Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Hurt Hardy

Hurt Hardy[edit]

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Does not meet notability standards of WP:CRIME GuyBanks (talk) 01:09, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Note: This discussion has been included in the deletion sorting lists for the following topics: People, Crime, History, and Missouri. WCQuidditch ☎ ✎ 01:36, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]
Delete: I can only find pictures of this person and newspapers describing his trial and hanging from the time... I don't see much notability as there has been no discussion about this person since. Lack of sourcing other than news reports of the event don't help. Oaktree b (talk) 03:08, 27 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Slightly leaning towards Delete. As the person who updated this article (as it was only one sentence before my update), I don't want to take a strong opinion either way; I just want to contribute my two cents and any helpful background I know.

Checking the notability standards, the word "Generally" ("Generally, historic significance is indicated by sustained coverage of the event in reliable secondary sources which persists beyond contemporaneous news coverage and devotes significant attention to the individual's role") seems to offer quite a bit of leeway in terms of what can be included. There are quite a few crime articles throughout Wikipedia that I would say cover crimes/criminals that are even less historically significant than Hurt Hardy, yet those articles have not been questioned.

However, the article is an orphan, and I legitimately cannot think of a single article where it would be appropriate to link to Hurt Hardy. (The only one I might consider would be Rainey Bethea, as the ACTUAL final public execution in the U.S., because there could possibly be a mention on his page that Hurt Hardy's execution is sometimes erroneously given that title despite the fact that it isn't true. Even then, I really don't think Hurt Hardy is notable enough to warrant that.)

I did find one modern source discussing Hurt Hardy - https://www.kansascity.com/opinion/readers-opinion/guest-commentary/article248407885.html (published January 11, 2021) – but one article isn't evidence of sustained coverage. Also, the article only briefly mentions him, and his mention is factually incorrect in several ways. Given the contextual text around that brief mention of Hurt Hardy, the article seems to be implying that Hardy was black, and there may have been an extrajudicial aspect to his public execution; however, Hardy was white, and his hanging was legal and carried out in private.

The relevant text is quoted here: "America’s history of public displays of racially-motivated mob violence is foundational going back to slavery, and public executions as a means of punishment happened well into the 1930s. One of the last public executions in the U.S. was on Missouri soil — the hanging of Hurt Hardy Jr. in 1937. Black people’s public hangings did not involve due process and were viewed as celebratory spectacles attended by thousands of white people, including public officials. People would advertise these “events,” sell food, print postcards of mutilated Black lynching victims, and take pieces of the victims’ bodies and clothing as souvenirs. When looking geographically at Missouri’s lynchings, we see that counties with historic racial terror lynchings are more likely to seek death sentences today."

I also found a 1947 magazine article discussing the murder he committed and his execution, but it is very sensationalized and reads like a detective magazine, and those are notorious for embellishing facts. Afddiary (talk) 12:44, 29 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]