Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Neoabolitionist

The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was Keep - there is no consensus to delete, plus the 'keep' voters have presented very articulate and powerful reasons to keep. - Richardcavell 03:37, 8 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Neoabolitionist

article itself admits, or admitted when nominated, [1] that this is an infrequently used term, not used at all by the historians supposedly subject to it. The citation for such a use is one chapter, which is by a distinguished historian, but this does not constitute notability. "Neo-abolitionist" is itself a neologism, not recognized by the OED. Most of the article is a miscellaneous collection of information, including incidental uses of the term "new abolitionist" in various contexts, having nothing to do with the alleged central meaning, and many of them pre-dating the 1960's. Septentrionalis 15:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Delete as non-notable. Septentrionalis 14:09, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• Keep. The term is indeed in current use--numerous examples cited below from recent scholarly and popular journals. Alas Wiki has some neo-confederates who hate and belittle the abolitionists but that is not good reason for removing an article that talks about the revival of abolitionist sentiment in the 1960s. It was Howard Zinn for example who wrote a famous book about the Civil Rights movement that identified them as "new abolitionists". ( SNCC: The New Abolitionists by Howard Zinn (1st ed 1964, new ed 2002). The term has been regularly used by scholars of slavery/Civil War/reconstruction for some 40 years. The question of who are the "new abolitionists" is discussed for example (June 2006) in the forum for historians, "Cliopatria" at HNN. It is used by librarians [2]; it is used in the civil rights community [3], The magazines use the term, as "This general perspective on the sectional conflict is already well represented by the Neoabolitionist school of Early American historians, and informs important works by scholars such as Paul Finkelman, Leonard Richards, Donald Robinson, and William Wiecek. Wills lacks the deep understanding of the issues that has made these authors' work indispensable; his book is therefore a major disappointment." from National Review Dec 2003 at [4] The scholarly journals use it: The American Historical Review (Feb 2005) p 215 ("the iconoclastic historian Stanley M. Elkins reinterpreted the rebellious slave as a neoabolitionist fantasy.) One popular Civil Rights magazine calls itself “The Journal of the Neoabolitionist Movement of the 21st Century” [5] Rjensen 15:08, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • I remind Rjensen to sign his posts. In addition, please note that accusing Wiki of "having some neo-confederates who hate and belittle the abolitionists" is not the way to get your article kept. Dark Shikari ^talk/_contribs 14:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
• For an article that cites 15 books in its References section, an argument that the article should be deleted needs to be a lot stronger and far more well researched than "it's not notable and only occurs in one chapter". Uncle G 14:58, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
  • Most of those 15 references are to any use of the phrase "new abolitionists" in any context since 1877; not to the alleged central meaning. Septentrionalis 15:31, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Most of the sources are recent and deal directly with the topic at hand; most are by prominent scholars--4 of whom won the Pulitzer Prize for History (McPherson, Woodward, Fehrenbacher, Hahn) Rjensen 15:43, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
      • JSTOR indexes 40 scholarly journals before 2001 Here are some citations using searchword = "neo-abolitionist" and "neoabolitionist"
        • Journal of the Early Republic > Vol. 21, No. 4 (Winter, 2001), pp. 736-739
        • The Journal of Southern History > Vol. 62, No. 1 (Feb., 1996), pp. 136-137
        • The Journal of Southern History > Vol. 59, No. 3 (Aug., 1993), p. 541
        • The Journal of American History > Vol. 80, No. 1 (Jun., 1993), pp. 275-276
        • The Journal of American History > Vol. 79, No. 2 (Sep., 1992), p. 670
        • The Journal of African History > Vol. 32, No. 2 (1991), pp. 277-312
        • Canadian Journal of African Studies > Vol. 34, No. 3, Special Issue: On Slavery and Islam in African History: A Tribute to Martin Klein (2000), pp. 512-531
        • Journal of the Early Republic > Vol. 19, No. 4, Special Issue on Racial Consciousness and Nation-Building in the Early Republic (Winter, 1999), pp. 691-712
        • The American Journal of Legal History > Vol. 43, No. 1 (Jan., 1999), pp. 108-109
        • Callaloo > Vol. 20, No. 4, Eric Williams and the Postcolonial Caribbean: A Special Issue (Autumn, 1997), pp. 800-816
        • The American Historical Review > Vol. 102, No. 2 (Apr., 1997), pp. 523-524
        • The Journal of Southern History > Vol. 62, No. 4 (Nov., 1996), pp. 727-766
        • The American Historical Review > Vol. 101, No. 4 (Oct., 1996), pp. 1122-1138
        • The American Historical Review > Vol. 101, No. 2 (Apr., 1996), pp. 536-537
        • The American Historical Review > Vol. 97, No. 4 (Oct., 1992), p. 1278
        • The History Teacher > Vol. 25, No. 3 (May, 1992), pp. 263-277
        • The Journal of Southern History > Vol. 56, No. 4 (Nov., 1990), pp. 665-694
      • Does anyone want additional cites--we can look at EBSCO and MUSe and various other online collections. Rjensen 16:01, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
        • Just dumping a set of search results into the discussion, without looking at what the found articles actually contain, does not address let alone refute the argument that this is just a collection of works that happen to use the word "neoabolitionist" somewhere, none of which actually explain and discuss the concept of neoabolitionism. Uncle G 16:30, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
          • The complaint was the term was rarely used. That is now shown to be false by the multiple citations from major history journals. The article has many quotes from leading scholars showing how they use the term. Rjensen 17:41, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
            • No it wasn't. Read what is written above, again. You have not addressed, let alone refuted, the argument given by Pmanderson. And you appear to be conflating quotation and citation. Uncle G 18:16, 1 August 2006 (UTC)
    • Pmanderson has a vague complaint. His opening sentence says it's "infrequently used" --but a quick check of JSTOR shows it is in current use by the major history journals. It is also used in high-brow popular journals (such as National Review.) The second sentence (The citation for such a use is one chapter) is false--the article gives numerous cites in context. It's a weak complaint to say "Neo-abolitionist" is itself a neologism"--well yes it was a variiation of a slogan invented arounf 1910 by the NAACP. In reference to historians it has been used by established scholars (like Pulitzer prize winners) for 40 years. The sentence "Most of the article is a miscellaneous collection of information" is false-the article goes in some depth into the historiography of slavery and reconstruction, and keeps its focus on the main issues. The sentence "many of them pre-dating the 1960's" is false" (there are two cites pre 1960--when the NAACP use is discussed and when Vann Woodward said (in 1974) "by the 1950s a neoabolitionist mood prevailed among historians of slavery" Rjensen 19:10, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

Some recent usage examples from leading journals: 1) "Because Hummel also places slavery front and center in the approach to war, his early chapters resemble a standard (and well-crafted) neo-abolitionist account." [Reviews in American History 32.2 (2004) 184-195]; 2) "the hints of modern humanistic sensibilities sensed by neo-abolitionist Anglophone commentators" Journal of Colonialism and Colonial History 5:3 2004 by Joseph C. Miller; 3) "longstanding scholarly precedents buttress Goodman's claims, set in the 1960s by James McPherson, Howard Zinn, Martin Duberman and other neo-abolitionist historians when first picturing the abolitionists as racial egalitarians." [Reviews in American History 27.3 (1999) 397-405 by James Stewart] 4) "The problem is not that Carry Me Back is generically neo-abolitionist but, rather, that it swallows too uncritically the abolitionists' worldview. The book has a tendency to coast on abolitionist logic, rather than striking out in new interpretive directions." [Reviews in American History 33.4 (2005) 518-526 by Masur] Rjensen 19:21, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

• Keep: This article addresses a notable and verifiable category of modern perspectives on abolition. Rohirok 17:27, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.