Wikipedia:Peer review/Atlanta Compromise/archive1

Atlanta Compromise

I've listed this article for peer review because I'm planning on nominating it for Featured Article status in the future. Hoping for a review that focuses on prose and Manual of Style issues.

Thanks, Noleander (talk) 16:59, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Hi! So am not an expert on the FA review process or the MoS, but I'll try to cover prose stuff. Grammar corrections in red, prose suggestions in orange.

• The Atlanta Compromise was a proposal made in 1895 by African American leader Booker T. Washington, who suggested that Southern blacks should accept segregation and refrain from campaigning for equal rights (including the right to vote), and – in exchange – they would be permitted to own property, would have employment, and would receive free basic education and vocational training.—I think single-sentence paragraphs are usually discouraged per MOS:PARA. This one is also a bit unwieldy. Maybe consider splitting into multiple sentences, like so:

  The Atlanta Compromise was a proposal made in 1895 by African American leader Booker T. Washington. Washington's proposal called for Southern blacks to accept segregation and refrain from campaigning for equal rights, including the right to vote. In exchange, Washington proposed that they be granted property rights, employment opportunities, and free basic education and vocational training.

  • I'm actually noticing a few sentences like this. Consider merging some standalone sentences into adjacent paragraphs.
• Ultimately, it did not end segregation, nor produce equal rights for Southern blacks – those goals were not achieved until the civil rights movement of the 1960s.—Could also be split into two sentences.
• Slavery was brought to an end in the United States during and after the Civil War, first with the Emancipation Proclamation, and then the Thirteenth Amendment.—Maybe pedantic, but slavery is actually still legal in some circumstances in the United States under the Thirteenth Amendment, which permits involuntary servitude "as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". Perhaps this could be covered in a footnote. This sentence is also a bit hard to follow. Maybe try something like this (if you can find the evidence to substantiate it):

  The Emancipation Proclamation, which took place during the American Civil War, freed all slaves living in the Confederate States. Subsequently, slavery was abolished nationwide by the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment.

• Starting around 1877, progress made during the Reconstruction Era was reversed by Southern states, as white Southerners gained more political power at the state and federal levels.
• From 1877 to 1908...—I maybe be misinterpreting the MoS, but per MOS:DATERANGE, this should be 1877–1908, no?
• Hence, Washington's strategy for improving life for Southern blacks primarily involved developing the black community's economic infrastructure.
• ...leaving a power vacuum...—Maybe could specify "a power vacuum in the black community", if that is what is meant, for precision.
• The address was delivered to a segregated audience of blacks and whites, and was delivered in less than ten minutes.[4][14][15][16][17]—Might be approaching citation overkill here. Maybe you could use the sfnm template per WP:CITEMERGE.
  • A few instances of this.

@Spookyaki: I used to use a lot of merged cites (sources individually bulleted within a single cite); but in an FA review about 6 months ago, a reviewer objected (cuz that approach prevents a single cite from being used 2 or more places in the article) so since then I've always gone with individual cites per source. I first studied other FA articles and, indeed, many of them have up to 4 or 5 cites for a single sentence. But I never saw an FA article with more than about a dozen 4+ cite groups. Noleander (talk) 14:54, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

• The Atlanta Compromise was Washington's solution to what was then called "the Negro problem": a phrase used to refer to the dismal economic and social and conditions of blacks, and the tense relationship between black and whites in the post-Reconstruction South.}—"The Negro Problem" is a bit of a loaded term, and probably shouldn't be presented at face value.
• The essence of the Compromise was a bargain: blacks would remain peaceful, tolerate segregation, refrain from demanding equal rights, refrain from holding political office, avoid college education, and provide a dependable workforce for Southern industry and agriculture; and – in exchange – whites would offer job opportunities, permit blacks to own property and homes, build schools for children, and create vocational institutes to give blacks the skills needed in the Southern economy.—This should probably be split into two sentences. If it's going to remain one sentence, "and" should not come after the semicolon (as indicated).
• Addressing blacks, Washington encouraged them to focus on manual labor, and accept it as their fate for the near future, claiming that "No race can prosper..."
• Washington also urged Southern blacks to remain in their home states, and avoid the temptation to move to Northern states, repeatedly emphasizing the phrase "Cast down your bucket where you are."
• Instead, it promoted the construction or expansion of vocational schools (such as Tuskegee Institute and Hampton Institute) to produce nurses, teamsters, farmers, housekeepers, factory workers, repairmen, teachers, cooks, and other tradespeople to support Southern agriculture and industry.
  • Maybe link teamsters.
• The Atlanta Compromise rejected any notion of integration in transportation, education, recreation, or social life.
• The phrase "Atlanta Compromise" was not coined until eight years after the address, by Du Bois in his 1903 essay "Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others", which was published in his book The Souls of Black Folk.
• However, other African American leaders disagreed with the Compromise, including members of the American Negro Academy, which in the late 1890s fought against segregation.
• The Academy raised objections to the 1896 Supreme Court case Plessy v. Ferguson , which legalized segregation by endorsing a "separate but equal" doctrine.
• Opponents included northern intellectual W. E. B. Du Bois, then a professor at Atlanta University; William Calvin Chase; and William Monroe Trotter, a Boston activist who in 1901 founded the Boston Guardian newspaper as a platform for radical activism.
• Trotter lived in New England, and in 1899, he observed that conditions in the South were growing worse, and that Southern-style racism was creeping into the Northern states.
  • Maybe link New England also.
• In July 1903, Trotter orchestrated a confrontation with Washington in Boston, a stronghold of activism. This resulted in a minor melee and the arrest of Trotter and others. The event garnered national headlines.
• Maybe link Harvard University.
• Northern blacks had relatively more freedom than those in the South, and were more willing to fight for equal rights. In addition, some of them felt that southern whites effectively imposed the Atlanta Compromise on blacks.
• The Atlanta Compromise failed to achieve its long-term goals of ending segregation or providing equal rights for blacks. Black Southerners upheld their end of the bargain by tolerating segregation and by accepting prohibitions against voting or holding public office...
• After Washington introduced the Atlanta Compromise in his 1895 speech, Southern states continued to aggressively adopt Jim Crow laws that formalized segregation in nearly all walks of life.
• Southern states prevented blacks from voting through constitutional amendments and other laws, which raised barriers to voter registration, primarily through poll taxes, residency and record-keeping requirements, subjective literacy tests, and other devices.
• Violence against blacks continued after the Atlanta Compromise was established. Over fifty blacks were lynched in most years until 1922, and lynchings continued into the 1940s.
• Race riots in dozens of cities spanned several decades, killing hundreds of blacks, including in Atlanta (1906), Illinois (1908), East St. Louis (1917), during the Red Summer (1919), and in Tulsa (1921).—Also some extra spaces here.
• The 1906 massacre in Atlanta was notable because Washington's speech was presented there only eleven years earlier. Du Bois believed that the massacre was partially the result of the Atlanta Compromise.
• However, starting around 1910, millions of African Americans began to move northward, many to major cities like New York, Detroit, Chicago, and Washington D.C.

Hope this helps and that you're able to get the article to FA! Spookyaki (talk) 23:39, 22 May 2025 (UTC)

Thanks for all the work: valuable comments & suggestions!! I'll implement them soon. With any luck, will be on the WP front page before the end of the year. Noleander (talk) 05:39, 23 May 2025 (UTC)

@Spookyaki - Super good comments ... I implemented all but two: (a) the cite bundling (details above); and (b) MOS:DATERANGE permits the word "to" when used after "from" as in "from 1893 to 1899". Thanks again. Let me know if you ever need a peer review again; or when RP reaches FA. Noleander (talk) 15:46, 24 May 2025 (UTC)

@Spookyaki FYI, I just discovered another way to bundle multiple cites at the end of a sentence, that is pretty clean. It still does not overcome the objection about "multiple sentences cannot share a single cite" issue, but it is a pretty neat approach so I thought maybe you'd want to know about it. It uses template:multiref. Example:

<ref> {{multiref

| {{harvnb|Hiles|2008|pp=52–53}}

| {{harvnb|Frankena|2006|p=639}}

| {{harvnb|Crisp|2005a|p=349}}

}}</ref>

Or maybe you already know about the "multiref" template? Cheers. Noleander (talk) 14:03, 25 May 2025 (UTC)

Interesting! I was not aware of that, no. Thanks for sharing! Spookyaki (talk) 20:29, 25 May 2025 (UTC)