Talk:National Association for the Advancement of Colored People

First (instructor) evaulation comments

Hi Mandy,

Here are some suggestions for further improvements to your encyclopedia entry draft:

• The timeline at the start of the "History" section is a useful resources, but it might be better off in an (optional) "Timeslines" subpage instead of the main article page. Same goes for the lists of former officers, which can go in a "Catalogs" subpage. Let me know if you want me to help set all that up.
• While the "Founding" section does a good job of explaining how the Springfield race riot prompted the creation of the NAACP, you might provide more historical context about American race relations in general at the turn of the 20th century. Similarly, you might provide a little more explanation about things like who du Bois was or where Bloomington is for readers who are not already familiar.
• Rather than a single "Events" subsection for all of the NAACP's history since its founding, you might consider a series of subsections, arranged either chronologically or thematically. Ideally, the "History" section would go all the way up to the present day, thus leading logically into the next, "Current objectives and activities" section.
• Very interesting discussion of the NAACP's efforts to ensure positive media portrayals of African Americans, though you might consider condensing it into a single paragraph or give it a subsection heading to make it clear that all of those paragraphs are devoted to that same objective. If you're feeling ambitious, you might develop similar discussions about other ongoing campaigns.
• Rather than simply list the organization's officers in the "Organizational Structure" section, you might explain a bit about what all those positions are and how they relate to each other and to the operation of the NAACP.
• The "Achievements" section looks like it's off to a good start, though you might clarify (either there or in the "history" section) that litigation has traditionally been the NAACP's primary modus operandi for achieving its goals, which would help contextualize all the discussion of court cases you have there. You might also clarify that the Plessy decision was rendered before the NAACP was created (in 1896), though it did form the legal backdrop for the cases it participated in from the 1910s through Brown v. Board of Ed.
• Throughout the entry, you might put key terms in double square brackets (i.e. [[ ]] ) to create links to related Citizendium articles; e.g., W.E.B. du Bois, Niagara Movement, Jim Crow.
• Finally, don't forget to fill out the required subpages -- bibliography, related articles, and external links.

Nice work overall!

Shamira Gelbman 02:23, 8 October 2009 (UTC)

Second (peer) evaluation comments

Your entry is very well written and organized. Just like your presentation.

It was very useful when writing my opinion essay.

This interst group has a lot of information and you can tell you had to put a lot of time into doing this and it really look like you have most of it done.

You need to upload the picture and fill out the box to the right to make the entry stand out.

This history by years was very smart! It helped with organization and was better then wikipidea(sp?). They did it a little differently and didnt seem as useful when understanding information.

You may want to add a little more information in the opening paragraph. Also I would touch on some of the things people do not like about this group ex: their large financial issues.

Comments from outside the class

I'm not sure if the ending of the class makes this article open for editing until a month later, so here's the start of comments.

It is misleading, at best, to say the military blocked access to school in Little Rock. Yes, in the early attempts to enter, Army National Guard troops were part of the block. At that time, however, they had not been "federalized", and reported to Governor Orval Faubus. Part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower's response was to federalize the Arkansas National Guard, so they no longer were under state control, and then send in a substantial Regular Army force from the 101st Airborne Division. With due regard to the Posse Comitatus Act, U.S. Marshals actually escorted the students into Central High School, which limits the federal use of military forces in law enforcement. The 101st provided support and presence; the important thing was that the Guard could no longer be used by the Governor. Howard C. Berkowitz 17:17, 25 December 2009 (UTC)