The text of the entry was: Did you know ... that after working to desegregate nursing in the US, Alma John(pictured) produced the 1970s television show Black Pride, interviewing prominent figures like Rosa Parks and Ella Fitzgerald?
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Biography, a collaborative effort to create, develop and organize Wikipedia's articles about people. All interested editors are invited to join the project and contribute to the discussion. For instructions on how to use this banner, please refer to the documentation.BiographyWikipedia:WikiProject BiographyTemplate:WikiProject Biographybiography articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject African diaspora, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of African diaspora on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.African diasporaWikipedia:WikiProject African diasporaTemplate:WikiProject African diasporaAfrican diaspora articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Pennsylvania, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Pennsylvania on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PennsylvaniaWikipedia:WikiProject PennsylvaniaTemplate:WikiProject PennsylvaniaPennsylvania articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Philadelphia, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Philadelphia on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.PhiladelphiaWikipedia:WikiProject PhiladelphiaTemplate:WikiProject PhiladelphiaPhiladelphia articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject New York City, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of New York City-related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.New York CityWikipedia:WikiProject New York CityTemplate:WikiProject New York CityNew York City articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women's History, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Women's history and related articles on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women's HistoryWikipedia:WikiProject Women's HistoryTemplate:WikiProject Women's HistoryWomen's History articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Women writers, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of women writers on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Women writersWikipedia:WikiProject Women writersTemplate:WikiProject Women writersWomen writers articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Civil Rights Movement, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Civil Rights Movement on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Civil Rights MovementWikipedia:WikiProject Civil Rights MovementTemplate:WikiProject Civil Rights MovementCivil Rights Movement articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Nursing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Nursing on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.NursingWikipedia:WikiProject NursingTemplate:WikiProject NursingNursing articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Radio, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Radio-related subjects on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.RadioWikipedia:WikiProject RadioTemplate:WikiProject RadioRadio articles
This article is within the scope of WikiProject Television, a collaborative effort to develop and improve Wikipedia articles about television programs. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page where you can join the discussion.
To improve this article, please refer to the style guidelines for the type of work.TelevisionWikipedia:WikiProject TelevisionTemplate:WikiProject Televisiontelevision articles
This article was created or improved during the BLM/Anti-discrimination edit-a-thon hosted by the Women in Red project from July to December 2020. The editor(s) involved may be new; please assume good faith regarding their contributions before making changes.Women in RedWikipedia:WikiProject Women in RedTemplate:WikiProject Women in RedWomen in Red articles
"newspaper columnist" - there isn't anything about this in the body text, except writing a newsletter
I actually had a couple more articles pulled up at Old Fulton to add but the site went off line and I could no longer access them. Frustrating, but after waiting a week for the site to come back, I gave up. Changed the verbiage to read newsletter writer. SusunW (talk) 14:33, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"They read" - source says the dad made them all read it, so maybe "the family" is better than "they", since that suggested to me it was her and her dad reading it
Still reading weird to me, I'd suggest something like "Working with Estelle Massey Riddle, she helped to eliminate" or "As an assistant to Estelle Massey Riddle, she was tasked with helping to eliminate" Mujinga (talk) 09:53, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"she wrote a script Brown Women in White for production on WNBC" - Just randomly saw this on http://archives.nypl.org/uploads/collection/generated_finding_aids/scm20710.pdf: "She wrote the script for the program, Brown Women in White, which was aired on sixty-nine stations." - 69 stations seems a lot, maybe worth adding. And if this is what made her name, maybe it's worth another sentence or too. Oh now I see the radio and television section starts with The Homemaker's Club in 1952 so maybe i am jumping the gun here.
I added a sentence, who, what, where ;) (the 69 stations was in several sources, but I had no idea that was a large number). DoneSusunW (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"only 14 still barred African-American students" and "though there were still gaps in opportunity and pay nationwide" not in source
Reworked first part. 2nd part definitely in the source "There still are 'wage differentials' in the North as well as the South, and Negroes still have 'insufficient opportunity' to train as nurses". DoneSusunW (talk) 15:04, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"wide variety of guests" - the MLK link says Rosa Parks so she could be added, the other ref I cannot check, see below
Added Parks. Question, do you think it is overlink? Should I link all of them, or just the ones people probably don't know? And on the references, yes, I know. Old Fulton went down. There were several hits in my search of that source, specifically for the New York Amsterdam News, which I cannot find digitized anywhere else, that I couldn't access after the site went down. Soooo frustrating. SusunW (talk) 15:15, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
"She was remembered for her contributions in the fight for civil rights, nursing, and as a pioneer radio personality" - I don't doubt this, but the current source doesn't really back the claims
I know right? So lucky that the people at the Detroit library were so helpful about verifying no copyright info on the photo and finding that it was published. I was stoked! SusunW (talk) 15:34, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
All images public domain, therefore fine
Only the infobox image has an "alt=" so these could be added for the others
Overall very impressive and easy to check, thank you
This one is not working for me right now - "Sister Alma John, Versatile Lady" (PDF). New York Amsterdam News. New York, New York. April 20, 1974. p. D-12. Retrieved September 24, 2020. - seems like fultonhistory.com is down
See above comments, site went down on September 25th and have not been able to access it since. (I actually checked with other editors to see if I was blocked because I was in Mexico, but was told by editors in the US and Europe that they cannot access it either, so I assume it is down). SusunW (talk) 15:37, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I'm putting this on hold and I'm pretty sure we can work through the mostly minor issues. My main concern right now would to have something about her newspaper writings and to check on that reference Mujinga (talk) 12:32, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Would that I could Mujinga, as I said earlier, there were more clippings from New York Amsterdam News, but they are now inaccessible. There are clues about journalist activity, but I didn't think enough to cover it properly. See Clark, p 1 under "columns" . That certainly looks like newspaper work but I was unsure without having more detail. Adamczyk lists a whole bibliography of sources about her that I cannot find anywhere. Part of that is her era, but a bigger part of that is that she was 1) a woman and 2) African-American. Women's and ethnic history was not written until the 1970s, and when scholars began focusing on these areas, they began with women shown in artworks through the ages and suffragists and male leaders. Women civil rights and women's rights activists of the 1950s and 1960s were mostly still living at that time and scholarly work on them is just now beginning. Most black newspapers have not been widely digitized, the digitization of the Associated Negro Press is behind a paywall in a special collection not accessible with a regular subscription to ProQuest, and many black archives are private. Makes writing difficult. Not impossible, but hard. SusunW (talk) 15:50, 3 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
@SusunW: Thanks for the fast answer and the responses. Oh right I see about Fulton, that's a shame. Let's hope it comes back! I'm more than happy to AGF on the source for now, since your referencing is topnotch. You probably know this trick already but I try to archive sources on wayback by clicking the "View history" tab then "Fix dead links" tab, which takes me to an IAbot page. I tick the "Add archives to all non-dead references (Optional)" box then click "Analyze" and it will produce wayback machine arhcive links. I think this is done by a bot eventually as well, but I like to do it at the end of a session. Just tried it for this article and got no modifications. My only remaining issue is on the Riddle sentence, it still reads funny to me. When that's resolved this will be a good article in my opinion. Mujinga (talk) 10:02, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mujinga changed the sentence at Riddle. I had no idea you could archive a whole article's links. I save them individually as I go. Especially since not everything works with wayback and for some you must use archive.today. I'll try your trick. Thanks for teaching me. On the New York Amsterdam News I was formatting the ref and hadn't saved it yet, when I pulled up wayback to save it, it said the site wasn't available on the live web. That was my first clue something was wrong. I could see the open link on my browser, but couldn't open any others nor search, so I wrote everything I could from the source and hoped that it'd be back the following day. But not. Anyway, thank you so much for your help. Really appreciate it. SusunW (talk) 13:39, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Great, congrats on another good article. Please do keep 'em coming! On my tip, actually it might not work so well with sfn referencing style, but anyway at least you know about it now. All the best, Mujinga (talk) 14:16, 4 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Mujinga Old Fulton is back. Haven't found anything more about writing, but was able to save the link we couldn't access in wayback, if you want to check it. SusunW (talk) 16:59, 13 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the headsup! It seems to be down again but I was able to see the link on wayback machine and added the archived url tto the citation Mujinga (talk) 17:08, 14 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.
... that while working to desegregate nursing in the US, Alma Vessells John(pictured) wrote a radio script that sparked a 25-year career in radio and television? Source: "When Mrs. Alma Vessells John because executive secretary of the NACGN in the fall of 1946, she continued the effort to remove barriers in the appointment and upgrading of Negro nurses". (No Time for Prejudice); "In 1950, when called upon by radio station WNBC to tell the story of the Negro nurse in a half hour program, Mrs. John submitted a draft entitled 'Brown Women in White'". ("Pioneering Is Old Story For Alma Vessells John); "25 years in broadcasting" (The Kaiser index to Black resources, 1948-1986)
ALT1: ... that pioneering radio and television producer Alma Vessells John(pictured) interviewed Rosa Parks, Ella Fitzgerald, and other prominent Black women on her 1970s television show Black Pride? Source: "She was a pioneer in radio and television broadcasting" (Congressional Record); "... hosted a half-hour television program, Black Pride. John interviewed guests such as Rosa Parks and Ella Fitzgerald..." (The Papers of Martin Luther King, Jr.) Note: Other women are mentioned in the fultonhistory.com source, which is currently down.
Interesting life, substantial GA, on fine sources, subscription sources accepted AGF, no copyvio obvious. The image is licensed and almost a must, - half the message. I prefer the ALT hook, but think it could get better. We could do without saying anything about radio and television, because television show makes it redundant, - instead we could say something about her nursing background, which is unusual for a TV person. We could also drop the "and other prominent black women" bit, because it's redundant to (the more concise) Black Pride. If you disagree I can approve ALT1. - I tried taking pics of St. Jacobi last Sunday but they are not good enough for the Main page, Yoninah. --Gerda Arendt (talk) 21:45, 9 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
(As for pioneering, multiple sources call her that, but it is not worth arguing about.) I get that more people will be interested in her radio/TV work, but historically the significance of her entire career is that she worked in civil rights trying to improve the opportunities and perceptions of Black people in both fields. There were many nurses and many radio and television personalities, but not that many who were also involved in the civil rights struggle. Many people associate desegregation/integration solely with schools, so the fact that she was involved in desegregating nursing puts into perspective the wider ramifications of "separate but [un]equal". Perhaps combing the two hooks somewhat meets your idea, Gerda Arendt?:
ALT2: ... that after working to desegregate nursing in the US, Alma John(pictured) produced a 1970s television show Black Pride, interviewing prominent Black women like Rosa Parks and Ella Fitzgerald?
ALT2a: ... that Alma John(pictured), after working to desegregate nursing in the U.S., produced a 1970s television show Black Pride, interviewing Rosa Parks and Ella Fitzgerald? We don't have to say that Fitzgerald is a prominent Black woman, imho (and same for "pioneering", btw), and we better have the link to the subject first.
@Gerda Arendt: well, ALT2 links desegregate and also mentions Black. As I said, ALT2a seems to be limiting her guests to two Black women, while ALT2 suggests there were many more. Yoninah (talk) 15:14, 20 October 2020 (UTC)[reply]
I find it rather interesting that none of the TV shows listed here that she worked in, created, wrote for, ran, etc. have their own entries either here at Wikipedia or at IMDb.
One would think that if those shows were that important, there'd be more about them.
It is indicative of the segregated era in which she lived most of her life. Women's and black history topics did not evolve as topics of academic study until after 1970, so it seems perfectly logical to me that works they created may not have been studied either. Limited access to the Associated Negro Press is also an issue for these topics as mainstream US newspapers rarely covered black events. SusunW (talk) 22:36, 8 November 2020 (UTC)[reply]