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Flirting ?

The introductory section says that Emmett was murdered "after reportedly flirting with a white woman." Flirting is something consensual and there is no source quoted in the article saying that the woman agreed with Emmett's conduct. On the contrary, there are sources quoted saying that Emmett had a derogatory conduct towards the woman. Thus "after reportedly flirting with a white woman" must be replaced by "after reportedly having a derogatory conduct towards a white woman". Marvoir (talk) 15:59, 30 August 2013 (UTC)

I have reverted your edit. The dictionary definition for derogatory is "showing a critical or disrespectful attitude". Please provide references that state that Till had "a derogatory conduct" towards the woman. Gandydancer (talk) 11:36, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

I've been following the revisions of "flirting" and "derogatory comment" for a while. The evidence doesn't completely support that Till said something derogatory. "Hey baby" may have come close, but he may not have even said it. What seems clear is that Carolyn Bryant interpreted Till's actions--whatever they were--as flirtatious and inappropriate. The word "derogatory" is too limiting, and absolutely paints Till's behavior as aggressive, which isn't completely supported by facts. The editors who frequent this article appear painfully aware of their need to remain neutral. The facts will speak for themselves, and readers will come to their own conclusions. But let's not enable readers to come to the wrong conclusions by using loaded words that really don't belong. Richard Apple (talk) 13:29, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

The article says : "Carolyn Bryant later asserted that Till had grabbed her at the waist and asked her for a date. She said the young man also used "unprintable" words." That is well "reportedly having a derogatory conduct", more derogotary than "flirting". Marvoir (talk) 17:19, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

No it's not. But more importantly, that just shows your interpretation of the events. - Boneyard90 (talk) 17:34, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

And Ruby Bates and Victoria Price asserted they had been raped. Her assertions can't be turned into facts for the lead paragraph. This would have been a classic "he said, she said" situation were it not for the inconvenient fact that Carolyn Bryant's husband eliminated any possibility of there being a "he said" portion.

I'm not sure "flirting" is the best possible way to introduce the event, but I see no evidence that Tlll's words or actions would be unquestionably characterized as "derogatory". I could go with "made advances toward", or possibly "flirted and possibly made offensive remarks". Of course, one problem with the latter alternative is that "offensive" can be even more subjective than "derogatory". At that time and place, it's likely that many young white women alone in a store would be offended – and frightened – by a black teenager doing anything other than staring at the ground mumbling "yes'm" or "beggin' yo pahdon ma'am". Fat&Happy (talk) 18:08, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

Although I think "flirted" is fine, since flirting can be one-sided, or can be be done despite being un-wanted, I suppose there are alternatives: "spoke in a suggestive or provocative manner", "attempted to flirt", "spoke flirtaciously", "flirted using language of questionable nature".... - Boneyard90 (talk) 18:50, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

According to some sources he did not say anything, but rather whisted (wolf call) at her. Gandydancer (talk) 20:23, 31 August 2013 (UTC)

No, alleged sexual assault, according to the sworn testimony of Carolyn Bryant.Mikedelsol (talk) 22:36, 30 July 2015 (UTC)

It is completely unacceptable--given what we know about the falsification of C. Bryant's testimony and the long history of white Southerners claiming rape in order to justify lynching--to have the lead sentence of this article talk about Till's alleged "flirtation." ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 05:43, 1 February 2017 (UTC)

I changed it to "after being accused of harassing and grabbing a white woman". It had read "after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman", which is wrong on a number of levels. The preponderance of the evidence suggests that he was at least flirting with her; but it is not a crime to be "accused" of flirting (not in a modern, non-racist perspective anyway). Bryant accused him in court of the following (taken directly from the later section of the article): "Bryant testified during the murder trial that Till grabbed her hand while she was stocking candy and said, 'How about a date, baby?' She said that after she freed herself from his grasp, the young man followed her to the cash register, grabbed her waist and said, 'What's the matter baby, can't you take it?' Bryant said she freed herself, and Till said, 'You needn't be afraid of me, baby,' used 'one "unprintable" word' and said 'I've been with white women before.'" This account has been disputed and should certainly not be trusted automatically for the reasons others have cited. But it seems beyond dispute that she ran out and grabbed a gun from her car. Given that this store was mainly patronized by African Americans, it is a dubious assumption that she did so randomly in response to one particular young black man who had done nothing out of the ordinary. In any case, it was her accusations of harassing and grabbing her that spurred all subsequent action, so those accusations are the most salient in a neutral article in that introductory position. To put "falsely" anything is to take an editorial position. We just don't know what he did, and even if it had been exactly what she claimed, it cannot in the 21st century be argued to justify a lynching anyway. SlackerInc1 (talk) 02:52, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

I reverted your edit. Nobody accused Till of "harassing" Bryant, so you're engaging in impermissible original research by using the word. The "preponderance of evidence" shows, and has always shown, that Bryant lied in 1955. She finally acknowledged that ten years ago. Nothing that is based on her allegations and perjured testimony is "beyond dispute". You're wrong -- "falsely" is not an editorial position but an accurate description of the facts now known (even by white people) to be true. — MShabazz /_Stalk 03:24, 20 March 2017 (UTC)

Original research? It's not original research to use a word like "harass" to describe someone chasing a woman around, grabbing her twice, saying "what's the matter, baby? I've been with white women before". But even if it were, you say "Nobody accused Till of 'harassing' Bryant" even though the citation in this very article for what Bryant, in your words, "finally acknowledged that ten years ago" is from the Smithsonian article, which says "Bryant told Tyson that her claims that Till touched and harassed her were false and that she didn’t remember what had happened that evening." So although I didn't know one of the sources used the word "harass", and it shouldn't matter, they in fact did. In any case, you have not acknowledged some important points: (1) What Bryant accused Till of, however falsely, was much more serious than "flirting", which is not something one "accuses" another of as it is not a crime; (2) The 2006 FBI report (https://vault.fbi.gov/Emmett%20Till%20/Emmett%20Till%20Part%2001%20of%2002/view) says that multiple (presumably sympathetic) witnesses, local boys who accompanied Till to the store, acknowledge that they egged him on to talk to her before he went in, heard him whistle (at what is disputed by some), and then drove off in a panic afterward. So it is far from proven "false" that Till flirted with Bryant, and it in fact appears true by the preponderance of evidence. But again, flirting is not a crime, and she did accuse Till of grabbing and harassing her, so I'm changing it to "falsely accused of harassing and grabbing a white woman", and people can find the rest of the details of the disputed accounts of what exactly happened in the store in the section below.SlackerInc1 (talk) 13:19, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

One more point I had intended to respond to but neglected to. You said "Nothing that is based on her allegations and perjured testimony is 'beyond dispute'." But the only thing I said is "beyond dispute" is that Bryant "ran out and grabbed a gun from her car". This was attested to by multiple witnesses, and I have seen no account from anyone that she did NOT do this. If you know of evidence that this part of the story IS disputed, you ought to add it to the appropriate section of the story and cite your source.SlackerInc1 (talk) 13:26, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I'd say something supportive, SlackerInc1, but then the same individual who mauled and gagged me the last time would just do it again. 2604:2000:9046:800:E024:8CEC:F13:40F3 (talk) 02:04, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Later events

Can I get input on whether the following two "later events" should be added to the article? First, this source states that "Milam's and Bryant's stores, which catered almost exclusively to local blacks, were boycotted and within fifteen months all the stores were either closed or sold. Blacks refused to work on the Milam farm, and J.W. turned instead to bootlegging." The PBD documentary about Till's murder also stated that a boycott put Bryant out of business. Does anyone have a more reliable source than the one above? Also noteworthy is that Sheriff Strider narrowly missed being shot in the head while he sat in his car in Cowart, Mississippi in 1957. Magnolia677 (talk) 23:25, 29 April 2014 (UTC)

Hi Magnolia, IMO the Sheriff Strider info is not important enough to include. However, I feel that the Milam and Bryant info may be important enough to add. But I'd like more input from others before giving a definite yes. This effect was local, not national--would this really matter considering that there is room for only so much info in such a broad reaching article? Gandydancer (talk) 14:27, 3 May 2014 (UTC)

I think it is useful to include the info on the store being boycotted and their going bankrupt because the killers were acquitted locally. Other sources say the white community turned against them after they admitted to the killing in the Look article.Parkwells (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Why is Till's father's demise referred to here as "died" which makes it appear that it was the product of something natural when, in fact, he was executed for rape and murder in Italy? this gives the appearance of a whitewash.

Also consider that whatever approach Till made toward Bryant, it would be construed today as "sexual harassment" and might need to be referred to as such for a clearer understanding. — Preceding unsigned comment added by James Elixson (talk • contribs) 05:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

Which source says how Till's father died? How does it describe the context? It certainly should be included, briefly, if reliably sourced.

I think that the clearest understanding of Till's behaviour is by describing what he was alleged or believed to have done, not a modern interpretation of how such actions would be viewed in our particular milieu. --Demiurge1000 (talk) 18:24, 19 May 2014 (UTC)

(Insert)Agree -the insecure poor whites thought he had violated their mores and crossed a line in terms of his behavior to the young white woman; their lynching was extrajudicial punishment directed as terrorism to intimidate the entire black community - that was evident by the maliciousness and violence of the beating and mutilation before his death.Parkwells (talk) 14:33, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

this is in response to the query/ies about Till's father's death. i found an article in the Chicago Tribune, from 2005. it's not very long, but it gets into the context fairly well. the context around the army's racial issues, at least. (nothing around the "moral waiver" being given for domestic abuse/attempted murder, though.) but, i'm not sure why it should be included at all.

certainly there should be something noting that Tills didn't have his father around when a child. but i'm not sure why it matters what happened to Louis after he was absent from the family. i mean, it's an interesting story, but this doesn't seem the place for it. (strangely, the only WP article that talks about moral waivers claims it didn't happen before the 1960s.) i can't think why someone would want to include it here. well, i CAN think of reasons, but they are all "blame the victim" reasons. anyway, here's the article:

http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2005-09-25/news/0509250486_1_jim-crow-army-till-official-army

http://www.outsidethebeltway.com/join_the_army_or_go_to_jail/ Colbey84 (talk) 12:34, 2 April 2016 (UTC)

After reading this page in its entirety, I feel that it does a tremendous job of discussing the story in great deal, and describing its impact it had on the Civil Rights Movement. in light of recent events I believe that more information should be added regarding the fact that Carolyn Bryant admitted her testimony was a lie. It is touched upon briefly at the beginning of the introduction, but should be added to the end of this section. The fact that she stayed quiet for so long makes me question her motives for coming out at this point in time.Mattmorton (talk) 16:44, 2 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 July 2016

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Please change "teenager who was lynched in Mississippi" to "teenager who was murdered in Mississippi" because Emmett Till was not lynched. He was beaten, shot, and then thrown into the Tallahatchie River. http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515 http://www.biography.com/people/emmett-till-507515 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/till/sfeature/sf_look_confession.html

2601:588:C401:3080:A4F3:2796:20C3:4761 (talk) 21:03, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

According to Merriam-Webster, a lynching is when a person is "put to death (as by hanging) by mob action without legal sanction". That describes Till's murder. At the time of Till's murder, according to PBS, Roy Wilkins described it as a lynching. More recently, historian Christopher Metress wrote a book (published by an academic press) titled The Lynching of Emmett Till: A Documentary Narrative. I don't think there's any credible argument whether the murder was a lynching. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 21:22, 24 July 2016 (UTC)

There is clearly a more than a credible argument when the accepted definition of lynching stipulates that there is a component of public spectacle, which is not present. What you "think" is a matter of complete irrelevance here. The fact that Roy Wilkins described it as such makes no difference either. It doesn't fit the known definition of lynching. Again lynchings are public, not covert and the perpetrators took pains to hide the body rather than leave it somewhere where it would be discovered. Unless you change the definition of lynching to include all racially motivated murders. The two half-brothers who murdered Till could not be considered or defined as a "mob." A "mob" is defined as "a large crowd of people, especially one that is disorderly and intent on causing trouble or violence." Bryant and Milam can not be accurately described as a "mob" by any known definition. Again, the fact that it was a racially motivated murder of a child does not make it a lynching. (67.234.159.68 (talk) 12:36, 1 February 2017 (UTC))

Beyond the dictionary definition, which describes the mob actions of the most well-known lynchings around the turn of the 20th century, many scholars and civil rights groups have noted and documented the changing character of lynchings from the 1930s through the 1950s. The killers were trying to avoid exposure and did their work in secret, sometimes accomplished at night by a small group or a few men. In fact, the sheriff and mayor of LaGrange, Georgia received international coverage in January 2017 for their apologies at a reconciliation hearing for the failures of their offices to prevent the lynching of Austin Callaway in 1940, which was accomplished in the middle of the night by 6 men. They abducted Callaway from jail in the middle of the night and fatally shot him outside of town. Abduction of a person to another place where he is beaten and murdered, and his body is mutilated and hidden, does qualify Till's murder as a lynching. The outsize violence was part of the pattern of lynchings.Parkwells (talk) 17:47, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

restorative justice

In 2007 the community of Sumner, Mississippi and Tallahatchie County led by the Emmett Till Memorial Commission (ETMC) held a public ceremony of racial reconciliation and offered an official apology to the Till family. From 2007 until 2015 the ETMC raised over 1.8 million dollars to restore the Sumner Courthouse back to it's 1955 character and opened up the Emmett Till Interpretive Center in order to live out the original apology that stated "racial reconciliation begins by telling the truth." The courthouse is now open to the public and the Emmett Till Interpretive Center is used to continue the work of restorative justice and racial healing.

References

1. http://www.commercialappeal.com/news/sumner-mississippi-restoring-courthouse-upgrading-square-in-effort-to-make-peace-with-infamous--e-ep-326295951.html
2. http://djournal.com/news/emmett-till-opening-the-doors-to-understanding/
3. http://www.etmctallahatchie.com/pages/resolution.htm
4. http://www.npr.org/2015/09/25/443205842/six-decades-later-acquittal-of-emmett-tills-killers-troubles-town
5. http://www.emmett-till.org/

Semi-protected edit request on 21 December 2016

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

"Throughout the South, whites publicly prohibited interracial relationships (while indulging in affairs with black women) as a means to maintain white supremacy."

I have a journalism degree and have worked as a writer and copy editor. This is an informative article however the material in parentheses above absolutely does not belong in an encyclopedia entry. It is not a verifiable fact and seems to be more of an opinion. I consider the entire sentence questionable but have no doubt that "(while indulging in affairs with black women)" should be removed. 97.80.184.131 (talk) 08:11, 21 December 2016 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. E _C K _S A E _S  21:13, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

I didn't notice this edit request until now, but I just made the change. It doesn't require consensus, just a little bit of common sense and an application of Misplaced Pages's policies and guidelines. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 22:11, 29 December 2016 (UTC)

Regarding Carolyn Bryant's admission to lying

The article currently reads "The white woman, Carolyn Bryant, admitted to Vanity Fair in 2017 that she had lied.". This is incorrect. The same Vanity Fair article listed as the source says that, in fact, Bryant said this during an interview with Duke University researcher Timothy Tyson in 2007. In his new book, "The Blood of Emmett Till" (2017), Tyson published the part of the interview in which Bryant confessed to having lied. Vanity Fair then reported on the story. I do not currently have permission to edit the article but I think the original source of the confession should be credited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Adriobi (talk • contribs) 19:04, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Second sentence is seriously inaccurate

I understand why the article is locked, though it's sad that it's necessary to do so. Anyway, that means I have to come here to point out that the following sentence is seriously innacurate: “The white woman, Carolyn Bryant, admitted to Vanity Fair in 2017 that she had lied.” If you read the very article that is linked to at the end of the sentence, you will see that in fact

• her name is NOT now Carolym Bryant, since she has since remarried twice and it is not clear from the source just what her name now is
• she admitted her lie to Timothy Tyson, author of The Blood of Emmett Till (Simon & Schuster 2017), NOT to the magazine (and anyway, how can anyone say anything to a whole magazine, as opposed to the author of a magazine article?)
• she did so in 2007, NOT in 2017.

I hope that someone can rewrite the sentence to correct these errors, perhaps something like this: "The white woman, then known as Carolyn Bryant, admitted to the academic Timothy Tyson in 2007 that she had lied."

Strict accuracy is obviously important if Misplaced Pages's reputation is to be maintained, but perhaps especially so in articles such as this one, on a serious topic that has been, and (judging by the editing lock) continues to be, the subject of other serious inaccuracies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 216.197.170.130 (talk) 19:13, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Done. Magnolia677 (talk) 20:13, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Vanity Fair article

Should the new details from Vanity Fair be added to the "trial" section or to "later events"? Thank you. Magnolia677 (talk) 22:16, 27 January 2017 (UTC)

Yes. Thanks for bringing it up. Gandydancer (talk) 16:16, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

Carolyn Bryant Admitted she lied

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixbWTJDU7gA&list=UU1yBKRuGpC1tSM73A0ZjYjQ&index=5 84.108.48.51 (talk) 03:10, 28 January 2017 (UTC)

First sentence of article is out of date and unacceptable

My attention was drawn to this[REDACTED] article as a result of the 2017 publication that revealed Carolyn Bryant lied under oath about her interaction with Emmett Till (that is, she lied about Till "flirting" with her). So, I find it inaccurate for "reportedly flirting" to be in the first sentence. Yes, this did shape the discussion surrounding his murder and clearly has place later in the article. However, it is *incredibly* disrespectful to a child murdered because of his race to suggest that he was possibly responsible in any way for his death, which is what repeating the debunked lie about "flirting" in the first sentence of the article does. I see in the history of the article that other users have made changes to make the first sentence more faithful to the known facts in 2017 and these continually get reverted.

"Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman." — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tmerlis (talk • contribs) 17:38, 4 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Gandydancer (talk) 02:28, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

The first sentence is correct. This is what happened. Till was murdered in Mississippi after reportedly flirting with a white woman. Everything else...the funeral, the trial, the admission by Bryant 50 years later that she had lied...doesn't change the first line. Misplaced Pages users who read the lead section will see the chronological summary of events. Magnolia677 (talk) 16:12, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. Please consult a dictionary if the meaning of the word "reportedly" is unclear. — MShabazz /_Stalk 16:37, 5 February 2017 (UTC)

I understand the meaning of "reportedly." THE POINT IS THAT THIS PASSIVE VOICE CONSTRUCTION--BASED ON A STORY PERPETUATED BY THE LYING WIFE OF ONE OF TILL'S MURDERERS--DOES NOT BELONG IN THE LEDE. The lede is the place for the most important info. about a[REDACTED] subject. The most important things about Till are 1) His identity as a young murder victim; 2) The fact that his murder was symbolic of larger systems (racial terror and judicial lynchings) that characterized the Southern United States in the 1950s; 3) Those who ADMITTED TO MURDERING THIS BOY were never punished. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 02:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The first sentence does not need to include debunked ("reportedly") events. I suggest "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 by white supremacists." To quote Magnolia677, this is correct. This is what happened. Till was murdered by white supremacists. Neither Magnolia677 nor MShabazz have offered any substance to their insistence on reverting edits (thank you for the condescending suggestion that I consult a dictionary), while I and other users have clearly explained why this is a problematic first sentence. Tmerlis (talk) 03:09, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Either the first sentence needs the additional context ("after Bryant reportedly accused him of "flirting" with her, an accusation she later recanted") or the entire concept of flirting should be removed from the first sentence. ResultingConstant (talk) 03:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I have made repeat attempts to fix this first sentence. Among the tactics I have tried are: 1) simplification (just explaining that he was murdered); 2) adding additional disclaimer about Bryant; 3) adding fact that his admitted murderers were never brought to justice; 4) adding context about Civil Rights Movement. EVERY SINGLE TIME my edits have been reverted by those who think it is better to emphasize the (debunked!) and unethical claim that he was murdered after "reportedly flirting with a white woman"--these editors have also removed all other contextual information I have provided. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 03:35, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

If traction for a new consensus does not develop here, a wider RFC may be appropriate, but the key is that such a RFC MUST be neutrally worded and formed. ResultingConstant (talk) 03:54, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I am always reluctant to enter these sorts of discussion, but I must agree with what I think is the consensus here. Emmett Till was murdered after he reportedly flirted with a white woman. This is not outrageous enough for you? Even if it was true? Is flirting with a woman a capital crime anywhere? The fact that the "white woman" in question has finally admitted that her testimony was false (is there a statute of limitations on perjury in Mississippi?) can certainly be added as a postscript in the lede (and in the article) -- but the basic facts are that an innocent black man was murdered for allegedly flirting with a white woman. Whether he actually did, or not, is irrelevant to the basic fact that a heinous lynching crime was committed, and the criminals went unpunished. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 03:44, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

The lede, as it is currently worded, chooses to EMPHASIZE his "reported" flirtation WHILE REFUSING TO ACKNOWLEDGE the more important parts of the story (the fact that justice was viciously and pursposefuly denied by the Jim Crow court system. This is problematic and wrong because 1) It fails to fulfill the function of a lede--which is to convey immediately the MOST IMPORTANT SIGNIFICANCE of the article subject; 2) While you may think that this detail is not important, THERE IS A LONG HISTORY OF white Americans using accusations of black rape, African American hyper-masculinity, and white innocence in order to justify SYSTEMIC LYNCHING. Including this sentence is similar to saying that a woman who was raped "was reportedly wearing a short skirt," i.e. unacceptable. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 03:58, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

No, any rape is unacceptable (and illegal) whether there was "provocation" or not. Similarly, any lynching murder is unacceptable (and illegal), regardless of the circumstances. The "most important significance", as you describe it, is that Till was brutally murdered for some alleged social faux pas. The Jim Crow aspects of the case are thoroughly discussed in the article. And please stop with the capital-letter "shouting" -- your intended emphasis is quite clear without it. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 04:38, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Get a grip, Shanon, and stop shouting. The fact is, thousands—if not millions—of reliable sources say Till was murdered because of Mrs. Bryant's report that he had flirted with/whistled at/said rude things to her.

One new book raises interesting possibilities. The book doesn't dispute that the report that Till flirted with/whistled at/said rude things to Mrs. Bryant is what led to his murder. It agrees 100% with that account of history, because those are verifiable facts. It says that, for the first time, Mrs. Bryant has said she lied in 1955. Did she or didn't she? We will probably never know, because she gave the author an interview in 2007 and hasn't been seen in public since the late 1950s.

We are writing an encyclopedia, not a tabloid. We should continue to report what every reliable source on the subject says: that Till was murdered on the basis of a report of what allegedly happened between him and Mrs. Bryant. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 05:05, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

There are lots of sources describing the world as flat and that the sun revolves around it. We don't use them though because we know they are outdated and incorrect. ResultingConstant (talk) 16:41, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

With all respect: (1) 14th-century treatises do not qualify as reliable sources by any definition that I'm aware of; and (2) if you can't see the difference between your example and the discussion at hand, you might want to take a seat and just watch for awhile. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 16:15, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

I'll keep shouting until you hear. Till was not murdered because he flirted. He was murdered because he was a victim of SYSTEMIC, MURDEROUS ANTI-BLACK RACISM and the perpetrators were never brought to justice because of SYSTEMIC LEGAL DISFRANCHISEMENT of African Americans. The "reported" flirtation was the EXCUSE that the murderers used. It is important to NOT CENTER THE MURDERERS' NARRATIVE in the lede to this article because: 1) the passive voice use of the word "reportedly" gives credence to DISCREDITED LEGAL TESTIMONY while at the same time creating space for victim-blaming narratives. THESE VICTIM-BLAMING NARRATIVES helped Till's murderers avoid punishment and for years have shielded C. Bryant's potential complicity in Till's murder. 2) Some of[REDACTED] community has decided that emphasizing Till's reported flirtation IN THE LEDE is more important than emphasizing that Till's murder was part of a wider historical campaign of LYNCHING in the USA and a CATALYST FOR THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT. I strongly disagree with this argument and have explained why. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 17:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Keep shouting, then. I have news for you, though.

It wasn't "SYSTEMIC, MURDEROUS ANTI-BLACK RACISM" that snatched Till out of his bed in the middle of the night and lynched him. It was men, racist white Southern men, acting as they could be expected to when they heard what Till reportedly did.

PS - Where was your outrage when the lynching of Emmett Till was deemed not to be a lynching by Misplaced Pages editors a few days ago? — MShabazz /_Stalk 23:56, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

(Insert)MShabazz - I added a refutation of the "not a lynching" above - from the 1930s through the 1950s the number of big mob events had declined, but authorities, civil rights groups and academics have continued to define events that included armed abduction, mutilation and murder as lynchings. (regardless of the dictionary definition, which is limited.) As I noted above, in January 2017 the sheriff and mayor of LaGrange, GA apologized at a reconciliation hearing for the failure of their offices to have prevented the lynching of young Austin Callaway in 1940. He was abducted from jail by 6 men who took him outside town in the middle of the night and shot him several times, leaving him for dead. He was found and died the next day. The NY Times described the event as a lynching, no question. The outsize violence and mutilation of Till certainly makes this murder fit the lynching pattern.Parkwells (talk) 18:05, 25 February 2017 (UTC)

Because of discussions of Callaway's and similar cases, the NAACP in 1940 broadened its definition of lynching to include small groups of vigilantes.

I support removing passive voice ("reportedly") from the lede, and replacing the part about flirtation with the fact that neither his known murderers or his accuser were ever brought to justice. 192.222.197.155 (talk) 00:49, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

The testimonial fabrication - placement where it occurs in the narrative

So, was reverted with the claim of no need. That makes little sense. Purported false testimony is now integral to this trial, as it would be for any trial (you can't say one without the other). It also is nearly impossible to imagine the testimony ever being discussed again without mention of the fabrication claim (no matter what happens in the future) - it "needs"- or at any rate should be -- mentioned precisely there with the trial testimony (when we state the then "explosive" claims), regardless of where else it may be covered. I'm not picky about how it's mentioned there with a note or otherwise ,but it should be mentioned right there.Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Alan, I think you're right on this one. Gandydancer (talk) 16:47, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

You make a good point. Just a note that the section I added later in the article entitled "2007 Tyson interview" is quite detailed, and is worded exactly to what the sources said. It may be best to keep this more detailed summary there as well. Also, could we try to use the same sources for all three additions? Thanks. Magnolia677 (talk) 17:03, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Agree that this needs to go where it provides context against the information it contradicts. ResultingConstant (talk) 17:21, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Agree - it needs to be with the section reporting so much about what Till purportedly said and did.Parkwells (talk) 14:42, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Emmett Till lead sentence RFC

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The lead sentence/paragraph of the Emmett Till article currently reads : Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman..

Recently (interview in 2007, published in 2017), the "white woman", Carolyn Bryant, revealed that she had lied regarding the events at the store. “That part’s not true,” she told Tyson, about her claim that Till had made verbal and physical advances on her. As for the rest of what happened that evening in the country store, she said she couldn’t remember.

How should the lead sentence/paragraph deal with this updated information?

• A) No change.
• B) Remove "after reportedly flirting with a white woman"
• C) Include information in the lead sentence/paragraph which provides the new context.

ResultingConstant (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Survey

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• C, but failing that B. While the "after reportedly" portion is technically correct, it is woefully inadequate given updated information. Yes, there are hundreds of sources that describe the event this way. Sources which were written prior to Bryant's revelations. Per WP:BEGIN we should be giving a concise summary in the lead sentence/paragraph, which we are not currently doing. Also, per WP:RSCONTEXT newer sources often invalidate older sources. ResultingConstant (talk) 17:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• C, but failing that B. How about something like "... following a false report of flirting with a white woman."? Felsic2 (talk) 17:45, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• C - First para second sentence. It should be made clear that it was not known to be false until much later. ―Mandruss ☎ 17:51, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• A - Magnolia677 (talk) 18:08, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• D- None of the Above. (but failing that, B) This first paragraph needs to be totally rewritten to highlight the historical significance of Emmett Till's murder in a way that does not center the narrative of the murderers and their defenders. This survey does not acknowledge this option. The point is not just that there is new information about the lies told by his accuser--it is that flirtation does not belong as part of the lede "context" ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 20:15, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

+1 for that! The sentence as written, as well as this very survey, seem to concede that a Black teenager flirting with a white woman is grounds for lynching the former. It's not. Period.184.145.42.19 (talk) 02:24, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

I disagree with some of your conclusions, of course the main issue here is that the boy was brutally murdered and no one was ever convicted, but I'm UK and failing to tell me that the 'catalyst' for the murder was an accusation of inappropriate behaviour fails to deliver context. Let me be clear, even if Till had put one hand inside her blouse and tried to put the other up her dress (and nobody has even suggested anything like that), this would still be a brutal extra-judicial killing of someone who was barely adult, nothing could possibly justify what was done to him. However, failing to tell me what prompted the murder just leaves me puzzled. A few years later people were killed for starting voter registration initiatives. Knowing that one could be killed for encouraging people to exercise their legal rights tells me a lot, it doesn't justify the act. Knowing that Till could be killed for what is probably an extremely trivial violation of social-mores in that place in that time, serves to emphasise the brutality of the act, not justify it and knowing how a jury responded tells me a lot about how embedded those values were, or how frightened the jury was of being 'out of line'. Pincrete (talk) 13:29, 12 February 2017 (UTC)

• A It's fine the way it is now. Let the body of the article discuss the 2007 interview. A Quest For Knowledge (talk) 21:33, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• I suggest, instead, changing "after reportedly flirting" to either "after being accused of flirting" or "after being falsely accused of flirting". Putting it one of those ways makes it represent the current sourcing more accurately. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:46, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Adding: this is C in a specific form. I came here from the RfC notice, and was not previously involved in this page. I find it strange to learn that editors have been reverting such changes. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

And as I have observed the subsequent discussion, I want to add that A (no change) is something that I now find very objectionable, because the present language about "flirting" really does get it wrong. And I see no good reason for B (leave it out), because it is becoming clear to me that C: "after being falsely accused of flirting" is emerging as a preferable choice. (By the way, I appreciate the recent edit that changed "murdered" to "lynched", as that is clearly more precise.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

• D (in the form suggested by ShanonFitzpatrick, change from initial vote for C) Myself and others have made substantive critiques about why the first sentence should be changed. Only a couple of people have expressed support for keeping it the same in the talk page, though they have aggressively reverted revisions (changes along the lines of what Tryptofish suggests have been made and reverted, so that is a vote for C). The editors who want to keep it the same have not provided meaningful reasons for that position. Tmerlis (talk) 21:59, 6 February 2017 (UTC). Note that I voted for C in early February 2017 because at the time ResultingConstant was insisting that D was not viable, there were few participants, and C was the lesser of the evils. Note from my comments earlier in the talk page that I do not support including debunked "flirtation" or other forms of victim blaming in the lead (the current version of the first sentence does not have the word flirtation but is still is centered on the testimony of an admitted liar, Carolyn Bryant). In the intervening time, it is clear that many users in fact do support a more thorough and systematic revision of the lead even if though this poll was narrowly constructed to avoid that option. Tmerlis (talk) 02:38, 20 March 2017 (UTC)
• C While the current wording could plausibly be construed to offer no judgment on the veracity of the allegation against Till, it is unnecessarily leading. The current, accurate information - that Till was falsely accused - can be more plainly stated. -Darouet (talk) 23:38, 6 February 2017 (UTC)
• A or C Sorry, people, but the ten-year-stale disclosure of one person's 50-year-late "gee, I made it up" crocodile tears reported in a single book doesn't change the 60 years of history that have passed, the thousands of books that have been written, etc., none of which were predicated on the truthfulness, or lack thereof, of a young white Southern woman. Black Americans have known for centuries that white people can't be trusted to tell the truth when it matters, now white people are starting to see that for themselves. (What next, a U.S. president who says the news is untrue when the facts don't support him? You people elected him in November.) We knew she was lying in 1955,we knew it in 2007, and it's not news to us in 2017. What's surprising to us is that you think this is earth-shattering news. — MShabazz /_Stalk 23:48, 6 February 2017 (UTC) See below for my revised thoughts on this.
• C, but failing that B.Lynnkozak (talk) 00:37, 7 February 2017 (UTC) — Lynnkozak (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• I vote D (failing that B or C). There was never any proof of the flirting accusation, and that accusation has now been admitted as a lie. Rather than keep that lie in the opening paragraph, the entry should highlight the importance of Till as a symbol of white supremacist brutality and martyr of the civil rights movement—which is his primary historical significance. jonwilkesbooth 19:44 EST, 6 Feb 2017 — jonwilkesbooth (talk • contribs) has made few or no other edits outside this topic.
• C, specifically in the way Tryptofish has suggested above. If C fails, then A would be my second choice. SkyWarrior 04:04, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
• C - "Reportedly", to me, sounds like there would be truth to Till flirting when, in fact, he did no such thing. I would replace it with "allegedly" or "falsely accused" and explain to the reader later in the lead why the claim is false. I think it is ridiculous this is as big an issue to some editors reverting attempted changes. An innocent teenage boy was savagely beaten; he at the very least deserves clarity in the events leading to his murder.TheGracefulSlick (talk) 04:52, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
• B The "flirting" true or false is not the lead, and we should not suggest that it is any kind of excuse (true or false). Also the lead paragraph should mention the admitted murderers went free: Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14. The brutality of his murder by two white men, and the fact that his murderers went free, drew attention to the mistreatment of African-Americans. Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:07, 7 February 2017 (UTC) I would also support Parkwell's D, below. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:00, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
• C, specifically the version suggested by Tryptofish. That being said, A is not such a bad option, even if not ideal. ᛗᛁᛟᛚᚾᛁᚱPants Tell me all about it. 15:04, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
• C context is good.--TonyTheTiger (T / C / WP:FOUR / WP:CHICAGO / WP:WAWARD) 18:40, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
• C. Per the updated information/sources and in new context.CuriousMind01 (talk) 20:18, 7 February 2017 (UTC)
• C, using Tryptofish's varient, "after being falsely accused of flirting". That the only known witness has now recanted is certainly relevant. - SummerPhD 21:48, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

• A - the way it is matches the sequence of events and the preponderance of events to of the story. (And there was no specific proposed text so I'm taking 'good' over an unknown.) The 'reportedly' both indicates the situation at the time and does not state it as a fact so it's OK. To give the 21st century bits greater prominence seems both WP:UNDUE weight and WP:RECENTISM. This was a significant thing of 1955, the 2004+ parts should be mentioned but they're just not as important as the 1955 parts and the context then. Both the LOOK article and the influence of Scottsboro boys and Emmett Till for To Kill a Mockingbird and later Civil Rights movement seems more deserving of attention than the 2017 web yak. Markbassett (talk) 01:14, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
• D, but failing that: B -- the flirting accusations do not belong in this sentence, IMO. D is the preferred option, as the lead needs to be rewritten, as noted in the Threaded discussion below. K.e.coffman (talk) 01:43, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
• C, using Tryptofish's varient "after being falsely accused of flirting". All of the information and context, including that recantation, can then be added to the body in greater detail. Rockypedia (talk) 16:22, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
• C I also think C is best with perhaps Trypto's "after being falsely accused of flirting" unless someone comes up with something better. Gandydancer (talk) 16:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)
• C with the inclusion of "falsely accused", or failing that, B. It absolutely cannot be mentioned in the lead without language unambiguously making it clear that the accusation was false. Articles have to represent the most up-to-date information available, especially in the lead. Leaving it at just "reportedly" fails to capture the fact that the reality is now known for certain. (I would argue that this was already the case long, long before the recent interview, but it at least provides a good impetus to revisit the topic.) --Aquillion (talk) 01:47, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
• B + C - the lead should summarise the article, and "flirting" is just one of the disputed accounts of what happened as discussed in detail in #Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant. Propose "was lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14 after he reportedly encountered a white woman at a store." . . . dave souza, talk 17:26, 9 February 2017 (UTC)
• B or something closer to D (I think, but the choices are unclear) I agree with almost everything said by Alanscottwalker, that the big issue isn't whether he was/was not flirting (which isn't usually punishable by the extra-judicial killing of a 14-year old!), the issue is that he was murdered and no one was punished. Where I disagree with AlanSW is that I see no harm in including "after being accused of XYZ" per Tryptofish's first suggestion, since this is the motivation of the murder and a significant part of the narrative. I would point out that her later admission that she lied is not a retraction of the 'flirting' accusation, it merely states that the details are lies or exaggerations (ie he did not really boast of his experience with white girls or say specific indecencies nor attempt to put his arm around her). 'Flirting' is subjective (unlike saying or doing specific things), it is possible, even probable that Till said or did things which she (and the murderers) thought were 'cheeky' or inappropriate for a black 14-year old boy to say or do to a married, adult white woman (if he had said "that's a pretty dress Mrs Bryant", they might have thought it inappropriate, if he had smiled in the 'wrong way', ditto, who knows how tiny the real cause of offence was). Therefore a 'flirting accusation' cannot be 'true' or 'false', her specific claims might be, but not the general impression, which is subjective and 'culture-specific'. Perhaps 'flirting' would be better as "after being falsely accused of making sexual advances", which does seem to be verifiably untrue. Regardless, the 'shop' incident is merely part of the narrative, which, whatever actually happened there, is a bit of a smokescreen, the boy was cruelly murdered because he may or may not have offended a young white woman in a way that was probably very trivial. Pincrete (talk) 21:59, 10 February 2017 (UTC)(modified)Pincrete (talk) 11:19, 5 March 2017 (UTC)
• C Summoned by bot, but with less weight given to the "flirting" stuff, which is obviously not a reason to torture and kill someone. In other words, simply state the facts, saying that "flirting" was given as a reason and that this has been disputed by the woman involved. Coretheapple (talk) 17:13, 15 February 2017 (UTC)
• Strongly C Misplaced Pages reflects current knowledge, as it is reflected in the available sources. What we currently know about the affair should be included in the article. The specific information, i.e. about Till's guilt, is evidently of such importance that the information should be in the lede. Therefore, the relevant sentence should read in something like the following manner:

Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after he was falsely reported as flirting with a white woman..

Proposed additional wording in italics. - The Gnome (talk) 09:55, 23 February 2017 (UTC)

It seems to me that "reported" is the wrong word. It's not like what happened was a "report". I much prefer "after being falsely accused of flirting", and it sounds like quite a few other editors agree with that. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:56, 24 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree. You are correct. -The Gnome (talk) 22:25, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

• C, specifically with the "falsely accused" wording. --DavidK93 (talk) 07:41, 26 February 2017 (UTC)
• D, or modified C. I know the RFC offered us three choices, but let's think about this more. I also know the shorthand for how Till's lynching has been described historically, but let's step back. Let's use the Lede to immediately give more context. The fact that he was an outsider, at a time when conservative southerners felt under attack by the North, played into his lynching, too. The whites used him as an example to show they weren't going to be pushed around. The year before was the Brown v. Board of Education ruling by the US Supreme Court, which leaders of the white South had vowed across most classes to resist. So consider:

<<Emmett Till was a 14-yr-old African-American visitor from Chicago who was lynched in 1955 in a small Mississippi Delta town by poor white men who thought he had violated their Jim Crow customs. Two armed men abducted the teenager from the home of his great uncle, and brutally beat and mutilated him before fatally shooting him, and throwing him in the river. The outsized punishment was intended as a warning to all blacks. The two men were acquitted of murder that year by an all-white jury. The case galvanized outrage in the country and Till became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. In 2017 a writer revealed that the white woman who had originally claimed to have been insulted, recanted her testimony in a 2008 interview.>> I'm not saying that we have to write all this - but that the Lede should convey more of these facts, than just "he was lynched because he flirted."Parkwells (talk) 15:29, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

• D per Parkwells, or some similar rewrite that puts Till, his lynching, and the reaction to it in context in the first paragraph. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 01:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)
• C This seems like a no brainer to me and I don't think we need to make a big deal about it (the edit). Just adjust the wording to reflect the newly revealed information. Keep it short and to the point. Remember this is the lead which is for brief summaries of the most important points about the subject. The details can be filled in below. It looks like there is a strong consensus for this. -Ad Orientem (talk) 16:33, 28 February 2017 (UTC)
• D Agree with Parkwells and ShanonFitzpatrick. --John, AF4JM (talk) 13:59, 1 March 2017 (UTC)
• C The new information should definitely be added to the lede. "Reportedly flirted" is still true, because it was reported that it happened because of the flirting, it just happened that the reported claims are now proven to be BS. More context is definitely needed. ---- Patar knight - /_{contributions} 19:39, 8 March 2017 (UTC)
• D, but failing that: B -- "Flirting" does not belong at all. Flirting is not a crime to be "accused" of. As for "falsely", it's not at all clear Till didn't try to flirt with her. (To say Till was lynched because he was "falsely accused of flirting" implies that it would have been justified to lynch him had this claim not been false!) And she did in any event accuse him of something more serious: grabbing her without consent, which other witnesses denied and which accusation a historian has said she recanted in 2007. SlackerInc1 (talk) 15:04, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
• B per Alanscottwalker, and perhaps per basic decency. It doesn't seem terribly important what supposed infraction the victim was alleged to have committed—certainly not important enough to go in the lead sentence. In some small way, it could even be seen to lend legitimacy to the murderers' actions and the culture that encouraged them for us to place this information, however carefully worded, so prominently in the article. There were all manner of accusations that led to people being lynched in the American South, and it seems wrong to be so fixated on the specific pretext these particular asswipes decided to employ. D might be a reasonable second choice because it provides useful context, but this context really should come after the lead sentence. Also, the word "poor" in the phrase "poor white men" in D is potentially ambiguous and largely beside the point. Rivertorch_WATER 14:12, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

Threaded discussion

I have neutrally notified several of the noticeboards regarding this RFC. ResultingConstant (talk) 17:37, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

ShanonFitzpatrick While I understand your point, at this time you are unlikely to gain much traction for that position. As with many things in the real world, lodging a protest vote or not participating tends to leave one with their least desired option (which for you I imagine is option A). You are unlikely to get what you want right now. But you could have something better. ResultingConstant (talk) 21:19, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish Your suggestion is a particular implementation of "C" is it not?ResultingConstant (talk) 21:56, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I guess so, and have appended that to my comment. My initial thinking was that "C" was non-specific, whereas I want to make a specific suggestion. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

I am the one who requested this survey, in response to a round of changes that I initiated, so I am justified in articulating my argument about why the survey options are not adequate. My point is that the survey is PREMISED on the idea that something about flirting needs to be in the first sentence, and since I disagree with this premise (and have presented rationale and a range of concrete alternatives), I voted D. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 22:57, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

You are incorrect. Option "B" has no mention of flirting in the opening sentence. You are absolutely entiteld to your opinion. Just realize that your opinion is in the very small minority currently, and if this ends up being a difficult to measure consensus will be some weight in the pile of "no-consensus" which is effectively a vote for keeping the status quo. WP:NOTVOTE notwithstanding. ResultingConstant (talk) 23:54, 6 February 2017 (UTC)

(Insert) Parkwells (talk) 20:10, 27 February 2017 (UTC)I agree with ShanonFitzpatrick that another solution needs to be considered. I think we can get more into the first paragraph of the Lede by rewriting it. I suggested one approach in "D" above.

I am still struggling with this. Partly I think because I do not have the Timothy book (does anyone?). He was accused of something with a white woman, but his murder is horrifying (I think all the major sources agree), no matter the truth of falsity of that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:30, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

See also, America always knew woman's Emmett Till story was a lie Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:36, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker - you can look at google books, but I suggest it would be better to look at texts of the time or at least beforre that book, texts like the Look article (1956), or the A death in the delta (1992), the fragments of Behind the lynching (1955), or the FBI trial transcript. You're just not going to get much from a single source and not going to get the 1950s information or attitudes from a 2010 book. Markbassett (talk) 01:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I have read those sources before - they are not helpful for deciding whether "flirting" is lead sentence material. I am wondering what the new book actually says about "flirting" and how far up in his lead, because "flirting" is a very broad and imprecise word, and it's certainly not a legal accusation. If you want detail of accusations made against Till in the 1950s, the place to do that is further down, because what he was actually accused of was both untrue and not just "flirting". As for 1950s social mores in Mississippi or the south, that is not even begun to be discussed in that sentence. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, I concur with what you say about 'flirting' being imprecise and problematic. As I understand matters, the retraction by her is a retraction of the testimony she offered in court (ie no boasting about experience with white girls, no attempting to put his arm around her). As I understand matters, we are no closer to understanding a) what she says happened in the store b) what she accused Emmett of in the store c) what she later told her husband and the other murderer had happened. The false accusation is therefore in court AFA we know. Something happened in the store and we don't know what (except guessing that it was probably extremely trivial, but sufficient to enrage the whites involved). I'm not of course saying this in any way to justify the murder, because nothing possibly could. The story is a brutal murder, something Emmett said or did, or which they believed he had said or done, was the catalyst and gives context, not justification. Pincrete (talk) 11:44, 5 March 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, I agree with your take most of those I've seen here. She said in 2007 that she specifically retracted claims that Till harassed and repeatedly grabbed her. Framing it as being about a "false accusation" of "flirting" both implies that "flirting" is a crime to be accused of and that it would somehow even partly justify the lynching if it were true that he tried to flirt with her. Furthermore, taking the line that this all happened after these boys came in and quietly bought a candy bar (or whatever it was) may make it appear to some like something is being swept under the rug, which is the last thing anyone educating the public about civil rights subjects should want. No one that I have seen has disputed that the boys left the area in a panic (even relocating to different homes in some cases), or that Bryant went out to her car to grab a gun. It strains believability to the breaking point to claim that these things happened despite nothing out of the ordinary (for the Jim Crow South) happening in the store, especially when the 2006 FBI report says the local boys who went to the store with Till urged him to go "talk to the white lady" after they say he bragged of having a white girlfriend (they must feel bad about having egged him on that way, given that he didn't know how things worked down South--even though the actual guilt obviously lies with those who kidnapped, tortured, and murdered Till).SlackerInc1 (talk) 15:23, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

I'm not convinced that being falsely accused of harassing and grabbing is qualitatively different from being falsely accused of flirting, although there certainly is a sort of quantitative difference, a difference in degree of severity. But either way, it's false. Getting the perspective of the accusers right does not seem to me to be the primary consideration here. So going into more detail about something that is false anyway, in order to make the accusations appear more logical, strikes me as a bad editorial choice. On the other hand, avoiding presenting Till in an unsympathetic light does seem appropriate to me. Given that the emphasis, especially in the lead, should be on Till's importance as a civil rights figure, and not on a forensic analysis of the false accusations, I don't see much to be gained by trying to spell out the accusations further. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:30, 21 March 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish, point taken about wanting to avoid "a forensic analysis of the false accusations". So I'm not wedded to keeping anything about "harassing and grabbing". However, "falsely accused of flirting" is just terrible. (1) Flirting is not a crime to be "accused" of! (2) The preponderance of the evidence indicates that he most likely DID flirt with her. As he should have had every right to do. (3) The "recanting" described by historian Timothy Tyson is referenced in many articles, but there are only two direct quotes ascribed to Carolyn Bryant: "That part's not true" and "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him". So *what* part is not true? We are never given the statement of Tyson's she is responding to. Every source that quotes her, supplies their own supposition as to what is "not true", but it seems blatantly obvious to me they are speculating or making assumptions. She didn't say "What I said wasn't true", she said "that part's not true". Without knowing what "that part" is, it's wishful thinking to just apply it to everything she said. The second quote, "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him", tells us that she understands that his kidnapping/torture/murder was a vast overreaction to *something* he did. It does not say he did nothing out of the ordinary for Jim Crow custom of the time, and it in fact implies the opposite. So I'm open to suggestions, but again: "falsely accused of flirting" is getting way out over our skis. Maybe you could just end the sentence "...was lynched at the age of 14." Then people can find the details down below.SlackerInc1 (talk) 03:09, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Oh, come off it already. Go to the library and borrow a copy of the book, or spring for a copy, and read what Carolyn Bryant Donham told Tyson, not what a magazine writer says she told him (which has been mostly wrong, beginning with the date of the interview).

"As I sat drinking her coffee and eating her pound cake, Carolyn Bryant Donham handed me a copy of the trial transcript and the manuscript of her unpublished memoir, More Than a Wolf Whistle: The Story of Carolyn Bryant Donham. I promised to deliver our interview and these documents to the appropriate archive, where future scholars would be able to use them. In her memoir she recounts the story she told at the trial using imagery from the classic Southern racist horror movie of the 'Black Beast' rapist. But about her testimony that Till had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities, she now told me, 'That part's not true.'" (page 6) — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 04:31, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

I agree with Malik Shabazz that there isn't much point in parsing the falsity aspect of it. And it seems to me to be pretty obvious that a person can accuse another person of something other than a legally-defined crime (for example, someone could hypothetically accuse me of being a lousy editor, and that could certainly be accurately described as an accusation). So what we are left with is whether there is a better choice of verb than "to flirt". I'm trying to think what that might be. Perhaps it could be something like "falsely accused of making sexual advances to", and I guess I could go along with something like that, but I'm not seeing a compelling need for lengthier language. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 27 March 2017 (UTC)

Malik Shabazz's quoting of the book is very helpful and much appreciated. I'm still seeing my "falsely accused of grabbing and harassing" language as being fitting; but as I've said before, I'm not wedded to it. I do however think it's more precise and accurate than "making sexual advances to". But "making sexual advances to" is still better than "flirting", for all the aforementioned reasons. I also continue to believe it would be fine to just end it with "...was lynched at the age of 14." I'm having trouble understanding why so many people (or anyone, really) would consider "falsely accused of flirting" to be their hill to die on. SlackerInc1 (talk) 07:32, 31 March 2017 (UTC)

• Comment -- concur with the sentiment expressed above by ShanonFitzpatrick: "This first paragraph needs to be totally rewritten to highlight the historical significance of Emmett Till's murder in a way that does not center the narrative of the murderers and their defenders". K.e.coffman (talk) 01:46, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I'm open to that. I wish I could write well and I'd come up with something. I think everyone, well at least everyone other than plenty of racists, knew that she lied all along, but to have her say it somehow adds quite a new slant to the historical telling of the murder. Could someone take a try at writing something? Gandydancer (talk) 16:51, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Hrm, I don't know that I'd go that far. certainly there is no question that he was murdered, completely unjustifiably, and without even the smallest level of defense. And certainly the trial against his murderers was complete BS. But it is possibly that he (foolishly considering the time and place) did or said something that was perceived as inappropriate. Again, that completely in now way justifies anything that happened to him. But boys are well known for doing foolish things. And a kid from the north might not have known how strict the "rules" were in the south. Bryant's new revelations indicate that he didn't. But I don't think it was always "obvious" that he didn't. Merely that even if he had, everything after was still completely unjustified. ResultingConstant (talk) 18:21, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

You say: "it is possibl that he (foolishly considering the time and place) did or said something that was perceived as inappropriate." So, why do you wish to discuss "flirting" in the lead sentence, at all? It seems your argument is that it's possible he was "flirting", even if not in the way it came out at the trial. Does not the new information make the whole "flirting" scenario much more complicated, than an overboard and imprecise mention in the first sentence? The article I linked above, describes the accusation against Till this way: "She claimed that Till had grabbed her, made sexual advances, flirted with her and then wolf-whistled at her as he walked out the door." . So, that accusation covers more than flirting. Alanscottwalker (talk) 23:27, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker I was merely responding to your "everyone knew all along" comment, not pushing for anything in the article. Per my !vote (and creation of this RFC) I think the "flirting" should either be removed from the lead sentence, or at a minimum put into the context with the new information. Regarding your quoted description above, in general I think we should avoid euphamism/analysis, and wherever the "encounter" is mentioned, directly quote what was said to have been done, and of course the new refutation. ResultingConstant (talk) 15:31, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Actually, no. You were responding to Gandydancer. If 'flirt' is euphemism, it should not be in the first sentence, at all.Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:11, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Let's not act as if whites rationally apportioned punishment for violation of their social codes. It was arbitrary, and the very unpredictability was a way of keeping power over African Americans. Every insult did not result in a person being lynched.Parkwells (talk) 15:40, 26 February 2017 (UTC)

Based on changes I have previously made (unacknowledged in the survey) and recent changes made after the survey, I have changed the first sentence to: Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 by white supremacists. The brutal murder, and the fact that the murderers were never punished, drew attention to the long history of racism and lynchings in the United States. Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement.ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 20:45, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Aaand reverted. Please don't make changes to the lead, especially to the sentence in question, until this discussion has been closed. SkyWarrior 20:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

I agree that parts of those changes went too far, but I'm very sympathetic to making more of the lead paragraph about Till's importance, rather than about the murder itself. (After all, this is a bio page about Till, rather than an event page about his murder.) I'm going to make a more modest edit to that effect, restoring the more uncontroversial parts – but please feel free to revert. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:13, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Someone tell me what is "controversial" and "too far" about my completely factual lede sentence. "Drew attention to the long history of racism and lynching in the United States" is a fact, and a central fact about Till's importance as a historical figure. How many monographs published by scholars of US history do you want me to cite? 10? 20? 30? Let me know, and I will do it. The constant attempts by the[REDACTED] community to insist that the lead paragraph for Emmett Till's page 1) include information about his "alleged flirtation" ; 2) won't include any active voice naming of his murderers' (or accuser's) identity and their links to white supremacism (documented later in the article); and 2) acknowledgement that lynching (not "mistreatment") was a systemic part of US history NEEDS TO BE ADDRESSED BY THE[REDACTED] COMMUNITY. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 23:38, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

This was the edit that I made: . Let's discuss if there are specific changes you would like to make following that. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 8 February 2017 (UTC)

Thank you for taking this seriously. Here are the issues: 1) The word "mistreatment" is a gross understatement and euphemism that deserves no place here. For contextualizing information, please see 2) This page is getting media attention because of the editors' persistent attempts to CENTER (by putting it in the lede!) the completely discredited excuse given by Carolyn Bryant and Till's murderers for his death. This narrative emerged after Till's death as justification for his murder, part of a long history of white supremacists defending lynchings through arguments that they were defending white women's honor from black men (and BOYS, here) stereotyped as "hypersexual." Look how hard I and others have lobbied to make the lead to Till's page say anything about the Civil Rights Movement, which rallied around the horror of his murder. If you look closely at the history of this page, you will see systematic, repeated reversions of attempts to excise racism and inaccurate euphemisms from parts of this article. ShanonFitzpatrick (talk) 00:02, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

After reading your comment, I just changed "mistreatment" to "persecution". I had added the word "mistreatment" a few days ago, but in retrospect I think that you are right that it's a bit WP:WEASELy. Media attention? It would be helpful to link to that, as it would be good for editors to know about any possible WP:Canvass or WP:MEAT issues. Also, you might perhaps want to take a look at WP:RGW. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:20, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Seriously though: Do you think that "persecution" is more factually accurate and specific (the goal of our writing, right?) than "history of racism and lynching?" Note how much resistance mentioning *anything* about violence or racism has faced in this talk discussion. Then think about why people seem so determined to preserve a reference to an accusation of "flirting" when there is ZERO credible evidence cited anywhere in this article that this happened. We do not even have evidence that he talked to Bryant. Yet "flirting" is something that no editor is willing to give up. Why? 192.222.197.155 (talk) 00:40, 9 February 2017 (UTC)192.222.197.155 (talk) 00:43, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

Flirting is being discussed in the RfC, so please let the process work that one out. Racism and lynching come up later in the lead, so they are not being overlooked. It's worth considering not making the first paragraph too wordy. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:46, 9 February 2017 (UTC)

How about something more like:" Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager from Chicago who was lynched at the age of 14 in a small Mississippi Delta town by two white men who thought he had crossed their Jim Crow code. They were acquitted of murder by an all-white jury. The brutality of the murder galvanized outrage in the country and Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement. In 2017 a writer revealed that the white woman who had originally claimed to have been insulted, recanted her testimony in a 2008 interview."Parkwells (talk) 20:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

Editors should make sure they read Huie's 1956 article (I put link on the article page) in which the killers talk of what they did; they complain about Till, but you get the feeling his actions had little to do with what happened. They more or less say they were going to punish him as an outsider and show they couldn't be pushed around.Parkwells (talk) 20:23, 27 February 2017 (UTC)

References

1. Jason M. McGraw, "Defining Lynching in Order to End It: The Lynching of Austin Callaway and How It Shaped the Debate on How to End Lynching", Northeastern University School of Law 2015, Civil Rights and Restorative Justice Clinic; accessed 31 January 2017
2. Christopher Waldrep, "War of Words: The Controversy over the Definition of Lynching, 1899-1940," Journal of Southern History (February 2000), Vol. 66, No. 1, 98
3. https://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/10/us/history-of-lynchings-in-the-south-documents-nearly-4000-names.html?_r=0

Interveiw(s) with Bryant 2007? 2008? both?

We have 2008 2007, track down and questioned in 2007, 2008 but also there were two long conversations with Bryant anyone got more info on when and ideas on dealing with this?Alanscottwalker (talk) 00:11, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Vanity Fair broke the story, so I assume they spoke with Tyson and I had assumed they were most accurate. They say 2007. However, according to the book (first page of the "Notes" section), the interview took place on September 8, 2008. Go to Amazon.com, click on "Look inside", and search the print book (not the Kindle edition) for 2008. It's the first search result. (There was an earlier interview in July 2008, according to the book's bibliography, but all quotes come from the September interview.)

I'll correct the article. — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 06:26, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. Perhaps, Tyson was first contacted in 2007 - not that we need to get into that. Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:21, 7 February 2017 (UTC)

Icon

Do you think a better way of describing Till would be as a martyr instead of as an icon? Drgood13 (talk) 03:08, 17 February 2017 (UTC) User:Drgood13

Not really. Icon is much more neutral, and many more sources describe him as an icon than a martyr. ResultingConstant (talk) 04:30, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

Rosa Parks

Should the brief mention of the connection between Till and Parks be highlighted more? Drgood13 (talk) 03:11, 17 February 2017 (UTC) User:Drgood13

Probably not. Per WP:WEIGHT we should be covering detail in proportion to their coverage in reliable sources. Parks and Till have both had thousands of pages written about them individually, but very little covers the intersection of them. ResultingConstant (talk) 04:27, 17 February 2017 (UTC)

"After reportedly sexually assaulting..."

Does "After reportedly sexually assaulting..." belong in the very first sentence? K.e.coffman (talk) 02:38, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

In my opinion, absolutely not. But there is an RfC about that, just above. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:40, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

The sentence being discussed at the RfC is as follows:

• The lead sentence/paragraph of the Emmett Till article currently reads : Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was murdered in Mississippi at the age of 14 after reportedly flirting with a white woman.

It says nothing about assaulting. K.e.coffman (talk) 02:43, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Wow, you are definitely correct about that, sorry I missed it. Yes, that's appalling, and I just changed it back. --Tryptofish (talk) 02:46, 28 February 2017 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 26 March 2017

This edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

I believe the article is in error when it states "Emmett Till was falsely accused of flirting " the article does not confirm this by the proofs it gives.It should read "Emmett Till was accused of flirting" this would neither assume guilt or innocence of flirting.In any case a heinous crime was perpetrated on Emmett Till irregardless. Thank you Darryl raposo 108.198.64.21 (talk) 00:59, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Not done: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. Relevant discussion is ongoing elsewhere on this talk page. Rivertorch_WATER 17:24, 26 March 2017 (UTC)

Proposed name change to artilce

I propose to change this article to "Murder of Emmett Till". The subject of this article is only notable due to his murder and the timing of his murder during the mounting Civil Rights Movement. Other articles based on notable murders use this form of title. If this murder had happened now, then this proposed title would most likely have been used. A Misplaced Pages essay called Misplaced Pages:"Murder of" articles may be helpful in this discussion.

Relevant past discussions:

• Requested move (June 2010) - 21 June 2010
• Rename discussion redux (October 2010) - 5 October 2010
• Article title? - 28 August 2012

Mitchumch (talk) 07:00, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

• Oppose. There are reasonable arguments on both sides of this question. I would note that other exceptions to this form remain (and each of those may deserve to be revisited individually) but in this case the scope of the article clearly does not turn on an event (the murder itself) but rather has a much broader focus. Of the first ten sections (i.e., before "See also"), seven deal with aftermath and legacy. Rivertorch_WATER 16:49, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
• I could go either way on this, but I lean somewhat to the view that there is enough content about the person, separately from the event, to support keeping it as a biography. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 9 April 2017 (UTC)
  • I've been thinking about this, and although I still accept that this is a borderline case, I've pretty much moved to the Oppose view. It does seem to me that there is enough content outside of the murder to justify a bio page, and the fact that we treat James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner as individual bios leads me to see this page similarly. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
• weak support. Almost everything written about Till is in the context of his murder. Certainly much more is written (in the real world) regarding the event rather than the person, and our article content mirrors this weight. The title probably should too. If this were a new article, there is no question it would follow WP:BLP1E and WP:EVENT, but since this is a historical article, and the person has become a martyr/symbol for the civil rights movement, there is a reasonable argument to the contrary. ResultingConstant (talk) 23:26, 9 April 2017 (UTC)

• Strong Oppose I think that Rivertorch said it very well. While it is true that "other articles based on notable murders use this form of title", the murder and the following events became a national event in which "Till posthumously became an icon of the Civil Rights Movement." Gandydancer (talk) 16:17, 10 April 2017 (UTC)
• Oppose I don't see a better title for Emmit Till, the boy, and Emmit Till, the "icon". The article is on his life, his death, and what meaning sources have taken from those for decades. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 21:06, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

"Falsely accused" aspect mentioned in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section

As currently seen in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section, an editor added the following: "According to historian Timothy Tyson, Bryant admitted in a 2008 interview that substantial parts of her testimony were false." But this is already covered in a subsection of the "Later events" section. Having it in both sections is overkill. Not to mention..."falsely accused" is already in the first sentence of the lead.

I was aware of the recent RfC regarding "falsely accused," but I didn't feel like commenting on it at the time. If I had, I would have leaned toward the side of not having too much WP:Recentism on this matter...although I would have supported the confession being somewhere in the lead (and a section on it lower; obviously, the article should mention it somewhere in the lead and have a section on it). I would have also noted that all we have for this false accusation aspect is Timothy Tyson's word. I'm not stating that he is lying. For years, it was highly suspected that Emmet Till never flirted with the woman. But I am wary of going on one historian's word that another admitted to lying. If we know the admission to be fact, we should not need "According to." See WP:In-text attribution.

And another thing: The lead says "falsely accused of flirting with a white woman." In the subsection of the "Later events" section, it states "she said with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true." Flirting is not always sexual. So is her confession referring to flirting with her, grabbing her and being sexual with her? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 18 April 2017 (UTC)

Your first paragraph issue was already discussed above. It's important context to have the recantation mentioned when the trial testimony is discussed in detail. Please refer to the fuller comments in the section above the RfC on "testimony". (And as to another issue you raised, it is stated as "according to" and it is one sentence in that section). As for your last paragraph, the first paragraph lead is different from how I !Voted in the RfC -- among other things, I think the use of "flirted" is euphemism (or imprecise), so should not be there, so I can't help you with that, other than to note many people went the other way. Alanscottwalker (talk) 20:27, 28 April 2017 (UTC)

It is not important to have that bit there for context, when the context is already in the lead and already has a full section devoted to it. It is unneeded and redundant in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section. And as for "according to" being used there, that wording hardly matters when the lead currently straight up states "falsely accused." The close of the RfC did not conclude with any particular wording. It's stated there that consensus was for a change. And the change currently in the article, for the lead, is "falsely accused." And "flirting with a white woman" is the wording numerous sources use; so I don't mind that part. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 09:44, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

Of course, it's important to to discuss the testimony when we discuss the testimony - and the testimony is discussed there in that section. Your pointing to multiple screens away in the lead and at the end of the article (where additional information is provided) is not putting it in context, it's taking it out of context, explicitly so, for anyone reading the section on the testimony. As for your other issues, the RfC closed, and suggested the way forward was proposals, so why have you not made a proposal? Option D from the RfC might give you a start on your proposal. As for "flirted", your OP seemed to complain that "falsely accused of flirting" is inaccurate or unclear because that was not the clear recantation of what he did.Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:17, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not important in that section whatsoever. It's overkill, and I've made my case for why. We clearly won't be agreeing on that, but I argue that readers are not going to miss "falsely accused" in the lead, and they probably won't miss the specific mention of the matter in the lead either. They certainly are not going to miss the "Admission that testimony against Till was false" heading that is clear as day in the table of contents. Removing the aforementioned text from the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section is not taking anything out of context. Anyone reading that section without that bit there would be reading it within the context of that time frame, and would get the reported confession on the matter afterward. The reported confession is not a direct aspect of the testimony. As for proposing text, nah; I can see that this matter is too contentious and that "falsely accused" is likely to be re-added to the first sentence even if removed. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:01, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

The "encounter between Till and Carolyn" is precisely the subject of the recantation and recantation of the testimony is a direct aspect of the testimony. We are writing about this and providing factual information in 2017. This is not a short story, where we pretend we don't know what is going on. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:49, 2 May 2017 (UTC)

I can't agree that the content is needed in that section, or that it's a direct aspect. If I start to see it in history books, then maybe I will change my mind on that. There is no pretending that "we don't know what is going on"; I've already stated why. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

The entire section on the "encounter between Till and Carolyn" is based on the fact, that the facts of the encounter are in dispute: "The facts of what took place in the store are still disputed." Neutral discussion of the factual dispute, 'Carolyn said one thing happened, and then later, it is reported, said no, that's not what happened' is NPOV. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:21, 3 May 2017 (UTC)

Like I stated, we won't be agreeing. And our WP:NPOV policy is about weight; it is not about artificial or subjective balance. The "According to historian Timothy Tyson" aspect has enough weight in the lead and in its own section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

There is nothing artificial or subjective about 'she said this happened, and she said this did not happen'. Those are facts. But 'she said this happened' but you don't want to say 'she also said this did not happen' in the section dedicated to what happened is the opposite of NPOV, it is skewing the evidence concerning what happened. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:14, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

It is subjective, and an example of artificial balance, to have that piece in that spot. It is completely unnecessary and poor article structure. I will continue to maintain that this piece, which is not even Bryant's words but rather an "According to" mention, does not belong there. I will not be changing my mind on that. So us repeating our views on it is futile. If there was not a whole section dedicated to this aspect -- a section that readers can easily spot -- I would feel differently. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:24, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

To the contrary, your argument seeks to subjectively and artificially separate the accounting of her statements on what happened creating a false balance in the section dedicated to what happened, and the questions about what happened. Your poor article structure claim is just stressing the basis for your argument is pushing subjectivity and artificiality in the POV service of not giving the reader all the evidence, when the evidence is introduced. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:39, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

And you can keep repeating that, and engage in WP:Recentism at every part of the article where the update is not needed; I won't be agreeing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:44, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

The section contains Carolyn's statements about what happened in the store and Simeon Wright's statements about what happened in the store, so not being up front about all Carolyn's statements is unjustifiable, and can only be justified by POV pushing. And there is nothing recent about doubts concerning Carolyn's story, so the documenting of additional basis for that is not about recentism, at all, it is about the facts. Alanscottwalker (talk) 02:39, 4 May 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, doubts about a story is one thing. One (ONE) historian claiming that Bryant stated something, and then peppering that claim throughout the article (in the lead, in the aforementioned section and its own section, and maybe eventually elsewhere in the article) is indeed WP:UNDUE and WP:Recentism. I'm clearly not the only one who has argued this. If it's just in the lead and its own section, then it's not WP:UNDUE. I don't have any POV issue when it comes to Bryant or Till. It's not like I'm some white supremacist or similar. I do, however, have an issue with going on the lone word of what one historian stated, with no proof offered (I'm skeptical and wary like that, and I know that a number of historians have falsified matters in the past); that lone historian's word was recently reported. And because of this and everybody rejoicing over what he stated, editors let this article fall prey to WP:Recentism. For example, "flirting" means different things to different people. A person not making any sexual or physical advances on someone does not mean that the person did not flirt. More than once, boys and men have innocently flirted with me. I state "innocently" because I didn't find the comments sexual. By contrast, comments I've received from other boys (in this case, teenage boys) and men is what I would term sexual harassment. I'm not stating that Till innocently flirted with Bryant (back then, a black boy or black man even innocently flirting with a white woman was enough to get him hanged), but, given that scholarly sources use the phrasing "flirted with" for this case and the historian states that Bryant said "with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true," it would be good to know if Bryant considered that Till innocently flirted with her. It would be good to know what "flirting" means in the context of the scholarly sources vs. the historian claim as to what Bryant stated.

Yes, you included "According to." But what is the point of "According to" when the first sentence of the lead currently states "falsely accused"? How can editors have the WP:Lead sentence state that Till was falsely accused, and then have the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section state "According to"? This is the type of sloppy writing I am talking about, and on a WP:GA no less. He either was falsely accused, or he wasn't. Or we're not sure. It's either simply a claim by a historian or it's a fact. To state that it is POV-pushing to not have this lone historian's claim in the section about the Bryant and Till encounter, when the lead currently states "falsely accused," additionally includes the lone historian's clam, and when there is an entire section dedicated to that lone historian's claim, is mostly lost on me. At present, with or without that piece in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section, no reader is going to walk away from this article thinking that Bryant was correct. So your POV-pushing argument is invalid.

From what I see, the article needs some reorganization and not just with regard to including the historian piece in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section. The "Bryant testified during the murder trial" paragraph should not even be in that section. It should be in the Trial section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:10, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Fine, get a consensus to reorganize the whole thing, but the current article contains a section of detailed recitation of everything that is said about what happened in the store - there just is no getting around that what Carolyn said in 2008 is about what happened in the store, whether you want to believe that historian or not. Carolyn did testify during the trial about what happened in the store but her testimony was not actually offered in the trial to the jury because the judge excluded it - it was however widely reported.

As for the lead, I have said I am all for being open to changing it, you just have to make a proposal.--Alanscottwalker (talk) 22:18, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

We'll have to agree to disagree on including the piece in that section, but I see your point about not including the Bryant testimony in the Trial section. Above, I see that you, Markbassett, Pincrete, SlackerInc1 and Tryptofish have also discussed whether or not to use "flirted with." Again, the issue in this respect is that the words "flirted with" are used by scholarly sources...but the historian claim uses different wording. This makes it confusing when it comes to what we should use, as, like both you and I noted, "flirting" can be a broad term. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:36, 5 May 2017 (UTC)

Responding to the ping, I'm very receptive to finding a less euphemistic alternative for "flirting", but I have trouble thinking of an alternative that does not end up sounding disparaging about Till. I don't have a problem with it being in the "Encounter" section in addition to elsewhere on the page, because it is directly relevant to the encounter. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:44, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

When it comes to the lead paragraph, I'm also having an issue with the inconsistency. Why are we framing the lead sentence as a fact matter with "falsely accused," but are then leaving it as an "According to" matter later on? "According to" specifically lends doubt to the claim; see WP:In-text attribution. I think that because more sources use "flirted with" than the words reported by Tyson, and because "flirted with" is historical wording regarding the case, we should retain that. My solution would not have been to add "falsely accused," though, since Till was not savagely murdered by the men with the knowledge that he was falsely accused and since we do not know if Bryant did consider Till to be flirting with her. Tyson's reported words speak nothing of flirting; they seem to focus on sexual harassment. So, in that respect only (disregarding any possible POV-pushing motive), I understand why SlackerInc1 made this edit. I would have opted to retain "flirted with" without "falsely accused," and then included the following in the lead paragraph as well: "In a 2008 interview, first made public in 2017, Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." Or something like that. Right now, that piece is buried in the fifth paragraph. The lead currently has six paragraphs. Misplaced Pages articles usually only have four, per WP:Lead. I don't see how including that sentence in the lead paragraph is any more recentism than "falsely accused." I understand why "falsely accused" is there, though: People feel that Bryant lied about everything, and this also means that Till never flirted with her. The older sources are also likely using "flirted with" to mean sexual advancements. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:45, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

What to call what allegedly happened in the grocery, and what actually happened there

In the preceding section, several editors are discussing whether the use of the word "flirting" is an appropriate shorthand for describing what allegedly happened in the grocery. The nature of Carolyn Bryant's accusation against Till has never been entirely public, because news reporters in 1955 printed what they thought was appropriate, not necessarily what happened in court, and because the trial transcript disappeared for 50 years. (A copy surfaced briefly in the early 1960s but it was destroyed in a house flood.) It was never seen again until the early 21st century, when the FBI found "a copy of a copy of a copy" in a private home. It took weeks to transcribe and was not released to the public until 2007. As Timothy Tyson says, it "allows us to compare the later recollections of witnesses and defendants with what they said fifty years earlier."

In her testimony, which, I will repeat, virtually everybody present knew was exaggerated or untrue, Carolyn Bryant said that Till had grabbed her hand forcefully, and let go only when she pulled it away. She said he asked her for a date, chased her down the counter, blocked her path, and grabbed her waist with both hands. She testified that he said "You needn't be afraid of me. , well, ---- with white women before." (According to the transcript, she refused to say exactly what Till had said or even indicate what letter of the alphabet the word started with.) She said she was finally able to break free from his grasp, with great difficulty. Then, she said, "this other nigger came in from the store and got him by the arm. And he told him to come on and let's go. He had him by the arm and led him out." She bizarrely added that on the way out of the store, Till stopped in the doorway, "turned around and said 'Goodbye.'"

Is that flirting? Is that assault? What is it, beside an improbable pack of lies that any person not drunk on white supremacy would laugh at?

In 2008, Carolyn Bryant handed a copy of the trial transcript and her memoirs to Tyson (he doesn't say whether it was a 1950s original version of the transcript or a 21st century version). He told her he would deposit them in a historical archive. He wrote, "about her testimony that Till had grabbed her around the waist and uttered obscenities, she now told me, 'That part's not true.'"

"I struggled to phrase my next question. If that part was not true, I asked, what did happen that evening decades ago?"

"'I want to tell you,' she said. 'Honestly, I just don't remember. It was fifty years ago. You tell these stories for so long that they seem true, but that part is not true.'"

Tyson says that he later received a copy of Carolyn Bryant's lawyer's notes from his first interview with her, after her husband and his half-brother had been arrested in 1955 for Till's murder. In what Tyson describes as the "earliest recorded version of events", Carolyn Bryant said only that Till had "insulted" her, not that he had grabbed her, and certainly not that he had tried to rape her. As he puts it, "The documents prove that there was a time when she did seem to know what had happened, and a time soon afterward when she became the mouthpiece of a monstrous lie."

Although she couldn't remember in 2008 what had actually happened in 1955, she was adamant that "Nothing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him."

So what allegedly happened in the grocery, and by what shorthand should we describe it, and what actually happened there? — Malik Shabazz /_Stalk 04:58, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that your summary does a very good job of clarifying what we are trying to figure out here, thanks. After re-reading it, my answers to your questions are as follows. As for what allegedly happened, it was more than one thing, but for our shorthand, maybe we should change the euphemistic after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman in the lead to after being falsely accused of inviting a white woman to have sex with him. It seems to me that this is a plain statement of what the false testimony really boiled down to. And as for what actually happened, we don't have a reliable source for that, but we know that it was considerably less than what the allegations were. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:48, 6 May 2017 (UTC)

Detail, but the 'falsehood' is invented later, after Emmett was dead. What we have at the time is unknown still. Pincrete (talk) 09:58, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

However it is described, it should be moved out of the lead sentence, it is neither necessary to highlight in the lead sentence nor uncomplicated enough to write about it there. Besides if we really want in the lead sentence some phrase on why the killers killed him, we should look to something from the Look magazine article where they admitted the killing, the reason seems to have been Till's defiance when he was with the killers and 'teaching a lesson' to all "niggers".

But, I suggest this is what is important for the lead sentence: "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager, lynched in Mississippi at the age of 14, whose murder became a defining moment in the Civil Rights movement." Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:25, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

Strongly object to "after being falsely accused of inviting a white woman to have sex with him." Keep in mind that we are merely Misplaced Pages editors and it is not our place to use phrasing that I have yet to see used in any other online report of the murder. Using the word "flirting" has been problematic for years and I wish there was something better, but it seems to me that we are stuck with it... (Don't misunderstand my use of the term "merely" - I have a great deal of admiration and respect for many, many of our editors... :) ) Gandydancer (talk) 17:59, 7 May 2017 (UTC)

I didn't mean it in bad faith, of course. Just responding to the question as asked. But I think that what Alanscottwalker said is the best idea of all: just delete the whole thing! For the lead, we can just say that he was lynched, and it's just not that important to say why. After all, there is no such thing as a "good" reason for a lynching. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:54, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I agree. Great suggestion IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 03:07, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

Agree with general drift of losing problematic 'flirting' , but this is not 'lynching' as that term is generally understood (mob killing), therefore suggest 'murdered' or use of 'method of killing'. Pincrete (talk) 08:46, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

This was recently discussed. See above. Gandydancer (talk) 15:51, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure what your understanding of "generally understood" is, but a lynching, by definition, is an illegal extrajudicial punishment by an informal group -- and Till's murder is cited as a prototypic example of a lynching in virtually all civil rights literature (and general historic literature as well). Having said that, "murder" is probably a better descriptor for the purposes of this article. I would also suggest adding in lede that Carolyn Bryant was white, since that was his alleged "crime" - talking to a white woman. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 16:17, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

All the dictionaries I could see and WP describe lynching as an extra-judicial killing by a mob, which was also my understanding in UK. I noticed after leaving my comment that some sources appear to use the term 'lynching' in this case, I am happy to defer to US editors on this one. Pincrete (talk) 18:04, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

It's hard to define how many persons constitute a "mob". I think there is no question here that more than one individual participated in the killing. I'd be inclined to change it back to "lynched". --Tryptofish (talk) 21:47, 8 May 2017 (UTC)

The current lead is worse. I completely disagree with removing why he was murdered out of the lead sentence as this is a key aspect of the topic and the current lead paragraph causes readers to wonder why he was murdered. That is not how a good WP:Lead sentence is written. Including why he was murdered in the lead sentence is not blaming the victim, any more than it is blaming the victim when it is included in the lead sentence or lead paragraph of scholarly sources. The current lead paragraph teases the reader and the reader does not find out why Till was murdered. It is not until the fifth paragraph of the lead that "verbal or physical advances towards her" is even mentioned. I see we are going to need another RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:54, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

And Alanscottwalker Tryptofish should self-revert that suggestion. It is supposed to be a suggestion, after all. I see no consensus above for the change. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:03, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

As for how to word the lead sentence: I suggest using what is already used; instead of "flirting with" (although that is the historical wording and is still widely used today), I suggest using "after being falsely accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" or "after allegedly making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." No matter how you look at it, the core of the story is that Till was murdered because he was accused of showing a romantic interest in a white woman. And this core aspect of the story should be in the lead sentence. Even the wording "after being falsely accused of showing a romantic interest in a white woman" or "after allegedly showing a romantic interest in a white woman" would work. And I don't see why we are removing "murdered" and replacing it with "lynched." How he was murdered should be saved for later in the lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:22, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree with this suggestion; I think "murdered" is a better initial descriptor, as I've already said, and the reader should learn immediately why he was murdered; that's Journalism 101. Any of the above lead-sentence alternatives would provide an accurate (and encyclopedic) initial summation. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 01:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer, as always you make a lot of sense. But I really do hate the wording, "after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman" and I'm glad to see it gone since we really don't know what Till said to her, or did to her. If he actually grabbed at her (which I don't believe), that's beyond flirting. But if he just said, "Hey baby, how about a date" that would be "flirting" and it would not be correct to say he was "falsely accused" of flirting. Plus, I'd make a pretty good guess that he was actually murdered for being uppity to white folk as much as anything else. I'm still in favor of leaving any reason out of the first sentence. Gandydancer (talk) 07:17, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks, Gandydancer, but I'm going with WP:Due weight on this one, as well as the WP:Lead guideline. So I stand by my proposed wordings. I don't view leaving this core aspect out of the lead sentence as a valid option. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:41, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, apologies if I'm repeating myself, but Till wasn't 'falsely accused' of anything in the shop. The 'false accusations' (attempted grabbing and being verbally suggestive), are first heard in the court. Whatever accusations were made by her in the shop are neither false nor true, since we don't know what they were, though they were probably of being (in her eyes), sexually inappropriate. Pincrete (talk) 08:38, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Disagree with Flyer 22 Reborn's various points: 1) That is not why he was murdered. He was murdered because he talked back to the killers when he was with the killers and to teach all "niggers" a lesson. 2) WP:LEAD specifically says don't overload the first sentence, and it stresses we are not writing journalism, trying to overload the lead sentence is poor lead sentence writing. 3) Pincrete is right, and "romantic interest in a white woman" appears to be original research, especially when put together with "false". 4) The lead paragraph does use the word murder, as well as lynched. 5) He was shot is how he was murdered -- rather, lynched is a commonly used descriptor of the circumstance of his murder, not how.

However, it would be fine to move up the "verbal or physical advances towards her" sentence higher in the lead section, but it is not core to the lead sentence. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:01, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

We can change the second paragraph of the lead to: Till was from Argo, Illinois, near Chicago, and was visiting relatives in Money, a small town in the Mississippi Delta region. He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the white, married proprietor of a small grocery store there. The details of their encounter is a matter of some dispute but in a 2008 interview, Bryant said, "othing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him", and she disclosed that she had fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her. Several nights later, Bryant's husband Roy and his half-brother J. W. Milam went armed to Till's great-uncle's house and abducted the boy. They took him away and beat and mutilated him before fatally shooting him and sinking his body in the Tallahatchie River. Three days later, Till's body was discovered and retrieved from the river. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 09:30, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Alanscottwalker, I hate to say it but Emmett 'talking back' at the time of the murder is the murderers' later account and is likely to be self-justifying (we only meant to frighten him a bit), it would actually take a very brave person indeed to continue to 'talk back' under that level of violence. Having said that, I think moving up the account of the store incident and murder as suggested by you would be an improvement. Pincrete (talk) 11:08, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Thanks. But, yes. It is their account of why they killed him and as as far as is known the only accounting of why they killed him from the only people who could begin to know, which means we can't say they unequivocally killed him for something earlier. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:23, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

While the current version might not be perfect for my taste, it is a far sight better than what it was before. So I generally disagree with Flyer22 Reborn in this dispute, and agree with Alanscottwalker and others. This is the first time I've participated in one of these dispute resolution deals on Misplaced Pages, and I'm pleasantly impressed by how it turned out. SlackerInc1 (talk) 12:08, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Well Slacker the fat lady hasn't sung yet :), but it's always so good to work with a crew that is so reasonable and in control of their ego. I wish to god it was always like this all the time... Most of us know and respect each other, so that helps a lot. Gandydancer (talk) 14:21, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I just got back here, so I am just now seeing the request that I self-revert. I'm not going to do that, and there have been other subsequent edits by other editors that include points being discussed here. But I'm still very receptive to alternative ways of writing it – I certainly did not see my edit as "the last word". The problem that I see is that editors just have not come up with an agreed-upon alternative. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:53, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Let me float this, just another idea: "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14, after speaking to a white woman in a grocery store." --Tryptofish (talk) 16:59, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I could certainly live with that. DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 18:36, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I prefer AlanSw's approach, 'after speaking to a white woman' is not very informative IMO unless the content/nature of the conversation is establiahed, which most seem to feel cannot be done in a few words. Pincrete (talk) 19:28, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

It's OK with me either way. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:34, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't care for that at all and still feel it's too complicated to get it in the opening sentence. I like Alan's suggestion above though the wording "He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant," does not seem exactly right to me. The only two people that know for sure whether or not he spoke to her (in a sexual manner) are Emmitt, who is dead, and the woman. We know this: Till's cousin, Simeon W.right, writing about the incident decades later, questioned Carolyn Bryant's account. Entering the store "less than a minute" after Till was left inside alone with Bryant, Wright saw no inappropriate behavior and heard "no lecherous conversation." Wright said Till "paid for his items and we left the store together. It is known that the woman went out to her car after they left and it's agreed that Emmitt whistled at her. I think it's very possible that was their only interaction--and back then that would have been more than enough. Gandydancer (talk) 17:56, 10 May 2017 (UTC)

Here's another version: Four days later, Emmett, several cousins, and a few neighbor kids drove into town to the Bryant Grocery and Meat Market, where 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant was working behind the counter. Till entered the store and purchased bubble gum; when he left, Carolyn followed him to the door. A Northerner unfamiliar with Southern etiquette, he then waved, said "goodbye" (not "goodbye, ma'am"), and, according to family members, directed a wolf-whistle at the young white woman. She became upset and went toward a car -- to get a gun, according to trial testimony. Till and his frightened companions got in their own car and sped off toward home. And a version where Carolyn made the whole thing up: Juanita accused Carolyn of fabricating the entire story. "The only way I can figure it is that she did not want to take care of the store. She thought this wild story would make Roy take care of the store instead of leavin' her with the kids and the store. … the only thing to me would upset her would be if she wanted Roy to stay at the store more." Gandydancer (talk) 16:54, 11 May 2017 (UTC)

To address everyone, Alanscottwalker's argument that "this is not why he was murdered" seems to be Alanscottwalker's interpretation. He even stated above, "Besides if we really want in the lead sentence some phrase on why the killers killed him, we should look to something from the Look magazine article where they admitted the killing, the reason seems to have been Till's defiance when he was with the killers and 'teaching a lesson' to all 'niggers'." No, going by their actions and all of what they've stated on the matter, that's not how I viewed their attack on Till. They immediately went looking for Till after Bryant's accusation and were clearly out to teach him a lesson either way, whether or not one wants to believe they weren't going to kill him until he supposedly showed defiance. Back then, one way that a black boy or black man meant being "put in his place" was to know that he "should not mess with a white woman." The core description/summary of what happened is indeed the following: "Emmett Till was murdered after being accused of flirting with a white woman." That is how the story is described. That Till was murdered for that accusation, which is even evident by the murderers' words and Bryant's words, is supposed to be in the lead. Plain and simple. Racism is a big part of the story and so is the fact that Till was accused of flirting with Bryant, a white woman. Not having that description in the lead sentence is problematic and is against WP:LEAD. WP:LEAD states, "The lead serves as an introduction to the article and a summary of its most important contents." It also states, "The lead is the first part of the article that most people will read. For many, it may be the only section that they read. A good lead section cultivates the reader's interest in reading more of the article, but not by teasing the reader or hinting at content that follows. The lead should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view. The lead should stand on its own as a concise overview of the article's topic. It should identify the topic, establish context, explain why the topic is notable, and summarize the most important points, including any prominent controversies. As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate."

I've already offered alternatives that solve the "flirting with" aspect. And I see that other alternatives have been offered since then. "Romantic interest in a white woman" is not original research when people consider that the core aspect of flirting is romantic and/or sexual interest and that Till was said to have made sexually suggestive advancements on Bryant. And it's not as though I did not also suggest the wordings "after being falsely accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" and "after allegedly making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." And it's not like we cannot forgo even including "falsely accused" and instead relay the reported Bryant confession early on, after the lead sentence.

I've gone ahead and started an RfC on this because this issue is far too important to be settled by a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Although an RfC can be considered a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS matter as well, I'll advertise the RfC by alerting the associated WikiProjects (the ones seen at the top of this talk page) to it and I'll leave a note about it at the WP:Village pump (miscellaneous). I have provided sources in the RfC regarding the "Emmett Till was murdered after being accused of flirting with a white woman" aspect to show how the incident is initially described by sources and that this is not simply a claim by me that sources do this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

No one is arguing to keep it out of the lead, the issue is the lead sentence. Britannica: Emmett Till, in full Emmett Louis Till (born July 25, 1941, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Aug. 28, 1955, Money, Miss.), African American teenager whose murder catalyzed the emerging civil rights movement. We are not writing a POV essay or theses, where we seek to make a brief or otherwise commentary argument, we are writing an encyclopedia article. Alanscottwalker (talk) 12:00, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, as shown above, there were arguments to keep it out of the lead or lead sentence. I quoted what you specifically stated. And there's Gandydancer's arguments above. As shown above and below, my argument is that the lead sentence should begin with the "he was murdered after being accused of flirting with a white woman" aspect. Or "after being accused of making verbal or physical advancements toward a white woman." Whatever gets the core summary across. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer, the accusation of verbal and physical advancements came after the murder when Carolyn needed to make up a good reason for it to have happened. At first all she said was that Till had "insulted" her. How would you feel about this wording: "...was lynched after allegedly insulting a white woman." Gandydancer (talk) 12:34, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

It's not what most sources state; so I wouldn't go for that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

RfC: Should we include the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect in the lead or specifically the lead sentence?

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Should we include the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect in the lead or specifically the lead sentence? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:47, 12 May 2017 (UTC) This is a condensed summary of the dispute. I should have kept the collapsed portions from showing up on the RfC page, and I perhaps should not have had the initial summary be so long (although describing a dispute in a paragraph, and not just a single sentence, for an RfC is common).

Above this RfC on the article's talk page, there is a debate about whether or not to mention "flirting" (as in "Emmett Till was murdered after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman.") in the lead sentence since flirting can mean different things to different people. There is also debate about whether or not to use "falsely accused" because we don't know if the flirting aspect, depending on the definition of flirting, was a false accusation. What we do know is that it's reported (by a historian) that Bryant lied about Till making a physical assault on her or making a menacing or sexual comment regarding her. Because of the "flirted with" issue, any mention of Till being murdered after being accused of showing an interest in Bryant was removed from the lead sentence (and therefore from the lead in its entirety). One view is that the lead should not mention the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect because we should not focus on why the killers murdered Till; we should not highlight his attackers. And it is too complicated to address the confrontation between Till and Bryant in the lead. If we include "falsely accused," we might be describing the flirting aspect wrongly. The other view is that why he was murdered is a key aspect of the topic and the current lead paragraph causes readers to wonder why he was murdered and teases the reader. This violates WP:LEAD, considering that Bryant's accusation, the fact that she was white and Till was black, and that he was murdered because of her accusation, are core aspects of the story and is how the story is summarized in numerous books and articles. Including why he was murdered in the lead sentence is not blaming the victim.

So my questions are: Should we or shouldn't we mention the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect in the lead? And if we should mention it, should it be in the lead sentence and should we forgo including "flirted with" and/or "falsely accused"? Below are sources showing the Bryant and Till incident being summarized as him being murdered after being accused of flirting with a white woman. And alternatives to using "flirting" or "falsely accused."

Survey, May 2017

• No -- my preferred version would be "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14." K.e.coffman (talk) 03:09, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Yes. Whether we include "flirted with" or some other wording, the above sources and many more clearly show that the Till case is first and foremost described as a case where a black male was murdered for a perceived romantic/sexual interest in a white woman. In fact, sources list it as the prime example of that. The "murdered after showing an interest in a white woman" aspect is literally how the case is summarized and recognized whenever it is reported, except that the words "flirted with" or "flirting with" are used. Per WP:LEAD, the lead is meant to summarize; it's not meant to go into in-depth detail. We can get the point across without "flirted with" or "accused," but this key, historical aspect -- Till being murdered because of his perceived romantic/sexual interest in a white woman -- should be retained in the lead. To any concern of blaming the victim or painting Till in a bad light, I argue that stating why he was murdered is not blaming Till. Nor is it giving WP:Undue weight to the murderers or painting Till in a bad light. I also argue that Misplaced Pages is not the place to right the great wrongs. By not being the place to "right the great wrongs," I mean it is not up to us to state that we should alter the description simply because we don't like "flirted with" or "accused." It is up to us to follow WP:Due weight, meaning what the preponderance of reliable sources state. We can also use logical reasoning that challenges using "flirted with," which is what we have been doing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:22, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Yes I am new to the article, but not the subject. Obviously Emmett Till's murder is important to the general context of the Civil Rights era and the race-based crimes associated therewith. The fact that the crime was committed based on the belief that Mr. Till had in some way "come on" to a white woman strikes me as deserving of being one of the first pieces of information conveyed. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 03:41, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Yes Like Dumuzid, I'm not unfamiliar with this incident (tho not intimately, I'll confess). Till's alleged interest was a primary motivation for his lynching; the falsity of the claims of assault, AIUI, only bear on his conviction, not his lynching. It was, AIUI, Till's comments that got him lynched; whether that can be called "flirting", absent knowledge of exactly what was said, IMO should prohibit us characterizing it one way or another, but not from calling it causal, for it clearly was. TREKphiler 05:17, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Comment I don't think yes/no is very helpful here, AFAIK, nobody thinks that the element of (perceived) sexually inappropriate/flirtatious behaviour should be omitted, it is simply a case of where and how to render the info. My personal pref is to not include in para one, but to place in para 2 as part of a more complete and qualified account of the whole story, including the initial 'flirting' and later false accusations made in the court by Mrs B. Nobody knows what happened in the store, there are various partial accounts and we can all guess that it was almost certainly relatively innocent on Till's part, but none of us knows. We cannot use 'falsely accused' of anything at that time since we do not know what the initial accusation made by Mrs B was, although it was almost certainly him being perceived as being "uppitty" and probably with a sexual element. 'Possibly flirtatious' would be the strongest thing we could be certain of in respect of what happened in the shop. Pincrete (talk) 09:12, 12 May 2017 (UTC) … … NB to closer this is purely a comment, my vote is made below. Pincrete (talk) 11:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)
• Objection and comment - This RfC is a clear misrepresentation of supposed sides and therefore not neutral and is defective: the issue is where in the lead the discussion should go. This RfC is also bizarre, because the subsidiary issue before this RFC was framed is precise wording, and this RFC offers nothing but a list of maybe possibly a half dozen things.
  • Britannica lead sentence: Emmett Till, in full Emmett Louis Till (born July 25, 1941, Chicago, Ill., U.S.—died Aug. 28, 1955, Money, Miss.), African American teenager whose murder catalyzed the emerging civil rights movement.
  • Encyclopedia of African American History: 1896 to the Present, Oxford University Press (2009). v.4., p.468. lead sentence: TILL, EMMIT, LYNCHING OF. In summer 1955, just after turning fourteen, Emmitt Louis Till was sent by his mother Mamie Till-Bradley, to stay with the family of his great uncle Moses Wright near Money Mississippi in the Mississippi Delta. (bolding in original)
• So it is fallacious to claim it must be in the lead sentence to write an encyclopedia article. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:53, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

• Include in lede. First sentence. Read as follows: - " After allegedly whistling at a white woman" - After glancing at the sources on this subject, most of them specifically make reference to "whistling". I'm no expert on this subject, and I'm not sure how much backing there is for the "whistling" allegation, but we ought to simply follow the sources on this one. NickCT (talk) 14:35, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

NickCT, I believe I am right when I say that the "whistle' is allegedly after Bryant had already gone to get her gun because of something Till said or did and when Till and the others were already 'running away'. The alleged whistle is the 'parting shot' of whatever it is that angered Mrs B. This to me confirms that something like Dr JoeE's text below needs to be opening sentence and more complex/disputed details in para 2. Pincrete (talk) 18:16, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pincrete: - You may be right. I don't know much about this subject. That may be the allegation and/or the reality of what happened. But to a certain extent, I don't care. I only really care about what I see in the majority of sources, and, after brief review, I see a whole bunch of sources that say simply "whistled" without going into the details. Frankly, I think that's what we should do in the lead. Give a simplified, non-nuanced and verifiable explanation in the lead, then deal with the nuances int he body.

Sometimes you trade a little bit of accuracy for a whole lot concision. And that can be OK in a lede. NickCT (talk) 20:04, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Why? When it is perfectly easy to say that the details are disputed and may include wolf-whistling and or flirtatious remarks. As per Encyclopedia of African American History text quoted by Alanscottwalker below. Pincrete (talk) 20:28, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pincrete: - Easy huh? So you should be able to propose a wording then. NickCT (talk) 04:39, 14 May 2017 (UTC)

NickCT, you are seeing "whistled at" more than "flirted with" in the sources? As seen above, I mainly saw "flirted with." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

@Flyer22: - Great question! Honestly, I didn't look real hard, but at first glance, it appeared that "whistled at" was more common. Really though, I'd support either "whistled at" or "flirted with". NickCT (talk) 15:29, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

• Absolutely. What NickCT said. I've advocated that exact lede sentence (or a close semblance) every time it has come up -- and it has come up repeatedly, unfortunately. I don't know why this is so contentious -- just follow the sources. A black kid from Chicago had a momentary interaction with a white woman in Mississippi, and was murdered for it. That summarizes the article quite succinctly, yes? DoctorJoeE /_{talk to me!} 17:57, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Comment. Whatever we want to call what Till supposedly did to precipitate the events that followed, we really don't need to say it in the first sentence. Lead section, yes; lead sentence, no. Given the cultural norms of the place and time, it's hard to conclude that knowing the specifics—whistling, flirting, propositioning or whatever—is vital to understanding what came after. I'm not so sure it's particularly important even to know whether there was any truth to the woman's allegation. When it came to lynching, all manner of pretexts were employed to justify the unjustifiable. In that environment, it was sometimes enough just to happen to cross paths with a white person—i.e., to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Rivertorch_WATER 17:01, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• FYI: Further from the multi-page article in the Oxford Encyclopedia of African American History - 2nd paragraph: "During the first week in Mississippi, on 24 August 1955, Till and a group of black teenagers went into town. . Responding to boasts from Till about having dated white girls in his hometown, some in the group dared Till to ask for a date. No definitive version of what transpired in the store exists. Witnesses have variously claimed that Till leaned in and said something to Bryant, that he gave a "wolf whistle" or said "bye, baby" as he left the store, or that he did some or all of those things. ." Third paragraph begins: "Whatever happened in the store, the teenagers immediately departed town." . . . Alanscottwalker (talk) 17:33, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• comment OK, I've spent the last few days reading everything I could find on the murder and watching several documentaries. As Nick says above there is very wide agreement that Till whistled at Carolyn but not much else. (In fact, as I said above, I really doubt that he said anything of a sexual nature at all. I'm guessing that he may have touched her hand when change was exchanged, said "yeah" rather than "yes'um, looked squarely at her rather than down, etc. He had no reason to show off when none off his peers were present.) And Carolyn had every reason to make up a more impressive story what with her husband on trial. IMO Nick's suggestion for a lead sentence " After allegedly whistling at a white woman" is excellent. Gandydancer (talk) 19:02, 12 May 2017 (UTC)
• Either 6. "After speaking to a white woman in a grocery store." or omit from lead sentence but include later. I think the "whistling" proposal just sounds too quirky for a lead sentence. Anything with "allegedly", "falsely accused", or an attempt to characterize the sexual nature of whatever happened is going to be doomed to some element of inaccuracy. It's certainly important to include this in the lead, but it does not have to be put into the first sentence. Till is remembered for being the victim of an appalling lynching, and there is no such thing as a rational explanation for a lynching, so there are few ways for us to explain it rationally without going into more details than can fit into a lead sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:53, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

Trypto, what do you mean by "speaking to a white woman in a grocery store?" Do you mean he spoke to her about a purchase or do you mean he spoke to her in a sexual manner? I assume that you don't feel that he was killed for asking for candy and pop, so I must assume that you believe something similar to Carolyn's version of the incident. Gandydancer (talk) 23:31, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I mean that the sources tell us that some sort of interaction happened in the store, but we will never know exactly what was said. My personal opinion (not a reliable source) is that he asked for something that he wanted to buy (one source, I think, refers to bubblegum), and was killed because his killers were looking for an excuse to kill. As I said above, we won't find a rational reason for his killing, and therefore I don't feel a need to provide a reasonable-ish sounding reason. Please do not assume that I agree with the killers' story. (Also, as pointed out above, the whistle may have come after the killers had already decided to do the lynching.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:54, 12 May 2017 (UTC)

I've never seen a source other than Carolyn that says that "some sort of (verbal) interaction" occurred in the store. Till's cousin said that he neither saw nor heard Emmitt say anything out of line and that Carolyn did not appear upset. As I said above, I'm inclined to believe he "may have touched her hand when change was exchanged, said "yeah" rather than "yes'um, looked squarely at her rather than down, etc." At that time that was enough to have made her angry. Keep in mind as well that the townspeople were pissed off about those niggers that had gone north to Chicago and then came back down for a visit and forgot their place. So IMO, if we are going to use WP's voice to say that they had a verbal exchange we need to source it. Do you have a source? As for the reason for killing him it seems as plain as plain can be to me. They were both enraged when Emmitt stood his ground. For example, when they took him from his uncles house, as he was getting dressed when he started to put his socks on they said he didn't need socks and he replied that he wore socks with his shoes. At that time I think that we can say for a fact that no black person had ever talked back to them. This issue may not seem very important to some white folk but it makes a whole lot of difference to many black folk who always refused to believe Carolyn's version. Gandydancer (talk) 03:39, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

To add, above you said, "(Also, as pointed out above, the whistle may have come after the killers had already decided to do the lynching.)." I have no idea where you got that from. Many witnesses said that Till whistled at her when she came out to the store to go to a car just moments after Till and his cousin left the store. Gandydancer (talk) 03:57, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

About the whistle thing, I got it from Pincrete's reply to NickD, just above. As for the rest, whatever. I'm fine with omitting it entirely from the lead sentence and covering it more clearly lower in the lead. --Tryptofish (talk) 16:36, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm not sure who is being asked what here, but what (I think) I said was not that the lynching was decided by the time of the possible 'whistle', but that Mrs B was already angered by SOMETHING at that point, and on her way to get her husband's gun from the car. I personally don't think it is either knowable, nor terribly important what exactly happened between Mrs B and Till, he offended the values of that place and time in some way and was brutally murdered as a result.Pincrete (talk) 17:42, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

(Trypto we had an edit conflict) Thanks to both of you. I've known Trypto for a long time and I know that he is both an excellent editor and very easy to work with. Pincrete, I must admit that this story of this murder does twist very strongly at my heart strings and it seems to me that I place more importance on the truth of what happened on that day (perhaps because I'm a woman and have for many years worked to help to empower women?). Till's only offense that we can say for sure about was his wolf whistle. Interestingly, as I read the more modern reports of the incident they now are mostly all using that incident rather than as used to be used,"flirted with". For me I would be satisfied that the opening sentence not give any reason for his murder but that that be included in perhaps the 2nd para. But, I know that Flyer has spent many, many, MANY hours of work to improve and keep up women's articles and I feel strongly that her opinion be given more weight than others. So, for that reason I'm wondering if putting "whistled at" in the first sentence would be an acceptable possibility for her. Gandydancer (talk) 22:18, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

In any case, the ongoing discussions have pretty much persuaded me that there is simply no good way to reduce the description to a brief phrase that could fit in the lead sentence. So I've just changed my opinion to omitting it from the lead sentence, but including it later in the lead section. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:10, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

Tryptofish, Till is remembered for being a black boy who was murdered after an alleged flirtatious interaction with a white woman. Look again at the sources I've included on the matter. Look at many more. This aspect is almost always noted first when describing/summarizing this case. Stating that he was murdered after this alleged interaction is not justifying a thing with regard to the killers. Anyone with sense can see that the murder was unjustifiable. And some sources I've listed do, in fact, state "allegedly" or similar. I don't see why "allegedly" or similar is needed if we simply note the reported Bryant confession immediately after the "accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" piece. There is no need to use "flirted with." As for "whistled," as I stated in the Discussion section below, "wolf-whistled" is more accurate. But there is no need to state "whistled" or "wolf-whistled" either. "Verbal or physical advances" takes care of the "flirting with" and "whistled" issues. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:21, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22, I don't think anyone doubts that the element of some kind of inappropriateness, probably of a cheekily sexual/flirtatious nature is almost certainly at the core of this incident, the perceived offence that got Till killed. What some of us would rather do, is place a more nuanced account in a sequential place in para 2, which acknowledges that we don't know exactly what that offence was and the details are still disputed, some older claims have been discredited etc. I simply don't think it is possible to be both accurate and concise in the opening sentence about the initial offence. Pincrete (talk) 07:37, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, I know what you (and others with your viewpoint) are arguing; I just don't agree, except for including a more nuanced account. In the Discussion section below, I proposed to include the brief, more nuanced summary immediately after the "murdered after showing an interest in a white woman" aspect. I just don't find the argument that this aspect can't reasonably go in the lead sentence believable, especially given that it was in the lead sentence for years and that neither "flirting with" nor "whistled" (or "wolf-whistled") need to be used in the lead sentence. Bryant's reported 2008 confession does not mean that we cannot include the fact that Till was murdered for a supposed flirtatious interaction with Bryant. From what I know of the history/impact and how the sources treat/describe this case, the "murdered after showing an interest in a white woman" aspect should be in the lead sentence. Even using "interest" instead of "flirted with" or "whistled" (or "wolf-whistled") would be better than removing it from the lead sentence altogether. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 07:55, 15 May 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 08:00, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer I just hate that wording using "showing an interest". In the first place, I don't (goddamn :)) believe it... And we've only her statements to back it up. I have to admit that I get a little testy when it comes to giving any credence what so ever to any thing she said. My preference remains leaving it out of the opening sentence. I'll repeat what I said above, how would you and the others feel about using the wording "...after allegedly insulting a white woman" as she first described the incident. Gandydancer (talk) 13:04, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

You know, I had not previously thought of after allegedly insulting a white woman, but now that I see it, I think it's the best idea that I've seen so far. Unlike any of the previous proposals, it does not imply a specific kind of action (such as speaking, whistling, flirting, etc. etc.) that would have constituted the alleged insult, and therefore does not put us into the position of speculating about exactly what had happened, and it fits with pretty much any account. I strongly support doing it that way. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:01, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I also prefer "allegedly insulting " to other options, or "after offending a white woman in a ...". I have to say that "allegedly showing an interest" is vague but implies a definite sexual interest on Till's part, rather than a 14-year old's cheekiness, with a flirty component, that it may well have been. Pincrete (talk) 07:57, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

• Include in lead but not in the lead sentence. The lead should reflect all the topic in the article according to the amount of weight given in the article. There is enough about the motivation of the attackers to mention it in the lead. However, the lead sentence should describe the person, and why he is known, not the motivations of his murderers. LK (talk) 00:34, 13 May 2017 (UTC)
• Yes I have read quite a bit of material on this before coming to this article, including the original breaking news articles, I think in Time Magazine and maybe some other small publication, and my memory of everything I read comports with the idea that he was lynched for flirting or otherwise showing "inappropriate" interest in a white woman. I'm pretty sure I did not start with Misplaced Pages. I don't remember the whistling or speaking part, but I remember the "inappropriate" eye contact, had enraged the men who lynched the boy. Strong yes, as based on my recollection that would be a key aspect of what appeared to have triggered it. Willing to reconsider if someone points me to sources, especially those that are more recent by respectable historians, if those sources suggest that is was not sexual interest, or an explanation why this is of lesser importance than some other material that might go in the first and lead sentence(s). Wherever it goes, I currently believe it should be very early in the WP:LEDE, and I support having it in the first sentence. It looks like there are pile of sources above that say it is sexual interest that triggered it, which is what I remember too.--David Tornheim (talk) 06:35, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

• 3 I think 3 is the best one to fit, if it's being included at all. d.g. L3X1 (distant write) 20:20, 13 May 2017 (UTC)

• Just follow the 1950s wording - this was a lynching over a wolf-whistle. I'll suggest stop trying to reframe it in 2017 perspective and language, it was the perception in 1955 that killed him. Markbassett (talk) 00:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

But perspective and language have changed significantly since the 1950s. More evidence has come to light, and with it, more uncertainties. Rivertorch_WATER 03:08, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Not all sources refer to the alleged whistle, most of them, especially fuller accounts, do not give it as the reason for the attack, rather Till's verbal 'cheekiness'. AFAIK those sources that refer to the whistle, speak of 'whistling at', not of 'wolf-whistling', the latter is usually more overtly sexual. Pincrete (talk) 09:45, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

@Pincrete: - We don't have to have consensus among the sources. If the large majority of sources refer to the whistle, we should too.

We can parse out the nuance and uncertainties in the body of the article. Leave the lede simple. NickCT (talk) 14:56, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting leaving out the whistle, simply moving it from sentence 1 (where it implies primary or sole motive) to para 2 of lead (where it sits alongside other uncertainties in sequential order). Also not turning it into a 'wolf-whistle' unless sources state that explicitly, which I believe they don't. Pincrete (talk) 18:55, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Rivertorch point is he was killed before the later evidence and later wording. So phrased as "killed for flirting, later shown false" seems more right than "killed for a false claim". The killers did not do it because of the falsity of the claim, and the womans 21-st century retraction was not in the picture at the time the trigger was pulled -- so seems better to present that in text as an afterwards. Markbassett (talk) 00:49, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

• Yes - it should be included in the lead sentence. It was why he was lynched. murdered. Follow the RS for specific wording. SW3 5DL (talk) 04:37, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Adding Comment: It seems Emmett Till was not "lynched" in the usual sense of that word, i.e., a noose around his neck and hung from a tree. History.com says something very different. SW3 5DL (talk) 18:57, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

• Not in opening sentence Include in para 2 of lead in chronological sequence of events, complete with the info that it is uncertain/disputed what actually happened. It can't be included in first sentence without sacrificing accuracy IMO and that is not a price worth paying simply to put the possibility/probability of a mildly 'sexual' element to Till's behaviour into 'pole position'. The fact that he was very brutally murdered is a great deal more important to state clearly than 'muddying the waters' with the ostensible 'excuse' offered by the killers. Pincrete (talk) 18:07, 18 May 2017 (UTC)
• Yes include NickCT whistling version in first sentence Seraphim System 04:41, 19 May 2017 (UTC)
• No I'd prefer any reason for the murder to not be in the opening sentence. It is a complicated aspect of the murder and would best be explained in perhaps the second paragraph. However, at this point it seems that most editors prefer something in the opening sentence. If we change the wording from "flirting", which has been used for years, I would suggest we switch to "whistled at" since that is something that has been accepted since the incident by most who either witnessed it or have written about it. A google search for info on Till following the release of the 2017 book reveals that the news sources of the first two pages of the search use the term "whistled at". No site mentioned the possibility that Till had made any sort of sexual advance towards Bryant, no matter how minor. Gandydancer (talk) 17:47, 23 May 2017 (UTC)
• Include but not in the first sentence. I decided to read this article as a reader which does not know anything about Emmett Till (for sake of clarity) reasons and to suppose a thought process if all I had read was the lead of this article. The WP:LEAD policy makes it clear that the lead must include all of the most important aspects of an article, since it is what most readers read, and for a lot of them, what they only read. I read the bit in the article about He spoke to 21-year-old Carolyn Bryant, the married proprietor of a small grocery store there. and afterwards got a bit confused. I know what happened because I've watched documentaries about it, and it's arguably the most famous case of a lynching, but strangely, the article doesn't even make even an "alleged" mention of it. As to the particulars about it, it appears that yes, the reliable sources do describe Till was murdered after being accused of flirting with a white woman. It is also strange that the lead will comment about it later Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her. but not mention the initial accusation in the first place. So yes, I am in favor of including it. Perhaps the . "After being falsely accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." bit since she admitted it was a false accusation, and it wouldn't violate WP:BLP in that regard. Tutelary (talk) 16:08, 24 May 2017 (UTC)
• Include in a second sentence of the first paragraph: Two white men abducted and murdered him over his alleged behavior during a brief interaction with 21-year-old white woman Carolyn Bryant. I agree with Tutelary: this is a narrative hole in both the first and second paragraphs. Since Till's action could be misinterpreted (the stutter-protective whistle), a violation of racial ettiquette (touching her hand), or deliberately romantic/sexual, no short description is encyclopedic, but the connection between allegation and abduction/murder is core to the story of his life and death.--Carwil (talk) 19:28, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Carwil, so you are stating that the lead should begin with a brief, vague summary, and then explain the matter later in the lead? Since it seems you are stating that the lead should still explain the matter, how early on do you think it should happen? Second paragraph? As for your proposed wording for the lead paragraph, I do feel that "alleged behavior" is way too vague, and is teasing the reader. If we go with "verbal or physical advances," which is what the fifth paragraph already does, that is at least clearer. It covers the matter without being too descriptive and without being too vague. And we can then explain what we mean by that later in the lead (preferably the second paragraph). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:44, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

The problem is "verbal and physical advances" is inconsistent with Bryant's later statements, with the possibility of a misinterpreted whistle, etc. Let's consider a phrase used later in the article: allegedly "violating the rules of Southern racial etiquette" (the later text says "caste etiquette"). This consistent with the statements of perpetrators, witnesses, and advocates.--Carwil (talk) 18:07, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Carwil, I appreciate you suggesting something else. The issue for me is that not only do the vast majority of reliable sources report that Till was killed because Bryant accused him of making a romantic/sexual advance towards her (usually by using the word "flirted"), but Bryant is reported to have admitted that this part of the story is false...at least in terms of something sexual or menacing. We have an entire section about it, and there is nothing in that section to suggest that Bryant was lying about this part of the story being false, or that she misremembered that no sexual advance was made. If going by that report, all that is clear is that she does not remember everything that happened. I'm thinking in terms of a historical viewpoint (as seen by sources I supplied above) and a WP:Due weight viewpoint, which is why I am having such a difficult time with objections to going with the "killed because he was accused of flirting with Bryant" narrative, whether we use "reportedly" or "allegedly" to help address the bit of doubt. And, again, it's not like we have to use the words "flirting with" to get the romantic/sexual advance aspect across. There is no doubt in my mind that the Till case will always first and foremost be described as a case where a black male was killed because of his perceived interest in a white woman. And that is what the case is most well known for. And right now...there is a disconnect in the lead in this regard, as made clear by Tutelary (and by me before that). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Discussion

I would go with the following: "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14 after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman, Carolyn Bryant. He spoke to Bryant in a small grocery store. The details of their encounter is a matter of some dispute but, in a 2008 interview, Bryant said, "othing that boy did could ever justify what happened to him", and she disclosed that she had fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her."

This way, the core description of the story is included in the first sentence, and we explain the matter immediately afterward. We could also use the traditional "flirting with" wording, but, as noted above, there are issues with that. And "whistled at" doesn't seem sufficient, unless we state "wolf-whistled." I never supported "falsely accused," as should be clear by my initial post on this talk page. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:38, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I think most of that is good for the second paragraph of the lead. But in the first lead paragraph (as more so, the current first paragraph does) we should convey why the life and death of 14 year-old Till is of great import, and that has to do with his connection to the civil rights movement, including his brutal death during a lynching by white men, and their going free for his murder. Moreover, Carolyn, whatever her faults, did not murder, but having the lead paragraph like you have, puts it all on her shoulders, for all time to come. Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:06, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

I also think that it is too much for the first paragraph, but would be OK for a subsequent paragraph. I believe that the first paragraph should focus primarily on his importance as a figure in the history of civil rights, as opposed to whatever details were alleged by his killers. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

Agree that the above is trying to squeeze too much into opening sentence/para. If we need to say anything specific about the 'store incident' in para 1, how about "following an altercation with a white woman in a store in ..." Some kind of altercation occurred in the store, but its exact nature is uncertain. Pincrete (talk) 08:40, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that altercation is too strong a word: a noisy argument or disagreement, especially in public. "I had an altercation with the conductor" synonyms: argument, quarrel, squabble, fight, shouting match, disagreement, contretemps, difference of opinion, falling-out, dispute, disputation, clash, fracas, wrangle, blowup, skirmish, run-in, war of words, donnybrook I think that "insulted" is the much better choice. Gandydancer (talk) 12:43, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

"After offending a white woman in a grocery store" .... ? Then put all the disputed stuff later in the lead in sequential order. That she was offended is certain (she went out to get her gun). Why and what exactly offended her is disputed, though it probably had a 'flirty/sexual' element. Pincrete (talk) 08:03, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, as I've said again and again I highly doubt that he offended her in a 'flirty/sexual' manner. I'd like to see this article reflect my best guess as to what happened as well as yours or anybody else. I believe that now and I believed it before C.B. admitted that she had lied. So with that recent admission of hers I'd like to be sure that this article makes it plain that the only undisputed evidence is the whistle and that anything to the contrary is likely a lie. Perhaps we could add to the article the info from the FBI report re mores of that time (as I mentioned above). Gandydancer (talk) 19:41, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

Almost all sources refer to 'flirty and/or 'whistling at', though I'm putting 'flirty' in inverted commas because, in the context of what was deemed inappropriate by a white woman in that place and time, it may have been so innocuous as to be invisible in 2017 and 'whistling at' is after she was already getting her gun, so cannot be the initial cause of offence. However, note that I'm suggesting avoiding any use of the words flirty/sexual in the first sentence and leaving any final decision as to whether the behaviour was at all cheeky/flirty/sexual to the reader. Does it matter that much? 14 year old boys approaching 21 year old married women only ordinarily risk a slap in the face and/or being laughed at and/or being reported to their mums, not a barbarously cruel death. Pincrete (talk) 20:48, 17 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how my proposal for the lead paragraph is that much longer than what Alanscottwalker proposed. In fact, my proposal is what Alanscottwalker proposed. Look at the collapsed template above where the proposals are. The only difference is that I rightly proposed that we include the "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" bit in the lead sentence, and I tweaked the flow.

I don't agree with using "after offending a white woman in a grocery store"; this is because sources don't usually use that wording. "Offending" is vague. "Interest" is vague as well, but it at least implies romantic or sexual interest, which is what the overwhelmingly majority of reliable sources report. I agree with "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" or something similar. I've made my case for why. So, at this point, I'd simply be repeating myself. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:46, 18 May 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:54, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Are you using lead paragraph loosely, as in, a paragraph somewhere in the lead? For the first paragraph, I never proposed anything like what you proposed, and have explicitly opposed it for the first paragraph. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

"OK, where are we at? Seems we're down to three good choices. 1) No mention of the reason 2) after allegedly insulting a white woman" and 3) "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" Is this correct? Gandydancer (talk) 14:01, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, just so it is clear, no mention is no mention in the first sentence, not, no mention anywhere in the lead section. For me no mention somewhere in the lead is not something I would support, although I do support, not the first sentence, in part because it will be discussed soon after in a subsequent paragraph in the lead. Alanscottwalker (talk) 14:15, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes, that was my understanding...perhaps I should have make it clearer. Gandydancer (talk) 15:03, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Well, the RfC is leaning toward including the interaction in the lead sentence. As you know, the main issue with doing that is the "flirting with" or "whistling at" (or "wolf-whistling at") wording. I'd rather not use either of those, given the aforementioned issues. But I see no issue with stating "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." So I still stand by that. I disagree with using "insulting" for the same reasons I disagree with using "offending." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:09, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

OK, I haven't added it all up. Flyer, you are saying that at this point feedback says to include something in the lead sentence? Gandydancer (talk) 15:03, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

That is what the RfC shows so far. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:16, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

User:Flyer22 Reborn since no one knows what either Mrs B or the two killers accused Till of prior to his murder, where do you find "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman". Who exactly accused Till of either at that stage and according to which source(s)? 'Flirting', AFAIK is the only sourcable accusation as an initial cause (whistling is outside when she is already getting her gun) and we all pretty much agree that 'flirting' is unhelpfully vague and possibly disputed.Pincrete (talk) 17:53, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, it does not matter that we do not know exactly what was stated or exactly what occurred. What we do know is that Till was murdered after allegedly flirting with a white woman and/or allegedly grabbing her. The reliable sources are clear on this. Stating "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" is simply another way of stating that. And this wording has had support earlier on (above); so I don't see any solid reason for opposing it. I could ask you and others where did you get "after offending" and "after insulting." How is that vague wording better? We should be going by what the sources state, period. And we can convey "flirting" without using "flirting." The wording "verbal advance" clearly takes care of that. "Physical" is not even needed, since most of the sources state "flirted with" or "flirting with."

On a side note: Everyone, there is no need to ping me; this page is obviously on my watchlist. If I don't respond immediately after someone has replied to me, this is because I am busy with something else on Misplaced Pages or am off Misplaced Pages (for hours, a day, or more than a day). I also prefer not to debate all day. So I might be waiting until I'm done with other things on Misplaced Pages before commenting here and leaving afterward. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:16, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

We know for a fact that the first known mention of 'possibly grabbing' or indeed mention of any possible physical contact is weeks after his death, and of course was later withdrawn, so I think 'physical' is a non-starter. We cannot know what Mrs B accused Till of at the time but the wording implies we do, since she is the only one who could have accused him. Find me a source that says what Mrs B accused Till of on the day, because I can't find one though the wording implies we know or are at least certain 'flirting' was alleged by her on the day. We know that she got angry and went out to get her gun from the car. Yes, what Till said or did probably had a cheeky/flirty element to it, but how much is unknown. I think we are 'busting our guts' here to get a simple version into sentence one and actually no accurate simple version is possible of the 'initial cause', so let's delay it a sentence or two but render it accurately. Pincrete (talk) 18:50, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

We should be following the sources; I don't find that as difficult as is being made out here. I repeat: The vast majority of reliable sources state that Till was murdered for his interaction with a white woman; those sources usually use the term "flirting with." It is a fact that Till was murdered because of his perceived interest in a white woman. It was because he said something and/or otherwise did something (no matter if it was a misunderstanding or all a complete lie). The words "making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" covers that. The "murdered for his interaction with a white woman" aspect is almost always reported first when reporting on this case. See again the sources I listed above. Because of this and what Dumuzid stated in the #Survey, May 2017 section above with regard to "Civil Rights era and the race-based crimes associated therewith," I will continue to feel that it is completely unreasonable to not include this piece in the very first sentence. The current lead sentence is inadequate. I've already stated why it is. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree completely that the interaction with Bryant was the initial cause and that interaction almost certainly had an element which she (and later the men) found inappropriately sexual coming, from a black male. I disagree totally that 'perceived interest in a white woman' makes that clear, it sounds to me as if he was overtly making passes at her. AlanSW has actually shown that several encyc articles omit this from sentence one, and one could equally argue that Northern urban black meets Southern rural white is a central aspect. An important factor which I feel is not being allowed for is the age and quality of sources, a 2004 FBI investigation or lengthy book/article is obviously more carefully researched than a brief earlier article, and while I haven't looked at all, the longer ones I have looked at make it clear that EXACTLY what happened at the store is disputed, beyond the fact that Mrs B was offended and angry enough to go out for her gun (at which point the whistle may have happened).

If we HAVE to have an account of what happened in the store in the very opening, I don't think 'possibly flirting with' can be bettered, but I'd still rather a delayed, fuller and more nuanced account. Pincrete (talk) 21:43, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't see how I forgot the suggestion "After allegedly whistling at a white woman" which is a good one as well. Gandydancer (talk) 18:46, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

BTW Flyer, you said above that the word "insulted" is seldom used. Actually it is frequently used in the more recent accounts (since the book came out). For example: Ms. Donham’s husband Roy and his half brother J. W. Milam were charged with murder. Documents show that Ms. Bryant told her lawyer at the time that the teenager had “insulted” her. But by the time of the trial, Mr. Tyson writes, Ms. Bryant had become “the mouthpiece of a monstrous lie,” claiming that the teenager had grabbed her around the waist while uttering obscenities. The fraudulent testimony was meant to convince the court that Emmett’s behavior justified his death. Gandydancer (talk) 21:02, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, I don't agree with your rationale; I've already been over why. And "perceived interest in a white woman" is certainly clearer than using "insulting" or "offending." There is no doubt in my mind that readers will take "interest" to mean "romantic and/or sexual." And it is the "romantic and/or sexual" element that sources mean when they state "flirting" or "wolf-whistled." Also, do you mind moving your second comment in the Survey section so that it is with your initial comment there? Both comments are essentially stating the same thing and I would hate for the closer to accidentally think they are by two different posters.

Gandydancer, "insulted" is not the the term that is usually used to initially describe this incident. I'm against it because of that and because it is vague. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:02, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer, you need to consider that with the release of the Till book we have a lot of new information to work with, and we should be using it. At this point using the wording, "perceived interest in a white woman" or "after being accused of making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman" is not only not factual, it is racist in that it gives credence to the suggestion that all black men are a threat to decent white folk and their wemmonfolk. There is much better evidence that Till unknowingly broke some sort of rule such as touching her hand in the exchange of change, etc. For example, in a recent article: Days after the arrest, Ms. Bryant told her husband’s lawyer that Emmett had insulted her, but said nothing about physical contact, Dr. Tyson said. Five decades later, she told the F.B.I. that he had touched her hand. To say it is too vague makes no sense at all, IMO. To say "insulted" or "whistled at" are the best choices. Gandydancer (talk) 18:28, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Gandydancer, you've noted that you are biased on this matter. I think that editors need to stop letting their emotions drive their arguments on this. I'll attempt to keep my emotions out of it as well, although it's natural for emotions to come with the territory on this topic and especially when debating another on one's motivations. I have considered all sides. Reporting on why Till was killed -- which is that he was a black boy with a perceived interest in a white woman -- is not racist. The act of killing him was racist. Reporting on it is history. Regardless of what actually happened, what got Till killed was the Bryant accusation that he was interested in her. She clearly interpreted what Till did in a romantic and/or sexual way. If not that, she certainly let people believe that it was her interpretation. And if not that, I don't see why Tyson would state "she said with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true." The "interested in her" aspect is important for the reasons that the sources state that it's important. Reporting on it, whether first or later, does not "give credence to the suggestion that all black men are a threat to decent white folk and their wemmonfolk"; it is clear to anyone who reads the lead and the article as a whole that Till was unjustly murdered. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:54, 22 May 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:03, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer, I think that bias was a bad choice of words on my part and I should have done better. Obviously I did not intend to make it sound like I thought this or that without any serious thought going into what I think. Just for the record, I feel that my arguments are reasonable and well-thought out and for you to make a big deal out of this is not helpful for this discussion IMO, since feelings are getting raw enough already without adding any fuel to the flames. Anyway, you state, "Regardless of what actually happened, what got Till killed was the Bryant accusation that he was interested in her." As I have said again and again we have no idea whether or not he made some sort of sexual remark or, for example, merely made hand contact in the exchange of change, a radical mistake for any black person at that time in that place. You keep refusing to accept that what happened before the trial and what was actually said at the trial are two different things. After all, what was she going to say?...that they killed him because he touched her hand? Of course not because she had to make it sound like he had made a strong sexual advance on her. You keep wanting to make it clear, black and white, not "confusing", etc. but it's not so easy at all ...All the more reason that it should be left out of the lead first sentence in the first place, IMO. Gandydancer (talk) 20:47, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Gandydancer, it's not a matter of black and white for me. Well, except for the racist aspect of it that was very much about black and white. I'm not ignoring or neglecting anything. As for the rest, you can consider my "20:33, 22 May 2017 (UTC)" reply to Pincrete below my reply to you as well. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:05, 22 May 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:09, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I was not using black and white in a racial sense...again a poor choice of words on my part, I guess. As to the post below, yes, we do need to follow the sources and the more recent sources do not use the "sexual interest" sort of suggestions as you say. They use "whistled" or "insulted" since the 2017 Till book came out. Anyway, like a lot of us here I am pretty sick of this and wish for a close ASAP. I think it was a mistake to not take Trypto's advise and have "some sort of survey", as he said below. Gandydancer (talk) 21:36, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I know that you did not mean black and white in a racial sense. As for sources, I'm sticking with my due weight argument and the fact that we supposedly have Bryant on record specifically stating "with respect to the physical assault on , or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true." As for another survey, the current is specifically about the issue at hand. If a second one undermines the consensus that comes out of that one, I will only view it as a survey meant to get around consensus. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Re what got Till killed was the Bryant accusation that he was interested in her. She clearly interpreted what Till did in a romantic and/or sexual way. If not that, she certainly let people believe that it was her interpretation. Apart from accusations made for the first time at the trial (since withdrawn). When did Mrs B accuse Till, to whom and of what exactly? There is very possibly a perception on Mrs B's part that a 14-year old black male, behaved inappropriately to a 21 year old married white woman, but was that a direct-face look? Cheeky behaviour? An explicitly sexual remark? Touched hands? I don't think anyone knows and we shouldn't pretend we do. Pincrete (talk) 19:37, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Again, it's not about knowing exactly what was stated or otherwise done. It's about following the sources with due weight. Have a look at what WP:Right the great wrongs states, or what WP:False balance states. Following the sources is not about us knowing exactly what happened, any more than that it is the case for a lot of other historical incidents that we were not there for. We have what most sources state and what Bryant supposedly told Tyson. At this point, we are just repeating ourselves. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:33, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

Other editors are as familiar with basic policies as you are I think. Quoting policies like 'weight' is a bit pointless unless you say which sources you give weight to and which you don't and why. The whole point of my post is that you seemed very clear about what Mrs B said, did and felt, all of which are no better than guesses, very possibly right, but guesses nonetheless. I'm the one who says we really don't know and should say that. Pincrete (talk) 21:21, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

If they are as familiar with the basic policies, then they should know that weight does apply. The WP:False balance aspect of it very much applies. I have already noted what I am referring to when it comes to due weight -- Till, a black boy, being killed because of his perceived interest in Bryant, a white woman. Others have argued the same in this RfC. I was not arguing what Bryant stated, except for what Tyson reports she stated. In fact, I was very clear that "it's not about knowing exactly what was stated or otherwise done." I was arguing what the preponderance of reliable sources state, sources that you continue to disregard or cast doubt on because we don't know exactly what happened, even though the same exact thing can be stated about various other historical events where we are simply following what the sources state with due weight. We were not there in person for those cases either. We do know that Till was killed for a perceived interest in Bryant. You keep arguing about what might have happened and that we don't know exactly what happened, as if that changes the fact that Till was killed because the killers perceived him to have been flirting with Bryant. The sources, for example, do not state that he was killed because they thought that he simply looked at her funny. You are arguing the same thing again and again. And so am I. I've resigned to the fact that we will not be agreeing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:18, 22 May 2017 (UTC) l

Once again, when you don't agree with another editor, or other editors, you ignore anything that does not fit your perception. There is no evidence that "Till was killed because the killers perceived him to have been flirting with Bryant". It is just as likely that he was killed because he stood his ground and did not obey the strict rules for black behavior that existed at that time, for example not looking a white woman in the eye or failing to be careful to not make any skin contact when exchanging money. ...or telling white men to wait till he put his socks on before he was abducted in the middle of the night. Gandydancer (talk) 00:29, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Once again, I am not ignoring anything. Once again, I am following what the preponderance of reliable sources state. And, no, I don't think it's just as likely at all that the men murdered him simply because he supposedly stood his ground. I think it is very clear that they were going to kill him the moment they went searching for him. And any other speculation, such as "not looking a white woman in the eye or failing to be careful to not make any skin contact when exchanging money," is just speculation not supported by the sources, while the "Till was killed because the killers perceived him to have been flirting with Bryant" aspect is overwhelmingly supported by the sources and Tyson specifically stated that Bryant commented on that aspect. It's not supposed to be about what we think -- that's the point. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:02, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Above, you stated, "After all, what was she going to say?...that they killed him because he touched her hand? Of course not because she had to make it sound like he had made a strong sexual advance on her." I don't know how I can iterate the following any clearer: Except for the account by Tyson and sources specifically examining her accusation, it does not matter that we do not know if she was lying or not. That she was seemingly lying about something does not negate what got Till killed. The issue is what got him killed and how that impacted society. Whatever she claimed and/or let people believe is what got Till killed. By her supposed own admission, a sexual element was a part of the accusation. The accusation and how that impacted society is what the sources are reporting on. The accuracy of the accusation is another matter, one that is already addressed in the article and can be addressed in the lead paragraph. And, yes, I know that you and some others are opposed to it being in the lead paragraph. I know why. I just do not agree. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:25, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

AFAIK, the first time any accusation was made by Mrs B, was just before the trial, and has since been largely withdrawn by her. We aren't disagreeing about whether any of her accusations are true or not, we are disagreeing as to whether we now know what the accusations were in the days between 'store' and 'murder', ie what she told local 'whites' and the two murderers or how they 'heard' that. Did the accusations have a 'flirty/cheeky' element? Probably/possibly, but AFAI can see there is real doubt as to what exactly happened in the store and therefore why exactly he was killed, beyond the obvious that two white men felt entitled to murder Till because they thought he didn't behave as they thought he should. Pincrete (talk) 10:01, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

I looked at the first two pages of a Google search of articles from news sources since the book came out and every last one that mentioned a reason said "whistled at". None said, "making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." The reporting of Till's murder has shifted since Bryant's admission and we need to do the same. Gandydancer (talk) 13:38, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, above, you stated, "Almost all sources refer to 'flirty and/or 'whistling at'." WP:Due weight states, "Giving due weight and avoiding giving undue weight means that articles should not give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects. Generally, the views of tiny minorities should not be included at all, except perhaps in a 'see also' to an article about those specific views." The WP:False balance portion of WP:Due weight states, "While it is important to account for all significant viewpoints on any topic, Misplaced Pages policy does not state or imply that every minority view or extraordinary claim needs to be presented along with commonly accepted mainstream scholarship as if they were of equal validity.'" Now compare that to what you, Gandydancer and two others are arguing. As for the rest of what you stated, I feel that I've already addressed this; so I won't repeat.

Gandydancer, "verbal or physical advances" is already in the lead, all the way down in the fifth paragraph. And I've already noted what it covers. There is no problem at all with stating "making verbal or physical advances towards a white woman." You disagree; I already know that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:46, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Yes I strongly disagree. The lead states, "Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" but that refers to her remarks at the trial and it is accurate. According to the NYT article after Tyson's book came out, "Days after the arrest, Ms. Bryant told her husband’s lawyer that Emmett had insulted her, but said nothing about physical contact, Dr. Tyson said. Five decades later, she told the F.B.I. that he had touched her hand." https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/27/us/emmett-till-lynching-carolyn-bryant-donham.html Gandydancer (talk) 20:17, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

And we will continue to disagree on this. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:37, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

That's better (for the Survey section). Thank you, Pincrete. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:24, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

I'm wondering whether it might be useful to have some sort of follow-up survey or RfC, in which there could be a smaller set of choices from which to choose. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:35, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Brilliant minds think alike. I was thinking the same thing. Gandydancer (talk) 20:41, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

Allow the current RfC to play out first. We should not have two RfCs going on at the same time. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:49, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I think a second RfC would be ok, we could even close this one to refine the langauge. I think it's run long enough, and there is nothing wrong with rewording an RfC after extensive discussion. Seraphim System 01:35, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

This one is specifically about whether or not the debated aspect should be in the lead sentence, though. So, yeah, I'd rather we get that debate out of the way first. And I'd rather we wait and let the RfC close organically. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:39, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

Of course it should be in the first sentence, IF an accurate form of words can be found to put it there and the RfC does not even propose particular text for the first sentence. People are agreeing without it being clear what the proposed text is. The key as far as I'm concerned is accurate info, deciding how to order that text efficiently and clearly is secondary. I would agree to any form of words that made it clear that it is pretty unclear/disputed what actually happened in the shop, but that it was possibly 'flirty' and angered Mrs B. Pincrete (talk) 09:17, 23 May 2017 (UTC)

It should be in the lead sentence, per my and others' comments. The RfC question pertains to whether or not the "interest" aspect should be in the lead sentence. No matter the wording, it should be there. I'm not going to repeat to you my rationale for why. Your idea of accurate info is based on you and the rest of us not knowing exactly what happened; my argument in that regard is that this is not how Misplaced Pages is supposed to work.

On a side note: I may not have advertised this RfC enough. So I will advertise it a bit more via relevant WikiProjects (such as WP:WikiProject Politics, WP:WikiProject Media and WP:WikiProject Culture, although WP:WikiProject Culture is inactive). I'll also leave a note at WP:Neutral about it, since there have been WP:Neutral arguments made here. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:46, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Okay, I also alerted WP:Law, WP:Sociology, WP:Death, WP:Verifiability and WP:No original research‎. We also got a recent comment from Tutelary, who I think followed me here from another article (no complaints on that). I would alert WP:Women, but it somehow seems "off," given Bryant's accusation. If someone else feels that WP:Women should be contacted, or WP:Men, for that matter, feel free. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:16, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I had decided to look over some WP:RFCs and in doing so, I commented on a few and I also saw this one, and thought I was give my thoughts. That's all. Tutelary (talk) 17:32, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Also contacted: Talk:African Americans, Talk:African-American Civil Rights Movement (1954–1968), Talk:Civil rights movements and Misplaced Pages talk:WikiProject Human rights. Editors who are familiar with me from the African Americans article might opt to weigh in. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:45, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

No consensus, leave first sentence as is

I've gone through the entire RFC and it appears there is no consensus for changing the first sentence. Yes, a number of people say they're open to having the first sentence refer to what happened in the store, but no specific language or information is close to gaining overall consensus. As a result the first sentence should remain as it is, reading "Emmett Louis Till (July 25, 1941 – August 28, 1955) was an African-American teenager who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 at the age of 14." The current sentence covers the most relevant information from a historical point of view while the issue of what exactly happened in the store, which is still heavily debated as evidenced from this RFC, is described a few sentences later in the lead. I should also point out that new evidence on what happened is still coming out, as with the recent media coverage about Carolyn Bryant lying about Till. --SouthernNights (talk) 12:44, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

I don't view "no consensus on specific wording" as the same thing as "no consensus for changing the first sentence." The RfC is not about specific wording. It is about whether or not the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect should be in the lead sentence. And, from what I see, WP:Consensus, which is not about headcount but about the strength of arguments based on our rules, is for a change to the lead sentence. And if WP:Consensus was about headcount, it currently stands that more editors are for changing the lead sentence to include the piece than not (10 for "yes" and 6 for "no."). The RfC includes a comment and a vote by two different editors, which should not be mistaken as four different votes. Without the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect, there is a key historical aspect missing from the lead sentence. This is overwhelmingly evident by the literature, including the sources I listed, and when we consider the reported 2008 confession by Bryant. We should be adhering to WP:Due weight. We should not be engaging in WP:Recentism. And, as mentioned by Tutelary in the Survey section (and by me before that), the current lead is inadequate because it currently does not explain at all why Till was killed, and it has the "Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" piece all the way down in the fifth paragraph without first explaining the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect. Why should be included, regardless of the argument by certain editors that we don't know exactly what happened. We know what most sources state, and that is what we should be going by. It is not for us to debate what happened and ignore the literature, and give as much or more weight to the few sources that don't state "flirting with," "whistling at," or "wolf-whistled." The WP:Ignore all rules policy should be used with care; it is not being used with care in this case. And either way, the "Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" piece should not be all the way down in the fifth paragraph. And it is certainly poor lead structure to include it without first explaining the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect.

On a side note: I feel that the title of this section may bias the closer to close this RfC as "no consensus." I don't see why you felt a separate section was needed for your comment. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:36, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

I agree wholeheartedly that Bryant's recantation should NOT be down in para 5, but that is irrelevant to what goes in para 1. Pincrete (talk) 20:18, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

Another point is that the lead sentence and lead paragraph are two different things (well, except for when the lead sentence is considered a paragraph, as in a single-sentence paragraph). Although I think that the aforementioned accusation bit should be in the lead sentence, I'd be okay with it being somewhere else in the lead paragraph. And if it's not to be put in the lead paragraph, it should at least be in the second paragraph, and early on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:17, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

My two cents: I've been away from this discussion for about three weeks, and obviously missed a lot of the back-and-forth. But I would just say that the entire lead section looks greatly improved from when I originally joined this debate. I think it should be left exactly as it currently is. SlackerInc1 (talk) 07:42, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

SlackerInc1, greatly improved simply because it removes the encounter material? Greatly improved, despite the lead currently not explaining why Till was killed (because some editors argue that "we don't know what happened" despite what the vast majority of sources state) and including the "Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" piece all the way down in the fifth paragraph without first explaining the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect? That is not a greatly improved lead. That is a mess of a lead. I know your arguments, as seen with the edit you made here, for example, but the solution is not the way the lead currently is. Even editors who are not for the encounter bit being in the lead sentence are for it being elsewhere in the lead (and not the way it currently is). Frankly, I am so disappointed with the rationales given for justifying this removal that I find this dispute to be even worse than the WP:Neutral dispute that led to the incorrect moving of the Murder of JonBenét Ramsey article. That is another "we don't know what happened" case. But WP:Neutral did not support that move at all, and this was at least made clear by another RfC focusing on a similar issue (although the closer noted that his close was not based on the "title of the article" issue). Likewise, I do not see how WP:Neutral in any way supports the lead as it currently is or the bit never being placed in the lead sentence or lead paragraph. But I've already gone over my arguments on that. And now, since editors are at an impasse on this issue, it seems that we will have to come up with some other solution. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:04, 31 May 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 14:27, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22, I agree that the lead is 'out of kilter'. The reasons I strongly opposed "after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman" are threefold, firstly the sentence says you KNOW Till was accused of flirting at the store, not at some later date, many sources say he was so accused, many don't .... secondly the word 'falsely' says you know Till didn't flirt (errrrr bit strange, why did she accuse him then? Does she like getting boys into trouble? Some kind of misunderstanding? The phrase begs more questions than it answers) .... thirdly 'flirting' is very vague and subjective, 'falsely accused of flirting' doubly so, though there is probably no better word for 'lightly sexual banter' than 'flirting'.... If we MUST have a 'motive' in para 1, 'after reportedly flirting with or whistling at', seems to be supportable. We don't know what happened, but we do know what has been reported. Pincrete (talk) 18:22, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, I don't support "falsely accused." I was clear about that. I do support "after reportedly flirting with," per sources I've listed above. I could also agree to "after reportedly flirting with or whistling at." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, "after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman" is just wrong on so many levels, there is nothing bad about its being gone. Flyer22 Reborn, I don't even stand by the edit I made (back before I even realized there was an RFC and all that). In the subsequent discussion, I have come to understand that it is not even clear the accusations of grabbing and sexually harassing Carolyn Bryant came before Till was killed, as opposed to being a post hoc rationalization for his murder. We may never know what she told her husband and brother-in-law, but it was probably something about Till flirting with her. However, I strongly oppose any reference to "falsely accused" in this context, for two reasons: (1) We don't know that it was false that Till attempted to flirt with her--in fact, it is more logical to assume he did than that she decided randomly to target him for no reason whatever. (2) We are implicitly validating the racist codes of the time by using the verbiage "falsely accused". People are "accused", falsely or not, of crimes or immoral/unethical actions. You don't say "John was falsely accused of politely greeting Jane." Not even if there are multiple witnesses to attest to the fact that John did not greet Jane at all. So we should not buy into those judgements. If we desperately need an explanation in that part of the lead (and I don't believe we really do), it needs to be something like "after telling her husband Till had in some way violated the racist social codes of the Jim Crow-era South in the way he interacted with her". Then you can add something about how at trial, Bryant had testified that Till grabbed and sexually harassed her, but later recanted this testimony, which was presumably exaggerated in order to make an all-white Southern jury sympathetic to Till's killers. SlackerInc1 (talk) 12:39, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

Tiny detail, but Bryant's testimony was actually given in the absence of the jury, who appear to have been already 'tied up' before the trial. Much of the defence appears to have been a mere 'fig leaf', a pantomime performed for the benefit of outsiders. Pincrete (talk) 13:51, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

SlackerInc1, notice editors in the RfC are not arguing to retain "falsely accused." I've argued against using "falsely accused." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:33, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Flyer22 Reborn, that's good to hear. Maybe I'd be a lot clearer on your position if you just offered your verbatim text as to what the lead should be? Or at least the first paragraph? SlackerInc1 (talk) 23:23, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

SlackerInc1, see the beginning of the #Discussion section for my proposal to solve the issue that some have with using "flirting with" or even your addition of "harassing and grabbing." What do you think of that? Alternative wordings are also suggested in that section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 23:36, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

• I want to bring up again a suggestion made earlier by Pincrete that I think is very good, and that seems to have gotten lost in the wall of text: "after offending a white woman in a grocery store". This way, we completely bypass the impasse over what exactly we should say that Till did, and we do not need to worry over "allegedly" or "falsely accused". It's indisputable that the sources indicate that she was "offended", whether rightly or wrongly, and whether it was caused by a whistle, flirting, harassing and grabbing, or whatever. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:09, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

I challenged that because it is a bit too vague for my tastes and I feel that it teases the readers. I've heard the arguments for it, but I just don't agree. To reiterate, we already state in the fifth paragraph of the lead the following: "In a 2008 interview, first made public in 2017, Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." And it's stated again, in a slightly different way, in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section. And then it is elaborated on in the "Admission that testimony against Till was false" section. So, for the life of me, no matter how hard I try to see the issue, I do not see the issue with stating "accused of making verbal or physical advances" in the lead sentence or elsewhere in the lead paragraph. When it comes to Pincrete's suggestions, I much prefer his latest suggestion of "after reportedly flirting with or whistling at" to "after offending." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:26, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

But I would go with "after offending" rather than nothing being in the lead sentence or lead paragraph about the encounter. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:27, 4 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, those are very understandable arguments. From my perspective, I would slightly prefer "after offending" to leaving it out completely, but I would strongly prefer leaving it out completely to most of the more specific but problematic alternatives. And given how difficult these discussions have been, I'm hoping for something that is acceptable to enough editors to achieve consensus. I actually agree with your point about it teasing the reader, and it's something I've been trying hard to come up with a solution for. What makes me comfortable with this option is that it is more informative than saying nothing, and that the details get cleared up just a few sentences later, where there is more room to provide the needed nuances. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

We are not supposed to tease the reader, though. And right now, the details do not get cleared up just a few sentence later; so that is something else to work on. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, it's not exactly a flagrant example of "teasing". Just not trying to fit the entire page into one sentence (and please do not take that overly literally either). --Tryptofish (talk) 23:35, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Given some of the synonyms for "flagrant," mainly "blatant," "glaring," and "obvious," the words "flagrant teasing" are not completely off the mark. Either way, to me, the teasing should be avoided. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:55, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: I do not see the issue with stating "accused of making verbal or physical advances", at the risk of repeating myself, the issue for me is twofold. Mainly this text implies that we know what accusations were made prior to the killing (as opposed to at the trial), I would say that beyond Till's behaviour possibly/probably having a 14-yr-old male bravado/flirty/cheekily sexual element, we don't know either what Till did, nor what Carole B accused him of at that time. Secondly, I think 'making advances' somewhat overstates what sources say about Till's alleged behaviour. 'Flirting', for all its vagueness, implies words or behaviour with a mild sexual element - without characterising intent. 'Making advances' to me implies a conscious intent to seduce, which, given that he was 14 and she was 21 and married and that the year was 1955, seems very unlikely. The underlying problem for me is that we don't know for certain what happened at the store, nor indeed what exactly the killers thought had happened there, but that Till probably crossed a sexual barrier that a black male should not have crossed according to local white values.Pincrete (talk) 08:43, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Trypto, I think that I was the one that suggested "allegedly insulted" and I think it's not too bad but like all the rest one can find faults with it as well. I'm in general agreement with Pincrete except that we have no way of knowing whether Till crossed any sexual barrier of that time or merely crossed some sort of behavior barrier such as failing to say "yes mam" rather than "yeah". See for example the examples given in the FBI report. Also, I read an interesting review of all the news accounts, both North and South, written leading up to the trial and every last one of them referred to Till's whistle with no suggestion of any other inappropriate behavior, which suggests that the story that Bryant concocted to free the men (and later said was false) was made up and voiced at the time of the trial, and not before. IMO, with all the reading I've done, and it's a lot, I'm of the opinion that he crossed a "negro" behavior line of that time and not a "sexual" behavior line. I'd guess that most people, North and South, then and even now, found it hard to believe that a "negro" could be killed for whistling and felt/feel that he must have made some sort of sexual advance in the store, no matter how slight. To my way of thinking that is somewhat racist thinking in that it perpetuates the firm belief of Southern whites of that time that black men were out to try to have sex with their women... (Though of course, that thinking was not restricted totally to the south nor to that time alone.) Gandydancer (talk) 17:47, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I think we agree. When I say 'sexual' I mean it may well have been something so small, that we would barely know what to call it (a smile? a look? failing to make a point of avoiding hand contact?). I think both RS and circumstantial evidence suggest this was something that a male should not do to a female if he were black at that time and in that place, unfortunately we don't know what that was. Pincrete (talk) 18:33, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, Gandydancer, I do remember "allegedly insulted", and as I previously said, I like that one too. However, we really do have to say "allegedly" if we say "insulted", but there is no need to say it with "offended". --Tryptofish (talk) 23:40, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

I firmly believe the store must be mentioned, but I think it's obviously true we must be mindful of the limits of our knowledge of what happened. I would suggest something along the lines of "after a disputed interaction with a white woman," or the like. I think the racial component is important, as well as that something happened. The theories of what exactly transpired can be left for the body of the article. Just the way I see it. Cheers. Dumuzid (talk) 17:58, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

The "offending" wording does indeed include both the store and the racial aspect. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:43, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, yeah, we are repeating ourselves and it does not appear that either camp is relenting. Well, maybe except for you, Dumuzid? I am considering the alternatives, but I cannot agree to any of the vague suggestions. Pincrete, like I just told Carwil above, "The issue for me is that not only do the vast majority of reliable sources report that Till was killed because Bryant accused him of making a romantic/sexual advance towards her (usually by using the word "flirted"), but Bryant is reported to have admitted that this part of the story is false...at least in terms of something sexual or menacing. We have an entire section about it, and there is nothing in that section to suggest that Bryant was lying about this part of the story being false, or that she misremembered that no sexual advance was made. If going by that report, all that is clear is that she does not remember everything that happened. I'm thinking in terms of a historical viewpoint (as seen by sources I supplied above) and a WP:Due weight viewpoint, which is why I am having such a difficult time with objections to going with the 'killed because he was accused of flirting with Bryant' narrative, whether we use 'reportedly' or 'allegedly' to help address the bit of doubt. And, again, it's not like we have to use the words 'flirting with' to get the romantic/sexual advance aspect across. There is no doubt in my mind that the Till case will always first and foremost be described as a case where a black male was killed because of his perceived interest in a white woman. And that is what the case is most well known for. And right now...there is a disconnect in the lead in this regard, as made clear by Tutelary (and by me before that)." As for your specific arguments, especially your "we don't know exactly what happened" argument, I already addressed those arguments in the #Discussion section above and in this one; so I won't be repeating myself on that. At least not in this RfC. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:53, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

A few brief points, I've just checked the sources above, none of them say Carole B accused Till (at the time), I believe there are some reports that say it was someone else who informed Mr B. Also I stick by my conviction that one cannot rationalise anything from Carole B's recanting, there is nothing irrational in saying "I can't (or don't wish to) remember what happened last Monday, but I know I lied about it on Wednesday". The net effect is that we are certain the explicit accusations made in court are false, but we have no idea what really happened. We simply have no record of any kind from the prime witness, Carole, but tons of peripheral indicators that something cheeky/flirty possibly/probably happened. 'Flirting' is flawed, but it's the term sources use, it's ambiguous, but perhaps that is inevitable and/or intentional and all attempts to make it clearer seem to flounder into guesswork territory AFAI can see. Pincrete (talk) 21:50, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

If you are referring to the sources I listed, the sources do not have to state "at the time"; they state that Till was murdered because he was accused of flirting with a white woman. That is the narrative that the vast majority of sources use, and I maintain that it is the narrative we should be using to begin the lead, whether in the first or second sentence. Or at least somewhere in the lead paragraph. It is the historical and most widely used narrative for this case. Elaboration is for later in the lead. We should not be sitting here stating, "Gee, we don't know exactly what happened. So let's ignore what the preponderance of reliable sources state and push that to the side." It really is not for us to "flounder into guesswork territory." Following what the preponderance of the literature states is supposed to prevent floundering into guesswork territory. Whatever your opinion on the reported 2008 Bryant interview, she is reported to have stated that "with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true." We specifically state that Bryant reportedly falsified the sexual aspect of her story. Not just that; we state that "Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." If we are not sure that she included "flirting" in her viewpoint when she stated "with respect to the physical assault on her, or anything menacing or sexual, that that part isn't true," then we should not have the "verbal or physical advances towards her" wording in the article. We should be sticking to her exact wording. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:55, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

To me, too, it appears that "we are repeating ourselves and it does not appear that either camp is relenting". We can keep this up ad infinitum, in which case "no consensus, leave first sentence as is" will indeed be the result, or some editors are going to need to compromise a little if anything at all is to be added to the lead sentence. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:47, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

However this RfC closes, I don't think that the lead sentence will stay as is. Eventually, something regarding this historical matter will be added to it. And, really, I would have preferred that you reverted and left the WP:Status quo while we debated, or that you had at least replaced "after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman" with "after reportedly being accused of flirting with a white woman." Two sources I listed above state "allegedly." Some others state "reportedly." I could have gone along with "after allegedly flirting with a white woman" too. Or some form of "allegedly." And then have the "different stories" and recant aspect immediately after that. The lower part of the lead would elaborate. But here we are. Cases like this certainly make me want to close RfCs since, even though I can somewhat see where you and others are coming from, I don't think that the "against" arguments are strong. The RfC will probably be closed as "no consensus," but I think that consensus certainly supports a change. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:55, 6 June 2017 (UTC) Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 02:10, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

As I already said, a "consensus" that there should be some sort of change becomes meaningless if there is no consensus as to what that change should be. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:29, 6 June 2017 (UTC)

Not if the consensus is for the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect. The RfC asks: Should we include the "accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect in the lead or specifically the lead sentence?

Wording on the matter is not much of an issue as long as the wording is not too vague or missing. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 20:13, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Obviously, no such consensus actually exists. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:51, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

By the way you are defining consensus. Not by the way that I am defining WP:Consensus, which is supposed to be based on the strength of the arguments. I've noted that I see no strength in the "oppose" arguments (which are still the minority at this point), certainly not any policy- or guideline-based ones. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:58, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Well see all the support for your position that you want, but I don't see it. IMO the strength of the "oppose" arguments, myself included, is even stronger, or at least equal, than the "supports". Gandydancer (talk) 23:57, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Explain how the "oppose" votes are supported by any of our policies or guidelines. I fail to see how the arguments are supported by WP:Neutral, especially the WP:Due weight portion of it (which is the core of what being neutral on Misplaced Pages means), or WP:Lead. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:11, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Also keep in mind that "not in the first sentence" does not mean "not in the first paragraph." Tutelary's comment seems like he is for the bit coming early on. And Carwil specifically stated, "Include in a second sentence of the first paragraph." When we look at all of the comments stating "Yes," "Include," or similar, there is a consensus to include the piece early on. Some closers argue "rough consensus" while citing our policies or guidelines. In this case, "rough consensus" is for the material being in the lead sentence or otherwise in the lead paragraph. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:28, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Gandydancer, I don't mean to come across as dismissive of your views. And I apologize if I'm come across that way. It's rather we simply strongly disagree with each other on this matter. It's clear that we won't agree on everything. I know that you had great respect for me prior to this debate, and I hope that this debate hasn't diminished that respect too much. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:04, 9 June 2017 (UTC)

Certainly it has not changed in the least, even though it seems that we can not find agreement on this one issue. This is what makes WP so great, IMO. Good people and yet different perspectives. Gandydancer (talk) 17:59, 10 June 2017 (UTC)

After RfC discussion

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata), thanks for the close. Although the vote counts were not exactly even (since ten people were for the piece being in the lead sentence, and eight, including Rivertorch's comment, were not for it being in the lead sentence), I can understand why you called the vote counts on that front even. You stated, "The consensus is that the 'accused of showing an interest in a white woman" aspect should be included in the lead." But you also stated, "The consensus I'm describing is for the aspect of the reason/motivation/stimulus for the murder being such an interaction with a white woman, not the actual wording quoted above."

With this edit, Tryptofish, who was for adding vague wording to the lead on the matter, added "after offending a white woman in a grocery store," and stated, "RfC is closed, and this is consistent with the close. Not necessarily intended to be the final outcome, but this seems a reasonable way to avoid endless further tl;dr." Do you feel that your close supports this wording? Because I don't see that it does. And even if we retain that piece in the lead sentence, the lead still needs to explain the interest/flirtation aspect, especially since we still have the following in the fifth paragraph: "In a 2008 interview, first made public in 2017, Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 00:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

My close does support adding that, but it also supports adding it to the second paragraph and adding every other wording that's been bandied about instead. The only consensus I found is that the lead is better off mentioning a white woman as stimulus for the murder than not mentioning a white woman as stimulus for the murder. This edit adds that mention.

There are, by the way, three places in the lead right now that the white woman issue shows up: 1) that first sentence; 2) The second paragraph mysteriously says the victim spoke to the wife of one of the killers. Without any linkage, this is a totally irrelevant piece of trivia. 3) The fifth paragraph (by my count) says Carolyn Bryant recanted testimony that has not previously been mentioned, so again, there is no apparent relevance. I assume this mess is just classic communal editing corruption.

I believe the consensus demands that the lead say that that conversation was the motivation for the murder, and that was because of alleged flirtatious or offensive or something content of the conversation. Though the discussion thus far has not resulted in consensus as to whether that should go in the lead sentence or not, it looks to me like further discussion could develop a consensus to put all that information in the second paragraph and something sufficiently vague in the lead sentence. "after offending a white woman" is not sufficiently vague, but with enough weasel words, such as "allegedly" it probably could be. Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) (talk) 03:37, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Bryan Henderson (giraffedata), thanks for responding again. Not sure if I should keep pinging you. Yeah, I do think that the current lead is a mess regarding the "interest in a white woman" aspect, and I've started a discussion on the matter below: #Structuring the rest of the lead with regard to interest/flirtation aspect. What you stated about the mess is exactly what I mean. If the followup discussion is ignored, this (to me) means that I should start an RfC about the lead structure. But I'd rather that another RfC not need to be started. And starting one about specific wording for the lead sentence with regard to the "interest in a white woman" matter seems futile; there have been two about that thus far (including mine, although mine more so focused on whether the aspect should be in the lead sentence or lead at all).

Regarding your commentary about including "a white woman as stimulus for the murder," the issue I am having with the current lead is that "offending" is vague and that the lead currently does not go on to explain the matter. Per WP:Lead and WP:Due, it should. The wording "after offending a white woman in a grocery store" does not really convey "accused of showing an interest in a white woman." I state this because I think that most people would take "interest" to mean "romantic sexual" and/or "sexual interest," which is why some people were opposed to including it in the lead sentence. Also, most of the opposing editors stated they were okay with the matter being explained somewhere in the lead, but that they objected to it being in the lead sentence. And the other ones who stated that it should be in the lead but not the lead sentence argued for clarity/expansion on the matter being included somewhere in the lead; "early on" is what I got from the comments. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 04:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

'Allegedly' would not be needed before 'after offending', I don't think anyone doubts Mrs B was offended and went to get her husband's gun from the car, causing all the boys to 'disappear'. It is only the cause of the offence which is disputed/unknown and what accusations were made against Till at that time AFAIK. Pincrete (talk) 07:51, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"Allegedly" is not needed either way. And I don't think anyone in the RfC was for use of "allegedly." Regardless, it is time for us to work out the structure of the lead, per previous comments about the structure and now per Giraffedata's comment about its disarray. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 11:03, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

"Allegedly" is suggested by Bryan above, though we agree it is not needed. Pincrete (talk) 20:46, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

When I made that edit, I was, and remain, very friendly to the possibility of replacing it with something else, if that something else has sufficient consensus. And I knew when I made the edit that Flyer22 would object to it, but I made the edit anyway, because frankly I expect, based upon the discussion so far, that Flyer22 would object to anything that would have any possibility of getting consensus with the rest of the editors here. And I am gratified that Bryan agrees that the wording is (along with many other conceivable options) consistent with the close. I do not think that the wording is inappropriately vague, but I am amused that Flyer22 considers it too vague while Bryan suggests that it is not vague enough. That should pretty well tell anyone with an open mind that this is a subjective matter about which editors are unlikely to achieve unanimity. Anyway, adding more detail to the rest of the lead, as is starting now, is a good idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:12, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, from what I see, he was not suggesting "allegedly"; he stated "but with enough weasel words, such as 'allegedly' probably could be ."

Tryptofish, if I was not open to consensus, I would not have started the RfC. But, yes, I do not support pseudo-consensus that violates our rules. I'm glad you find my efforts to adhere to the WP:Neutral policy and WP:Lead guideline amusing. I find it amusing that certain editors are acting like we are committing some atrocity by following the WP:Neutral policy and WP:Lead guideline and noting in the lead what the vast majority of reliable sources note about this case. I do not appreciate being treated like some pest that ought to be silenced/go away while a certain group of editors get to continue to do what they want to do at this article, rules be damned. I objected to your edit because I viewed it as nothing but a silencing attempt and because it only supports those who are more than happy with being vague about this aspect of the case in the lead. I do not see a consensus for being vague in any sense. I understand that you are stating that your edit wasn't meant to be a silencing matter, but the edit summary does indicate otherwise, despite it also stating "not necessarily intended to be the final outcome." While we are focused on what Bryan Henderson (giraffedata) stated, you should focus on the parts where he stated "but also supports adding it to the second paragraph and adding every other wording that's been bandied about instead" and "I believe the consensus demands that the lead say that that conversation was the motivation for the murder, and that was because of alleged flirtatious or offensive or something content of the conversation." The RfC consensus is very clear that the flirting matter should be in the lead, regardless of whether or not it is placed in the lead sentence. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Milam and Bryant "returned to Mississippi" from where?

In the fourth paragraph of the lede, we find the following sentence: "After Milam and Bryant's acquittal, they returned to Mississippi, but were boycotted, threatened, attacked and humiliated by locals; Milam died in 1980 at the age of 61, and Bryant died in 1994 at the age of 63." I can't find any support in the rest of the article for the idea that they had left Mississippi during(?!?) or shortly after the trial, at least not in any significant way that would require stating that they "returned". It seems they left Mississippi after being boycotted etc., and perhaps returned even later on, but that would still make the implied timeline of this sentence inaccurate.

Shouldn't it read something more like: "After Milam and Bryant's acquittal, they initially remained in Mississippi, but were boycotted, threatened, attacked and humiliated by locals, leading them to unsuccessfully attempt to evade their infamy in Texas for several years before returning to Mississippi; Milam died in 1980 at the age of 61, and Bryant died in 1994 at the age of 63." That's getting pretty long, though, I know. SlackerInc1 (talk) 12:19, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

I thought that "they returned to Mississippi" was odd wording too, so generally I would agree -also the body suggest it was the admission that really got people mad (Perhaps, we do not have to include in the lead anything about where they were so: After Milam and Bryant admitted the murder in Look magazine, they were periodically subjected to boycotts, threats, attacks and humiliations by others; Milam died in 1980 at the age of 61, and Bryant died in 1994 at the age of 63) Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:15, 9 May 2017 (UTC)

Wording in the lead regarding Tills body needs to be changed

The lead states, "Problems identifying Till had affected the trial, possibly contributing to Bryant's and Milam's acquittals." That statement is not accurate. Reading the FBI report that includes a transcript of the trial makes it very plain that there was no question that the body was that of Till. The article correctly states, "The defense's primary strategy was arguing over the identity of the body pulled from the river. They said it could not be positively identified, and they questioned whether Till was dead at all." But in truth there was no "problem"; almost everyone, including most of those on the jury, knew very well that the body was that of Till. I'd like to see that wording changed. Gandydancer (talk) 22:45, 15 May 2017 (UTC)

The defence also argued that the two men had 'dropped off' Till while he was still alive, ie that there was no evidence of them killing him, merely driving him away from Moses' house. Pincrete (talk) 08:34, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

Using this information: "in court, the defense team questioned whether the body pulled out of the river with a fan tied to its neck with barbed wire was actually Emmett, or even black," I have tweaked the wording. Gandydancer (talk) 13:44, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

I've rephrased slightly as we don't know that ID-ing the body was the reason/sole reason for exhumation, they may have wanted to do other forensic tests. Pincrete (talk) 18:27, 18 May 2017 (UTC)

New Investigation?

See, and there are reports of looking at the Till case again and other closed civil rights murder cases. Should we mention? Alanscottwalker (talk) 15:19, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I would say not yet, this appears to be 'calls for' at the moment, if it happens, yes imo.Pincrete (talk) 18:53, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

The last says the investigation was reopened May 10. Alanscottwalker (talk) 19:10, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Apologies, I only read the first two.Pincrete (talk) 20:36, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I am a bit on the fence about this; obviously reliable sources have found it noteworthy. That being said, it's very inchoate and recent. I guess I would take a "wait and see" approach, but if a sentence were added mentioning the "reopening" it certainly wouldn't bother me. Thanks. Dumuzid (talk) 20:25, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I think that it is very noteworthy and should be added. Gandydancer (talk) 11:20, 25 May 2017 (UTC)

If an official investigation has been opened into this specific case, then it absolutely should be included. If its a general investigation, or an "unofficial" investigation by some advocacy group or some such, then it should not. The NYT article is paywalled, so I cannot read it. However as far as I can see it is the only article claiming that the DOJ has actually re-opened the investigation. I would think an actual re-opening would have gotten more coverage though. In light of all the other sources which read "considering" or some such, it makes me doubt the accuracy of the lone NYT story. ResultingConstant (talk) 18:51, 26 May 2017 (UTC)

That's odd, I have no idea why the nyt is paywalled for you but not for me and that's not a reason to doubt its accuracy -- the other sources are from before the investigation was reopened -- at any rate can you view : "Assistant Attorney General Acosta announced that the Justice Department and the Mississippi district attorney for the 4th Judicial District are reopening the investigation of the 1955 murder of teenager Emmitt Till." Alanscottwalker (talk) 11:47, 27 May 2017 (UTC)

Lynching section suggestion

I would like to remove this paragraph from the Lynching section.

Confusion about Till's whereabouts and lack of a positive identification of the body retrieved from the river compounded issues in the case that eventually influenced the trial. Hodding Carter in the Delta Democrat-Times, a local Mississippi newspaper, reported that Till may have been hidden by his relatives or perhaps returned to Chicago for his safety.

I have been unable to verify that Carter held that position - perhaps it was mentioned in passing...or something. Carter sounds like he was very liberal and the info that I have found has been more like this:

After the verdict, Hodding Carter, publisher of the Delta Democrat-Times in Greenville, “who perhaps more than any other editor could see through the racial phantasmagoria, understood that the kidnapping confession ‘meant nothing to the grand jury. Unfortunately, it is going to mean a great deal to Mississippi and none of it will be good.’” Carter tied the failure to indict for kidnapping to Mississippi’s “racially-inspired terror” that, in turn, contributed to the state’s declining population and depressed economy (p. 146). http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=22799

At any rate, as far as I can tell the "confusion" about the ID of the body was manufactured by the lawyers of the defendants. ...which is not to say that it wasn't believed to some extent, in the same way that we have plenty of people in the U.S. that believe Trump's tweets, etc. Gandydancer (talk) 16:00, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

And this:

When Emmett’s bloated corpse was pulled from the muddy Tallahatchie River just ten days later on Wednesday morning, August 31, his great uncle was able to confirm his identification largely from Louis Till’s signet ring. When doubts later surfaced as to whether or not the body was Emmett Till’s—a doubt raised by Sheriff H.C. Strider and put forward by Milam and Bryant’s legal defense team—Hodding Carter, Jr., editor and publisher of the Delta Democrat-Times (Greenville) was quick to remind everyone of the ring: it would take some kind of elaborate (and impossible) planning for a planted corpse to have such a ring. Later, when it was discovered that Louis Till had been hanged in Italy for raping two white women and murdering a third, not a few white Mississippians intoned, “like father, like son.” http://tillmemoryproject.com/winona-train-depot/ Gandydancer (talk) 17:59, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

It seems that there are no objections to removing this paragraph. Gandydancer (talk) 19:20, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

What Bryant can't remember

Flyer22 Reborn, re this, the "all these parts of her testimony were false" refers to the specific accusations earlier in the para (attempt to touch, unprintable word, been with white women) made at the trial, all these Bryant admitted were lies. I'm fairly sure that when pressed she claimed she couldn't remember what actually happened, not that she couldn't remember all. I don't think this is logically inconsistent, but more important, I believe it is an accurate record of what she later said. Consistent/inconsistent becomes academic of course if in 2008 she still wished to be evasive about some things. I don't object to someone making the phrasing clearer, but I'm fairly sure that Bryant claimed to not remember, not to only partially remember. Pincrete (talk) 17:45, 31 May 2017 (UTC) .... this is the text of Vanity Fair:-

Carolyn—in 2007, at age 72—confessed that she had fabricated the most sensational part of her testimony. “That part’s not true,” she told Tyson, about her claim that Till had made verbal and physical advances on her. As for the rest of what happened that evening in the country store, she said she couldn’t remember.

I think we are both part right, and I've modified slightly. Pincrete (talk) 22:07, 31 May 2017 (UTC)

My mistake, since the 'Bryant 2007 retraction' is better covered later, the text here should probably be minimal.Pincrete (talk) 11:18, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree that minimal is much better for the lead. Gandydancer (talk) 12:20, 1 June 2017 (UTC)

It's not a lead matter we were disputing, Gandydancer. It's the text that was in the "Encounter between Till and Carolyn Bryant" section as compared to what is stated in the "Admission that testimony against Till was false" section. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 21:52, 3 June 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing out my mistake Flyer22 Reborn. Gandydancer (talk) 17:57, 5 June 2017 (UTC)

Encounter between Till and Carole Bryant section

Article contains this paragraph:

The facts of what took place in the store are still disputed. According to several versions, including comments from some of the kids standing outside the store when Till walked in, Till may have wolf-whistled at Bryant. Following his disappearance, a newspaper account stated that Till sometimes whistled to alleviate his stuttering.

I'd like to replace this para because without fail accounts, both black and white, old and new, say he whistled at her when she went out to the car to get the gun. As for the stuttering, this is almost never mentioned and I do not see it important enough to include here. (BTW, I already removed the sentence about perhaps whistling when he bought gum as suggested by his mom.) Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 03:40, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Although details might be better amended, I think the para is useful, details about what happened are/have been disputed. Pincrete (talk) 17:08, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I waited three days and it seemed that there was no disagreement. You did reply to my other post so I know that you saw this one. It seemed to me that there was no disagreement about removing that info. Gandydancer (talk) 17:20, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

I also think that the bit is useful, per Pincrete. I haven't been much paying attention to all the new discussions on this talk page, mainly because I'm busy with matters on and off Misplaced Pages and turn up to respond to previous or new disputes, check on articles, and then disappear for a day or two again (usually two to four days). Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:30, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Also, per NickCT's comment in the RfC and similar comments by others, a lot of sources state "whistled" or "wolf-whistled." So we should be reporting this as well. We shouldn't be excluding "whistled" or "wolf-whistled." So I think that both pieces you removed should be restored. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:37, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

I restored the piece since there are two objections to the removal so far. I think we should discuss this first. If anything, I feel that the whistling and stuttering aspect adds to Till's defense. And that includes this bit. If Till was simply whistling with no sexual intent, which some people believe, that means that his whistle may have been wrongly interpreted as a wolf-whistle. Having been around stuttering people before, I can confirm that certain words can initially come out as a whistle. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:49, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Regarding this comment (I was responding before you removed it), by "busy," I was simply explaining why I was not paying much, if any, attention to other discussions on the talk page. As for the stuff you removed, I thought that the whistling aspect had been removed in its entirety, but I see that it's still covered in the "In any event" paragraph. That paragraph only focuses on whistling, however. A number of sources note "wolf-whistling" as well, and that Bryant may have interpreted the whistle as a wolf-whistle. For example, this 2003 "Getting Away with Murder: The True Story of the Emmett Till Case" book, from Penguin, page 46, states, "When the boy saw her outside, she said he whistled at her, the two note 'wolf whistle,' before his friends pushed him into their pickup and drove away." So I'm stating that I think that both the whistling and wolf-whistling aspects, as well as the stuttering aspect, should stay. The stuttering aspect is important with regard to the whistle perhaps being misinterpreted by Bryant. This 2011 "Of War and Men: World War II in the Lives of Fathers and Their Families" source, from University of Chicago Press, page 170, for example, states, "Some claimed that Till had made 'indecent advances' and wolf-whistled at a white woman, Carolyn Bryant, whose family owned the store. Emmett Till's mother, Mamie Till-Mobley, however, rejected this assertion, saying that her son sometimes whistled when he got stuck pronouncing a word (she gave, as an example, bubblegum)."

So I agree that "after he left the store" is more accurate. What I object to is removing any mention of "wolf-whistle" and the stuttering argument Till's mother's made. That stated, some witnesses stating that he whistled at her in the story should perhaps be kept since it seems to be supported by a reliable source in the article. I state "seems" because the source is a dead link. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:29, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

"Exit whistle" is mentioned later, this refers to (disputed) earlier whistle, I can't access the source so can't say how sound it is. Regardless of the whistle, the "we don't know exactly", seems important to say. Pincrete (talk) 18:37, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I noted that the "In any event" paragraph covers the part about Till apparently having whistled after exiting the store. I'm stating that it's important that we retain the wolf-whistle aspect and the counter by his mother, which is seen here and by the 2011 source I listed above. I don't much care if we retain the "whistled in the store" aspect. Like I noted, the "whistled after exiting the store" aspect seem more accurate. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:47, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Per my argument above, I've re-added (followup edit here) the mother's account of the pronunciation aspect. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 03:52, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

FWIW, I very much agree that all this needs to be in the article, see my reference to Oxford's Encyclopedia, in the RfC. Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:08, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Article comments re Till's appearance

The article states: "In 1955, Emmett was stocky and muscular; he weighed about 150 pounds (68 kg) and stood 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) tall. Till was only 14 years old, but whites in Mississippi claimed that he looked like an adult." That ref is from the Look mag article--read it and see if you feel that it's an appropriate ref for anything. I don't. Thoughts? Gandydancer (talk) 04:02, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Look, actually says that 'Preacher' (Moses) said 'he looked like an adult'. Either way, I can't see what it adds. Till was a little bigger than Mrs B, a whole lot smaller than either of the two men who abducted and killed him. Pincrete (talk) 13:49, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

Yes, I saw that Wright supposedly said that...of course what about all those other direct quotes...I never thought that Look would have stooped so low...it was a different day and a different time though...bias is no longer so blatant, though still there. Anyway, glad to see that you agree. Gandydancer (talk) 17:08, 8 June 2017 (UTC)

See no disagreement, I deleted that info. Gandydancer (talk) 17:21, 11 June 2017 (UTC)

Yeah, I don't see that mention of his height is that important. It kind of comes across as a justification for killing him, as if to state that he looked like a man instead of a boy. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:55, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Well, I don't mind the initial bit, but the "Till was only 14 years old, but whites in Mississippi claimed that he looked like an adult" piece is a bit odd, in the sense that it can seem like it's entertaining a justification claim. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 17:59, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Everyone in that piece is introduced in the same way (name, age, weight, height, build)! Pincrete (talk) 18:31, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

Are you stating that you don't get a justification feel from the passage? In the case of Till, it's not simply giving his height, build, etc., it's stating "Till was only 14 years old, but whites in Mississippi claimed that he looked like an adult." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 18:40, 12 June 2017 (UTC)

It's disputed who said it, but it hardly seems to matter, especially as we have a photo. It does read as implying justification. Pincrete (talk) 07:08, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Structuring the rest of the lead with regard to interest/flirtation aspect

Like I stated in the #After RfC discussion section above, regardless of whether we keep the "after offending a white woman in a grocery store" part for the lead sentence, the lead still needs to explain the interest/flirtation aspect, especially since we still have the following in the fifth paragraph: "In a 2008 interview, first made public in 2017, Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated her testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her."

The lead is still a mess on this front and this needs to be fixed. This addition by Tryptofish, which was his preferred wording, is not a solution to addressing the matter in the lead. It is only a solution regarding the the lead sentence dispute, and only for those who preferred that the aspect not be in the lead sentence. Those of us who supported the text being in the lead sentence were clear that the "flirting" aspect should be noted; we did not support the vague "offending" text. While Tryptofish and/or others no doubt would rather we stop discussing this topic (and I certainly would), I do not find that the issue is resolved. And the closer of the RfC clearly suggested further discussion. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 01:08, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

This is a start, but it still does not fully comply with what the closer stated above. It is still vague, as if we should continue to avoid any mention of the historical "flirting with" aspect in the lead, except for stating that "Carolyn Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." We should briefly note what the "verbal or physical advances" aspect of the story is and then note that "Bryant disclosed that she had fabricated" the "verbal or physical advances" part. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 12:59, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

But maybe I should simply be WP:Bold on the matter since others are being bold with this issue after the close. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 13:04, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

Re: "store - murder -trial - retraction"

As one editor said already, the recent change to put the redaction in the 2nd para does not seem like a good idea to me. Yes it was a recent bombshell story, but in the long view everybody, North and South, black and white, knew very well that she'd lied. So while it's still explosive news, it fits better in telling the story as things unfold without need to let readers know about it as early as possible (in 2nd para). It was fine where it was. Gandydancer (talk) 15:22, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

nb edit conflict

I think the above edit simply 'muddies the water', leaping around from 1955 to 2008 to 2017 before relating sequentially what happened in 1955 is confusing and puts the cart before the horse IMO. Something happened in the store which has been reported in various ways, we don't know exactly what, it might involve 'flirting' or 'whistling' but we don't know. Then sequentially the murder, recovery and trial. At the trial Carolyn B claimed verbal and physical 'assault', withdrawn many years later. I think we are getting ourselves tied up in knots simply to characterise the 'interaction with a white woman' within the 'pole position'. Why? Would it be a very different story if we could find out tomorrow that there was no sexual element and he'd simply offended Southern pride? Pincrete (talk) 15:35, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

'The water is muddy' because the facts are in dispute (as you note) and we should say that, and now do say that (and when we say they are in dispute we should give some description regarding the dispute, which her recantation does very cleanly). And that should be said up-front. Moreover, in the body of the article, we discuss three named witnesses to the store incident -- two have recanted. She is not the only one (besides which, for sources following the story her recantation is not so much as a surprise, as not surprising) but her recantation does encapsulate the factual dispute very well. No we don't have to mention 2017, at all (we could also replace 2008 with 'later'(and I made those changes), it also does not matter, here, that her testimony occurred in September during the trial of the August murder (it was ruled-out of the trial), so I trimmed that. -- Alanscottwalker (talk) 16:42, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I agree both that many pertinent facts are disputed and that we should not 'gloss over' the element of uncertainty. I just think that a chronological, sequential narrative would be clearer and that nothing is SO important that it needs to 'leap-frog' over that. Pincrete (talk) 17:40, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I see it as being in-time: it is a description of the in-store event - 'she now says, (not) X happened.' Alanscottwalker (talk) 18:00, 22 June 2017 (UTC)

I obviously agree that the current wording puts the cart before the horse. Editors complained about this matter -- mentioning "she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" before explaining what the verbal or physical advances aspect are as being confusing -- in the RfC. The closer of the RfC, Bryan Henderson (giraffedata), also complained about this and stated, "I believe the consensus demands that the lead say that that conversation was the motivation for the murder, and that was because of alleged flirtatious or offensive or something content of the conversation."

So the RfC consensus is for being clear on the flirting/whistling matter in the lead. Per the RfC, I propose that the second paragraph be changed to the following: "Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Bryant accused Till of showing an interest in her; the accounts vary between flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Years later, Bryant disclosed that, in 1955, she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her."

I'm thinking that "whistling" should be "wolf-whistled" so that readers understand the context of what a whistling offense means in this case, but I can be content with "whistling." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:42, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

"Grabbing her" is not reported enough in sources as the cause. As we've previously discussed, most sources use the terms "flirting" or "whistling." So I'm not convinced that the lead should mention grabbing, even though we state "physical advances" and readers might wonder what we mean by that. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 19:51, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

"Grabbing her" refers to her court testimony, it is not disputed by any source what that testimony was, simply withdrawn by her years later. No one here has ever disputed that what happened in the store is a vital piece of information, the disagreement is how best to record that accurately and coherently. You cannot say "Bryant accused Till of showing an interest in her; the accounts vary between flirting with or whistling at Bryant", she never has accused him of 'showing an interest', unless that is referring to her court testimony, which is a great deal stronger than 'showing an interest' and happened months later. It is not Bryant who has used the terms 'flirting' or 'whistling at', this is how sources have attempted to summarise their interaction, we simply don't know what she said to Till or her husband at the time and it doesn't make sense to imply that we do.

I don't know whether 'whistling at' or 'wolf-whistling' is the more commonly used description in sources, though 'whistling at' is almost synonymous with 'wolf-whistling' in having sexual intent, but it would be difficult to justify that Till's mother could have thought wolf-whistling was accidental, certainly if one means the classic two-finger wolf-whistle. Whistling, in the presence of someone, carries completely different associations from 'whistling at' someone, so we should follow what sources say.

I'm sorry, but this suggestion is even more 'cart before horse', since it is willing to sacrifice accuracy and coherence, for reasons that I do not understand.

Suggestion: Sentence 1: who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after offending a white woman in a grocery store. The brutality of his murder etc. … … becomes … … who was lynched in Mississippi in 1955 after offending a white woman in a grocery store - possibly by flirting with or whistling at her. The brutality of his murder etc.

By doing this we get the possible 'sexual' element into sentence one and can give the more nuanced account at our own pace sequentially in the rest of the lead. Pincrete (talk) 21:05, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, we've already been over the "flirting with" and "whistling" aspect. No matter what you or anyone else thinks may or may not have occurred in the store, it still stands that the vast majority of reliable sources state that Till was murdered for being accused of flirting with Bryant or for specifically whistling at her with a romantic/sexual element to the whistle (wolf-whistle). We've already been over that this is what "showing an interest in her" pertains to. Stating that "she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her" is already addressing "showing an interest in her," yet we are not first stating this. Instead, we are jumping right to "she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." This is an incoherent order.

As for stating what Bryant did, I was initially going to suggest the following: "Although what happened at the store is a matter of dispute, Till was accused of showing an interest in Bryant; the accounts vary between flirting with or whistling at Bryant. Years later, Bryant disclosed that, in 1955, she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." But I changed it to "Bryant accused Till" because it is her accusation, of some type of interest in her, that resulted in Till being murdered. It ties into us stating "she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her." You stated, "It is not Bryant who has used the terms 'flirting' or 'whistling at', this is how sources have attempted to summarise their interaction." And I did not have the matter worded to state that Bryant used those terms; I suggested "the accounts vary between." It's much better to state "accounts" than "sources."

I don't think we should use "possibly by flirting with or whistling at her" since the recant aspect exists. If Bryant stated that "she fabricated testimony that Till had made verbal or physical advances towards her," then Till having flirted with Bryant seems unlikely to have happened.

Either way, right now, it's mainly the editors who voted "oppose" in the RfC that are shaping the lead. So I'm going to go ahead and ping the editors who also stated that they would like to see the "interest in" aspect covered in the lead (although not all of them supported it being covered in the lead sentence). This will hopefully balance this discussion and move us toward agreement on how to structure the lead in this regard. Pinging: Dumuzid, ‎Trekphiler, NickCT, DoctorJoeE, David Tornheim, Markbassett, SW3 5DL and Seraphim System, LK, L3X1, Tutelary and Carwil. Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:10, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

Pincrete, would you be fine with my second proposal, which doesn't state "Bryant accused Till"? Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:19, 24 June 2017 (UTC) Never mind on that question since you object to "interest in." Flyer22 Reborn (talk) 22:21, 24 June 2017 (UTC)

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