and another thing about James Bevel
Reading the wikipedia article on James Bevel, I have to wonder if maybe something isn’t grabbed from something which amounts to a Legacy Project, in brushing up the noted accomplishments of a man who was later convicted of Incest.
Skip to the “1963 Birmingham Children’s Crusade” and some editorializing sneaks in. Leaving aside for a moment that just about every sentence in these two paragraphs needs to be sourced — surely the back and forth with King and Kennedy have turned up in either accounts by the actors involved or in released Presidential papers — the last sentence strikes me as particularly galling in making an analysis beyond the scope of an encyclopedia’s domain:
Just as the “threat” of the children marching along the highway from Birmingham to Washington led directly to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the threat of the 1941 march led President Franklin Roosevelt to sign the Fair Employment Act, and neither march was actually held.
The odd thing about this sentence is that the primary subject is not even the “Children’s Crusade”, but a 1941 march — which seems to suggest a hodge-podge job of pecking from various items into a narrative. Though, even there, it would make more sense to put in some contemporanious criticism — and you wouldn’t have to go too far to find some — and directed at James Bevel personally even.
While I’m on the subject of editorial bias and entangled articles at wikipedia, the William Gibbs McAdoo article has a pretty strange “POV” problem — witness in the “political career” section on his work as the Secretary of the Treasury, these sentences:
#1:Â McAdoo’s actions at the time were both bold and courageous.
#2:Â The wisdom and historical impact of this action can not be overemphasized.
I assume these assessments are the consensus views of historians and economists, but those value judgements should be able to come through without stating them.