Talk:Negro Election Day

Proposal of major edits for historical completeness 2015-24-4
This article needs a substantial revision, since, other than one context-free sentence without citation, it implies that Negro Election Day was only celebrated by New England's slaves. This is false - black New Englanders observed Negro Election Day after New England abolished slavery. For instance, black Bostonians in the antebellum period held wild celebrations on Boston Common, and after the economy tanked found themselves assaulted by white youths. So there's a lot more history here than "some fun things New England's slaves did."

But this is too much of a project for a Friday night on a mobile phone :) I'll come back to this, logged in and with a few quite solid citations. But I'm not a historian and this article could use some attention from the community.

needs rewrite
the writing is horrid here, and confusing beyond words. the idea that the person elected was a liaison to the white community should be up around sentence one, not buried 3 paragraphs later! it is unclear up until that point what the position even IS.

and uses of "king" should probably be in quotes. we all know what a king is. for some suburb of boston to declare someone "king" at an annual picnic is a far cry from an actual king back in africa or elsewhere. especially when the first example given of someone elected here was supposedly a child of royalty! just pure coincidence?! any casual reader would think the election was perhaps specifically among those sporting some sort of actual royal lineage.

also, some mention should be made regarding "black" vs "negro". the one in salem massachusetts (the oldest/largest, i believe) has for years been called the "black picnic" until activists found that offensive. they have recently reclaimed the names "negro election" and "negro parade" and get quite annoyed with anyone using "black" now.

so the opening sentences here saying this whole thing involves "black" persons is now somewhat taboo. as a white person, i'm still not comfortable with saying "election of a negro" or "holiday which negroes celebrate", etc, but if those involved say that's preferable, who am i to argue?

lastly, some clarity is needed re slaves vs freemen. to say that most of those elected were slaves seems rather unlikely in a region which shook off slavery so early. most of new england outlawed it around 1790; what are the odds that participants/candidates in these celebrations in, say, 1840, were "mostly slaves"?!

granted, when it started in 1741 this may have applied, but that's not what the article says! it's talking about ongoing celebrations up to the civil war and beyond. 2601:18A:8080:EA60:E040:62C3:96EB:80EB (talk) 02:12, 20 July 2024 (UTC)