Talk:Tennessee

Major cities

I'm not totally opposed to listing major cities in the lead, I just want to make sure the lead doesn't get to long to ensure this article retains its GA status. Tennessee currently has five cities that are usually considered primary, as well as the Tri-Cities area, which function similar to a major city. Including all of those in the lead could get excessive and problematic. Bneu2013 (talk) 19:24, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I support some mention of Tennessee's top 3 major cites in the Lead. Knoxville is large city and was the first capital. Nashville (current capital) and Memphis are the top 2 metro areas with populations over 1 million. -Fnlayson (talk) 20:37, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

I had originally included Memphis (and Shelby County, the most populous county) in the lead, but trimmed this when working to promote to GA. I would support something generic, like "Other major cities include Memphis, Knoxville, and Chattanooga." Clarksville has only become recognized as a major city in recent years, due to its rapid growth, and I don't think we should include it yet. Bneu2013 (talk) 00:44, 3 February 2022 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and added the four largest cities after Nashville to the lead. I don't think we should go into excessive detail here, such as the cities' locations, populations, etc. Bneu2013 (talk) 01:35, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

• Sure, fine for the Lead. Thanks, -Fnlayson (talk) 01:41, 7 February 2022 (UTC)

Reconstruction section needs to mention (and link to) Lynching_in_the_United_States

Given that Tennessee had 251 lynchings (204 of them black people) during the decades after the Civil War (and before the Civil Rights movement), that makes Tennessee 8th in the number of known lynchings in the U.S., and only some other Southern states have higher numbers than that. Thus, it is an embarrassment that the Reconstruction section does not mention lynching at all. Note that states farther removed from the South had no known lynchings at all, or only a very small number, before anti-lynching laws put a stop to the practice. I tried to add this statistic to the article but it was reverted immediately by someone who claimed that it needed to be omitted lest the article becomes too long. At present, however, the section on Reconstruction reads as if it were being sanitized by the Chamber of Commerce. Would one of you who regularly monitor this page please look into the matter, and if you can't find it within your conscience to actually list the number of lynchings that occurred in Tennessee, then at least put a sentence in the Reconstruction section pointing off to Wikipedia's excellent article on Lynching_in_the_United_States, and maybe also to List_of_lynching_victims_in_the_United_States. I grew up in Tennessee and love the state, but this continual denial of what happened during those violent decades after the Civil War is frankly embarrassing.Harborsparrow (talk) 18:32, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Note also that the articles on several other Southern states are doing much better. Even Mississippi did better. How, I ask you, can Tennessee not be at least as truthful about this sad matter as Mississippi? Harborsparrow (talk) 18:36, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

So fix it. BilCat (talk) 19:40, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

Tried once already and was reverted. Asking someone who feels they have a right to edit this page to do it. It seems that a few people are "controlling" this page. Harborsparrow (talk) 19:59, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

I'd be open to a sentence about it at the end of the first paragraph in this section. However, while this statistic is indeed tragic, what is even more tragic is that lynchings were in no way unique to Tennessee. As mentioned above, my concerns hinge on ensuring that this article maintains its good article status, which means making sure it doesn't get too long. History of Tennessee would be the place to go more in-depth about this subject. I will also point out that Mississippi is currently a B-class article, which means a number of things would likely have to change in order to get it to GA status. Also, I wouldn't consider the mention of the Memphis riots, Ku Klux Klan, Jim Crow laws, convict leasing, and sharecropping to be "sanitized by the Chamber of Commerce". Bneu2013 (talk) 23:29, 9 September 2023 (UTC)

The dire extent of the problem may be obscured by not mentioning lynching. People may not associate the phrases above with actual killings if they have not read much history. Primarily, only the 11 states which seceded from the union, as well as Missouri and Kentucky, had large numbers of lynchings. At least 5 states had NO recorded lynchings at all, and the majority of states had much lower numbers. Therefore, the claim that lynchings were not unique to Tennessee is no excuse to omit such an important piece of information. 8th in the nation in lynchings is Tennessee I believe you are the very person who reverted my attempted addition of this information. Would you please make the change yourself in a way that is acceptable to you so we won't get into a big tussle? If you'd like to see the number of lynchings per state in a sortable table so that you can compare state to state, take a look at the US Lynchings table in Citizendium and sort it by the totals. You'll see that this phenomenon was extremely common throughout all the South, and occurred only to a much lesser degree out West, where the victims were more likely to be Native Americans or immigrants. Anyway, it's better if you make the change, since I don't want to deal with being reverted yet again. If you don't want the statistic itself here, you might just link the word "lynching" to Lynching_in_the_United_States and then add more details in History of Tennessee. I would really really appreciate your help. Harborsparrow (talk) 16:10, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

A bit more information: Between 1882-1940, about one white person was lynched and about four black people were lynched every year. The lynchings occurred mostly in West and Middle Tennessee, likely because these farming areas had a larger population of African Americans than mountainous East Tennessee. It is safe to say that blacks, and sometimes white people who befriended blacks, lived in fear of becoming a target themselves. I think there are still a lot of families in Tennessee whose family history remembers these lynchings, and it's only fair to mention them eighty years after this particular kind of terror ceased. Harborsparrow (talk) 16:16, 10 September 2023 (UTC)

Now someone has reverted my edit of the phrase "the last lynching was in 1960" with bizarre reasoning such as ("awkward phrasing? not sure why this is here?"). All I can say is, "Embarrassin

', Olive!". Harborsparrow (talk) 12:34, 15 September 2023 (UTC)

Tennessee

What is the average rainfall 2600:1700:BC60:2290:58CB:8F91:1769:BC54 (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2024 (UTC)

Edit request: spacing needed

In the last paragraph of the lead section there is a list of Tennessee agriculture products. Currently it reads as "cattle, soybeans, poultry,corn, and cotton" there should be a space between "poultry," and "corn". 2600:6C5C:6E3E:D2:7459:F824:B872:8B74 (talk) 01:54, 11 August 2024 (UTC)

• Spacing/format corrected. Thanks, -Fnlayson (talk) 02:45, 11 August 2024 (UTC)