pace, in short time we will have no public education at all.  Our public schools, once destroyed and shut down, may not be reopened in your lifetime and mine." The Ku Klux Klan's grand dragon, Robert Shelton of Tuscaloosa- a man of some influence in the new Patterson administration- promised that the Klan would use violence if necessary to prevent integration of Montgomery's schools, and the closing of the city's parks at the very same time proved beyond doubt that segregationist officials were prepared to follow through on their threats. The prospect of total abolition of public schooling, very possibly accompanied by Klan-led riots and bloodshed, therefore seemed very real. A group of white social leaders under the chairmanship of physician Hugh MacGuire scurried to meet the menace of school closure by establishing a private school, limited to "boys and girls of white parentage," the Montgomery Academy; it opened in September.''

Using these sources to say MA was a seg school is misquotation. --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

What does the passage mean to you? To me, it means there were parents who thought public schools in Montgomery were going to close and there would be riots and Klan violence around their children. So they opened a school and didn't dare integrate it. This doesn't jibe with the supposition that a seg academy is a school opened to preserve white only classrooms. True, the book uses the phrase "limited to boys and girls of white parentage," but only after it spells out a fear of violence and loss of school services.

To paraphrase the Allen v Wright case, and the Supreme Court justices' findings, Montgomery Academy was alleged by parents of non-students to be segregated, because it lacked a substantial amount of minority students; not for actually being segregated. A justice even went so far as to state the parents were "disappointed observers of the government process." No where in the case or justices' findings was the term "segregation academy" used. I would think a logical consensus would disregard a failed lawsuit like this. I certainly don't think we should make inferences based on the allegations of a law suit. Surely, that would be WP:BIASED.

Dougweller, deleting copyvio is great. Thanks for your service to the wikipedia community. alf laylah wa laylah is not required to spend unnecessary amounts of time fixing bad edits. But, if he is going to be a major contributor to a small set of articles, each of which connected to a singular topic, it would be polite to start a discussion in a talk page before removing most content, other than "_____ school is a segregation academy" on multiple pages. To me, it would make his edits a lot less controversial.

Verdad (talk) 00:18, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You'll have a lot better luck getting your edits to stick if you learn to discuss the content of specific articles on the talk pages of those articles rather than dropping ramblings walls of text laced with unsupportable innuendo about other editors. And if you realize that your theories about segregation academies are of no particular interest.  Sourcing is of interest.  Not your eccentric interpretations of sources.  And if you learn to use a dictionary.  "Uniformally" is a perfectly good English word.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:55, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

This is kind of what I am talking about. To repeat, it's like we are speaking different languages. "Uniformally" doesn't appear in the copy of Webster's Dictionary that I am using. This youtube video of a physics professor addresses the word "uniformally" and also the importance of bing humble and willing to admit mistakes: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mCdiPSA4Mhw  I hope we can cooperate collaboratively, which I feel means we can admit mistakes when they are made. No one is infallible.

The citations are clearly misquoted --Verdad (talk) 02:21, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

I don't feel the inferences you, and other editors, have made from the sourced material accurately reflect the information written in the original texts, as I explained above. I don't think what I am writing in the talk section is theory. In the previous (very long- so sorry!) entry, I explained what I felt the texts were saying. That is, I paraphrased the original texts fairly closely. And I asked you what your interpretation is. (I would still appreciate a response.) That is because it is important for communication so we can collaborate cooperatively.

I don't think my comments are eccentric. There are people who do believe things like- for example- the Holocaust and US slavery never occurred, or that civil rights leaders were wrong in their fight for equality, or were communists. I hope that is not what you think I think. Anyone reading this, please don't think that is what I am trying to promote.

To the extent that you are being dismissive of my comments on the talk page... And, given the fact we are not communicating well...  I fear we won't be able to collaborate effectively. I feel like, whatever I say, you will say the opposite is true.

What I am trying to ascertain is- if I make an edit- will you immediately rub it out? It seems to be the case that that happens in this article... That the article is whittled down to as little information as possible other than the seg academy assertion.

If I make an edit, are you going to delete it?

Verdad (talk) 20:21, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * How can anyone answer that without knowing what the edit will be? The best thing to do is to suggest the text you want to add or change. Dougweller (talk) 21:06, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The poor physics professor. All he needed to do was to look in the Oxford English Dictionary to find that "uniformally" is a perfectly acceptable adverbial form of the perfectly good adjective "uniformal."  Or use the ngram viewer.  Or trust his instincts as a native speaker of English.  The emotional damage wrought by the prescriptivist self-proclaimed language police is incalculable.  But back to business.  You've dropped about 20kb of text on this talk page without even saying what edit you want to make.  For God's sake, say what it is or make the edit. My interpretation, as I've stated, is that MA was founded as a segregation academy but that it no longer is one.  That's what the sources are saying.  Including the new one I added which says so explicitly and without scare-quotes (although I disagree with you that the quotes you refer to are scare-quotes).   And, by the way, your claims of being the innocent victim of others unwilling to collaborate are wearing a little thin given your years-long history on this talk page of dismissing sources for fairly idiosyncratic reasons and of accusing other editors of bad faith and sock-puppetry for no better reason than that they disagree with your eccentric interpretations of sources.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:36, 7 May 2014 (UTC)

Very well. Now we are talking. Thank you, Dougweller and alf laylah wa laylah.

alf laylah wa laylah, I wouldn't call my interpretations eccentric. I'm trying to take a literalist approach here, remember. Piling on sources stating Montgomery Academy has had little diversity in its 55 year history, or that it has been alleged to have been started to provide refuge for those seeking to avoid integrated classrooms is very different from providing a source that beyond doubt indicates the school was founded as a segregation academy. Heck, we don't even have a definition for "segregation academy" except an article which you and SouthernNights practically curate. So, stop it with the condescension.

"Alf layla wa layla"- Arabic for "1001 Nights"; "SouthernNights" would make a clever nom de plume...  Interest in the same articles... complete agreement in the articles' talk pages... The fact SouthernNights is responsible for the deletion of an account and takes credit for that account's contributions. Did you think I was unreasonable in suspecting sock-puppetry? You were either the same person, or two people with RL knowledge of one another ganging up on me. If I was wrong, I apologize.

I suggest the following:

Generally, the article needs overhaul- Something above a redline edit, but less than a complete rewrite.

The layout looks great.

It would be nice if there was a copyright free picture of the school on the article. Many peer articles have pictures of schools. If there are a few public use photos of the school, it is not harmful to have them here. They shouldn't be removed.

There is much, really, that could be added. General Tip #4 of the WP:SCH/AG states that we are supposed to avoid making the article a stub. "Avoid stubs. Only add schools that you are willing to do significant research on, and complete most of the generally required page sections. Don't automatically assume that someone else is interested enough in your school to finish it for you. Under certain conditions, very poorly made articles might simply get deleted and your effort will be lost." The repeated pattern here is that SouthernNights (first major editor) and Alf layla wa layla return to the article, only to delete most material outside the seg academy assertion. This needs to stop. Thank you ALWL for starting an alumni section. I have to say, that is uncharacteristic, and welcomed. We are still missing info about curriculum, awards, activities, and former headmasters and teachers. We don't necessarily need to go to strict definitions of reliable sources for a lot of this material. Because of CSD

Article A7 or the Criteria for Speedy Deletion exempts schools from notability requirements. That is to say, it is appropriate to have an article about Montgomery Academy simply because it is a school. We don't need to dwell on seg academies in order to justify an article about Montgomery Academy. I think it's fine to use the school's web page to get information about buildings, donors, student activities, etc. These things aren't controversial. Peer articles do this all the time.

The introduction/lead is lacking. WP:SCH/AG asks us to "Summarize the main sections of the article – history, alumni, buildings, etc." This article doesn't do that. It stops at history; and it uses a summary of the history to be what is in my mind "overly descriptive" in a negative way. I really wish we didn't have to talk about seg academies over-and-over-and-over-and-over. We shouldn't state in the lead that it was "founded as a seg academy" if it was only alleged to have been founded as a seg academy. That is a logical leap. It's inaccurate. We probably shouldn't state in the lead, either, that it was "alleged to have been started as a seg academy," because editors in the past have found words like "alleged" to be Weasel_words.

There is plenty of room in the History section to talk about allegations of lack of diversity. Allen v Wright is relevant inasmuch as it shows that "Over the decades, parents of non-students have been disappointed in the school's lack of diversity." Thornton's book gives incredible insight into the circumstances of the schools founding. I don't think we should go about making interpretations or jumping to conclusions. It would be appropriate to state in the history section, "The Montgomery Academy was founded by a group of prominent white citizens at a time when the threat of public school closure and Klan violence, in response to integration, was a real threat." But not, "MA was founded in reaction to BvBOE.(referencing Thornton)"

I would also want to add the following to the history section, "The Montgomery Academy admitted its first minority student in 19XX. (can someone help me source this info?) It always had a policy of non-discriminatory admission.  The first time the policy was communicated to parents in an official statement was in 1970."  And we could maybe say something about how the IRS began to require official nondiscrimination statements in 1970...

That's pretty much "it," so to speak.Verdad (talk) 23:50, 7 May 2014 (UTC)


 * My God, you're right about the usernames. And here I thought you were just casting aspersions randomly to gain an editing advantage.  How wrong I was.  Look here.  It's a drawing of Sam Weller, doubtless related to Dougweller, and it was drawn by Hablot Knight Browne!  We're no doubt all in it together.  While you're analyzing usernames, why not look at observation #72 found here: WP:OWB?  And while you're deciding what's "characteristic" of my editing, why not look here?  As far as the rest of what you say, it's hard to respond until you make an edit.  I haven't been able to find out when the first non-white student was admitted.  I certainly would have added it if I had been.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 00:31, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

So, ummm, yeah... I've asked alf laylah wa laylah if he would delete any edits I might make. Then he said I needed to propose the edits first. And then I proposed the edits. Now he is saying I need to make the edits that I proposed before he will respond. This isn't getting anywhere.

alf laylah wa laylah, you aren't cooperating much. I didn't say you need to research the first non-white student. I would just like it if someone with that information could help me.

1,001 Nights is also called Arabian Nights. I'm sure a reasonable reader might see how I would sense a connection to "Southern Nights." That's neither here nor there. Sock puppet, meat puppet, or not, it doesn't really matter, I guess. ¿Verdad? Verdad (talk) 01:53, 8 May 2014 (UTC)

Terjen Text
This is fascinating. I can't find the SRC text either. I think it's in here: http://mondale.law.umn.edu/civil_rights.php somewhere. It would be ticker-tape/ephemera at the bottom of a landfill if it weren't for the Mondale hearings. One of those links has it... None of them are searchable. Terjen worked for the SRC. "Organizing Black America" describes SRC as an interest group involved with pointing out inequality in America, especially in the segregated South. Good for them... I agree. But, we should consider the source. Nothing could be less egalitarian than founding a school no one but the community leaders could afford. That didn't mean they were fleeing Brown or Green.

http://books.google.com/books?id=56KH2aisL_UC&pg=PA556&lpg=PA556&dq=SRC+segregation&source=bl&ots=MVFSmfh4Q3&sig=VkrKmYO_cW196GuYv8Ipnpt7l2U&hl=en&sa=X&ei=CC58U4bBB86YyATLlILYDA&ved=0CGEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q=SRC%20segregation&f=false


 * What SRC text? Do you mean SERC SERS?  It's a whole different thing:  "The Southern Education Reporting Service, which was underwritten by an arm of the Ford Foundation and gathered news from 17 Southern states, purported to tell the desegregation story objectively and without concern for the politics of race. This paper draws upon extensive research in the SERS archives at Tulane and manuscript collections in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to examine the editors' use of objectivity as a political tool and, ironically, the activism entailed in a political project committed to objectivity."  Note that SERC SERS was essentially a wire service focused on Southern education.  Are you actually commenting on the content of this article here?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:09, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * sorry. Terjen is the author of the citation in the footnotes of the Yale Article. She quotes the amicus curiae from Gilmore v Montgomery in a piece she wrote for the Southern Regional Council, the successor organization of the Commission on Interracial Cooperation. You had said the SERS paper was difficult to find.  I remember now...  Terjen's article, in full, is very elusive as well.--Verdad (talk) 20:25, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Why do you think that? The authors of the YLJ article cited in this article are Jerome C. Hafter and Peter M. Hoffman.  I see I forgot to add it to the citation, which I'll do now.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:05, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * because I am holding the article in my hand and everything I'm telling you I'm seeing in the article. --Verdad (talk) 01:30, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Terjen isn't cited in this Wikipedia article. The part from the YLJ article, which is not by Terjen, that has to do with the MA is not cited to Terjen.  Terjen is completely unrelated to anything.  Terjen is not "the author of the citation in the footnotes of the Yale Article," Terjen is the author of an article that is cited in the footnote of the Yale article in relation to something other than MA.  Terjen is completely irrelevant to this discussion.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:42, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Southern Education Report citation removed
I removed this: as it's evident that whoever added it was looking at the gbooks snippet view, which is not acceptable, especially for such a contentious matter. Once someone lays hands on the article we can figure out what to say regarding it. It's clear that the only source is the snippet view because gbooks says Volume 3 is from 1969 whereas all other catalogs I've found have Volume 3 as being published from 1967-8, e.g. here and worldcat as well. Also the pagination is different from other searchable records, giving pages 122 and 124 in the gbooks snippet view but page 85 and 88 elsewhere, e.g. here. In any case, the source is not necessary to support the only claim it was supporting, which is that MA was a seg academy, as that's adequately and explicitly supported by the YLJ source.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:34, 13 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I finally got a copy of this. The citation information on gbooks is wildly wrong, but I've corrected the year, the issue, and the page numbers, so interested parties will be able to obtain a copy from ILL.  Also, it's a good thing I checked.  What it had to say is more subtle than that MA was founded as a seg academy, and definitely needed to be added in accordance with NPOV.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 21:24, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Yale Article Revisited
The text SouthernNights states is from the Yale article is actually from the Terjen text. The Yale article states, citing Terjen in unrelated statements, "The true 'segregation academy' is a product of the post-Greenera." Well, that's anachronistic to MA's founding... IOW: http://i.imgur.com/jKL1MHc.gif. MA was founded pre-Green. According to the Yale article, MA was guilty of being segregated because it was emulating an elite prep school which had prohibitive tuition charges.

It arguably was founded within the event horizon of desegregation. There's really no denying that. But, it was founded 5 years after Brown and 9 years before busing.

The way Thornton frames it, the founders' motivation was to ensure their children's education continued and the Klan didn't harm them. If we are going to say MA was founded with segregation on the minds of the founders, it would be a steep hill to climb.

Call it theory if you want... Any way you chip at it, there has to be a litmus test. Terjen's threshold is any school founded after Brown that is not diverse. YLJ's threshold is a school that is the product of the [post-busing] era. Other sources state a seg school is a school specifically founded to allow people to not participate in integrated education.

Tell me what a seg school is, and we can get deeper into this. The sources we have here... even the ones that cite one another... contradict themselves. Is the crime "being white and associating with whites?" If so, I know a lot of those people. All of whom would emphatically reject the label "segregationist."

Does that make sense? I'm not trying to be obtuse here.--Verdad (talk) 04:58, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * It makes perfect sense, although I don't see what SouthernNights has to do with the Yale article; did he refer to it? However, you have to see that the YLJ article explicitly calls MA a seg academy.  Explicitly.  Without hedges.  Your theories on what Thornton means but doesn't say don't carry a lot of weight in the face of that.  I don't know how to define "seg academy" exhaustively, but clearly, on Wikipedia, any school that one or more reliable sources calls a seg academy can (a) be called a seg academy in Wikipedia's voice if there are no dissenting independent reliable sources or (b) have attributed views stating that it is a seg academy balanced by dissenting views stating that it is not a seg academy in proportion to their prevalence in the literature.  This is basic WP:NPOV.  Furthermore, even if we accept your theory that Thornton says that MA was not founded to perpetuate segregation, even you admit that it was founded to allow people not to participate in integrated education although, you claim, this was not for racist reasons.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:04, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * SouthernNights refers to the article, yes... He "quotes it" for us.  Here's the problem...  He's not quoting the article. The article doesn't mention a single school by name.  The article does say, "a true segregation academy is a product of the post-Green" era.  That quote follows a section about pre-desegregation elite prep schools as "segregated private schools," distinguishable from seg academies.  Do we consider desegregation Brown or Green?  The author of the Yale article seems to think it's 1968...--Verdad (talk) 20:13, 21 May 2014 (UTC)


 * Also, I claim Thornton states MA was founded to avoid school closure and clan violence, not integration- and that MA asserts it always had open admissions. --Verdad (talk) 00:19, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * I'm totally confused. Which Yale article are you talking about that "doesn't mention a single school by name" and that  quotes?  Surely not the one cited here from the Yale Law Journal, which mentions MA by name, as quoted by me, when it is explicitly calling MA a segregation academy.  You said that Thornton implies that the klan threatened to do violence to anyone who practiced integration and that therefore MA was segregated to avoid violence by avoiding integration.  Like this: "Integrated school implies violence.  MA wants no violence.  Therefore MA wants segregated school."  That's part of your argument.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 01:03, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * The june 1973 article "Segregation Academies and State Action."  I'm looking at it right here.  Nothing about a single school.  The citations mention several schools.  The citation we are talking about- the one I'm calling the "SouthernNight quote" (though  probably was the one that referenced it.  Then SouthernNights "blanked" Alabamaboy and made everything so damned convoluted.) ...that quote is from the Terjen text.--Verdad (talk) 01:40, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * 2nd part of your question... "Avoid violence by avoiding integration?"  No.  Avoid violence by limiting to children of white parentage.  That can be accomplished several ways other than having a racially exclusive policy.   Why are we even getting into this question?  Is someone who aids a criminal at gunpoint a collaborator to the crime?  I thought this would be an obvious point to make.--Verdad (talk) 01:53, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * You're looking at "Segregation Academies and State Action" and you don't see that it explicitly and without quotes (scare or otherwise) calls MA a seg academy? Is that what you're asserting?  If so, it's time for you to read WP:CIR. As for who referenced it first, why does it matter?  I referenced it recently and supported it with a quote, not a summary, that makes it clear that the article explicitly calls MA a seg academy.  The paragraph beginning "2nd part" makes absolutely no sense to me.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 03:46, 22 May 2014 (UTC)

Nope. I'm looking at it right here. And it does not say what you are saying it says.

It includes information in the footnotes that Katherine Terjen did a report in 1971 for the SRC, which made it into the congressional record as part of the Mondale Hearings- which are fascinating. It also cites Gilmore v City of Montgomery- which is essentially the information as Allen v Wright for our purposes.

In the body of the text, the authors make no mention of any school. What's even more interesting is that they assert schools outside of the public school system were "segregated" prior to 1968 but that "true 'segregation academi[es]'" did not exist until after Green v Kent County. Are you reading the same article as I am (pp 1436-1461)?--Verdad (talk) 09:26, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * First, it doesn't matter whether a source speaks in the body of the text or in a footnote. That's a distinction that you just made up.  Second, I'm not a mind reader.  What do they say that makes you think that they assert schools outside of the public school system were "segregated" prior to 1968 but that "true 'segregation academi[es]'" did not exist until after Green v Kent County.?  I see one or two sentences in the article which, given your past history, you might have twisted into that statement, but, certainly, give a quote from the article that supports that statement.  Also, remember, according to you sentences which use "scare quotes" around the phrase "segregation academy" have less force than those that don't.  Finally, it explicitly says that MA is a seg academy.  Why do you keep ignoring that fact?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 15:18, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If a footnote just quotes another document, we call that a citation, right?--Verdad (talk) 23:59, 22 May 2014 (UTC)


 * So you won't answer?&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 02:59, 23 May 2014 (UTC)


 * When a footnote simply quotes another document, we call that a citation. Verdad (talk) 11:40, 23 May 2014 (UTC)


 * If you have something concrete to say about the content of this particular Wikipedia article I wish you'd say it.&mdash; alf laylah wa laylah (talk) 13:37, 23 May 2014 (UTC)

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Facilities
The Montgomery Advertiser for 8 Dec 1963, p 38, carried an article on the new Vaughn Road campus in which the design of the facilities there is attributed to to Ross Brown of the firm of Pearson, Tittle & Narrows. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.17.179.75 (talk) 20:35, 14 December 2019 (UTC)