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William Frederick Webb

William Frederick Webb (1829–1899) was a High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire and officer in the British Army.

Background and early life
William Frederick Webb was born in Sussex in March 1829, one of four children of Frederick Webb and Mary Shiel. His father, who died on 4 February 1846, was an illegitimate son of Sir John Webb, having a brother John who had been declared a lunatic. John Webb, who stood to inherit an income from the estates of Sir John, was at that time under medical care, in France, and had an illegitimate daughter. A court case began in April 1846. Ultimately, William Frederick Webb inherited estates in Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and County Durham, making him a wealthy man.

Webb was educated at Eton College and later joined the army, becoming a Captain in the 17th Lancers.

Later life
A big-game hunter, particularly of rhinoceros, Webb spent time in Africa with a friend, Captain William Codrington. In 1851 Webb became ill with fever and they summoned the explorer David Livingstone to assist. Webb recovered and came to know the Livingstones at Kolobeng Mission.

In 1860, Webb, now married, resided at Pepper Hall in Yorkshire. He purchased Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire from Thomas Wildman, a deal completed in 1861, for £147,000. Another potential purchaser had been Queen Victoria. He moved his family into the Abbey, and set about improvements, installing heating and gas lighting and also redecorating the old chapel. His wife sought out memorabilia of Lord Byron, who had owned it.

Webb's hunting trophies remain in Newstead today: the tusks, skins and heads of the animals he killed while in Africa. Livingstone made regular trips to Newstead, sometimes staying for months.

Webb was also a magistrate. In 1865 he became High Sheriff of Nottinghamshire.

In 1889, Emilia Jane Webb became ill with tuberculosis and journeyed to Africa in October that year, in hope that the warm climate would help her recovery. On 28 December 1889, she died, aged 63. She was buried in the cemetery of St John's church, Wynberg, Cape Town, South Africa. The white marble grave is still in good condition as at 2009 and states her age at death as being 55. It features a design on it that reflects motifs seen throughout Newstead Abbey.

Ten years later, in 1899, Webb contracted laryngitis while in Africa. He died from it and is buried at Luxor in Egypt.

When Webb died, Newstead Abbey was passed through each of his surviving children until Webb's grandson Charles Ian Fraser sold it to Sir Julien Cahn, who then gave it to Nottingham City Council in 1931.

NB: the portrait of WFW may actually be a portrait of Richard James Butterfield esq. born Edinburgh, Scotland. His service in the British Army (from 15 years old to 47 years old), was principally as a Captain/18th Hussars. He appears as himself (centre/ground); in the painting: 'The Return from Balaclava'. His life (in-part), is very much as described above. An Explorer and so called; 'Big Game Hunter'; he was responsible for the Collection of Trophies: Wollaton Hall and Deer Park (Wollaton, Nottingham). As a Registered Prospector in the Diamond Industry associated with De Beers; he went by another name: that of Cecil Rhodes. It was he who founded the Number One Shot Mine Kimberley, Cape Province. For the record; Richard James Butterfield esq. was posted missing in 1899; the first year of the South African War (the so called Boer War). Having survived the Battle of Omdurman/Sudan (the previous year: 1898), he had returned to Britain, in the wake of his son's death. Having settled his son's affairs in Nottingham and Glasgow he returned to Africa as a Brigadier in the Sherwood Rangers (in-part Naval Division/Royal Naval Reserve).

Family
On 15 July 1857, Webb married Emilia Jane, daughter of Thomas Mills Goodlake of Wadley House at Littleworth in Berkshire (now Oxfordshire), and sister of Gerald Goodlake VC. Together they had seven children:
 * Wilfred Webb (1858) (died at three months)
 * Augusta Zelia Webb (1859), writer, married Philip Affleck Fraser.
 * Geraldine Katharine Webb (1860), married Herbert Chermside.
 * Ethel Mary Webb (1863)
 * Mabel C. Webb (1864)
 * Algernon F. Webb (1866); committed suicide by shooting himself in the head whilst at Cambridge in 1884. This was attributed at the inquest to altered behaviour following a serious riding accident.
 * Roderick B. Webb (1867).

title: William Frederick Webb


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Twentieth Air Force

The Twentieth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) (20th AF) is a numbered air force of the United States Air Force Global Strike Command (AFGSC). It is headquartered at Francis E. Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming.

20 AF's primary mission is Intercontinental Ballistic Missile (ICBM) operations. The Twentieth Air Force commander is also the Commander, Task Force 214 (TF 214), which provides alert ICBMs to the United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM).

Established on 4 April 1944 at Washington D.C, 20 AF was a United States Army Air Forces combat air force deployed to the Pacific Theater of World War II. Operating initially from bases in India and staging through bases in China, 20 AF conducted strategic bombardment of the Japanese Home Islands. It relocated to the Mariana Islands in late 1944, and continued the strategic bombardment campaign against Japan until the Japanese capitulation in August 1945. The 20 AF 509th Composite Group conducted the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945, and remains as the only air force organization to have used a nuclear weapon in combat.

Inactivated on 1 March 1955, the command was reactivated 1 September 1991, as a component of the Strategic Air Command (SAC) and became operationally responsible for all land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles.

Overview
Twentieth Air Force headquarters is unique in that it has dual responsibilities to Air Force Global Strike Command and United States Strategic Command. As the missile Numbered Air Force for AFGSC, 20th Air Force is responsible for maintaining and operating the Air Force's ICBM force. Designated as STRATCOM's Task Force 214, 20th Air Force provides on-alert, combat ready ICBMs to the president. Combined with the other two legs of the Triad, bombers and submarines, STRATCOM forces protect the United States with an umbrella of deterrence.

Organization

 * Headquarters, Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyoming
 * 90th Missile Wing, Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyoming
 * 319th Missile Squadron
 * 320th Missile Squadron
 * 321st Missile Squadron
 * 91st Missile Wing, Minot AFB, Minot, North Dakota
 * 740th Missile Squadron
 * 741st Missile Squadron
 * 742nd Missile Squadron
 * 341st Missile Wing, Malmstrom AFB, Montana
 * 10th Missile Squadron
 * 12th Missile Squadron
 * 490th Missile Squadron
 * 582nd Helicopter Group, Francis E. Warren AFB, Wyoming
 * 582nd Operations Support Squadron
 * 37th Helicopter Squadron
 * 40th Helicopter Squadron
 * 54th Helicopter Squadron
 * 377th Air Base Wing – Kirtland AFB, New Mexico
 * 625th Strategic Operations Squadron – Offutt AFB, Nebraska

History
The Twentieth Air Force was brought into existence on 4 April 1944 specifically to perform strategic bombardment missions against Japan. This was done at the insistence of General Henry H. (Hap) Arnold, commander of the USAAF, mainly to avoid having the new B-29 Superfortress being diverted to tactical missions under pressure from the China Burma India Theater commanders. Twentieth Air Force was to be commanded by General Arnold himself at Joint Chiefs of Staff level. Twentieth Air Force was completely autonomous and its B-29s were to be completely independent of other command structures and would be dedicated exclusively against strategic targets in Japan.

In addition Twentieth Air Force was chosen (secretly) to be the operational component of the Manhattan Project in 1944, and performed the atomic attacks on Japan in August 1945. However, in early 1944, the B-29 was not yet operationally ready. The aircraft had been in development at Boeing since the late 1930s and the first XB-29 (41-0002) flew on 21 September 1942. However, the aircraft suffered from an overwhelming number of development issues, and with engine problems (fires). As a result, most of the first production B-29s were still held up at Air Technical Service Command modification centers, awaiting modifications and conversion to full combat readiness. By March 1944, the B-29 modification program had fallen into complete chaos, with absolutely no bombers being considered as combat ready. The program was seriously hampered by the need to work in the open air in inclement weather, as many hangars were simply too small to house the aircraft indoors; by delays in acquiring the necessary tools and support equipment, and by the USAAF's general lack of experience with the B-29.

General Arnold became alarmed at the situation and directed that his assistant, Major General B. E. Meyer, personally take charge of the entire modification program. The resulting burst of activity that took place between 10 March and 15 April 1944 came to be known as the "Battle of Kansas". Beginning in mid-March, technicians and specialists from the Boeing Wichita and Seattle factories were drafted into the modification centers to work around the clock to get the B-29s ready for combat. The mechanics often had to work outdoors in freezing weather. As a result of superhuman efforts on the part of all concerned, 150 B-29s had been handed over to the XX Bomber Command by 15 April 1944.

Operations from CBI Theater

 * See: Operation Matterhorn and XX Bomber Command for expanded history

Operation Matterhorn was the name for the B-29 Superfortress offensive against the Empire of Japan from airfields in China. On 10 April 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) informally approved Operation Matterhorn. The operational vehicle was to be the 58th Bombardment Wing (Very Heavy) of the XX Bomber Command.

The headquarters of the XX Bomber Command had been established at Kharagpur India on 28 March 1944. The commander was General Kenneth B. Wolfe. The first B-29 reached its base in India on 2 April 1944. In India, existing airfields at Kharagpur, Chakulia, Piardoba and Dudkhundi had been converted for B-29 use. All of these bases were located in southern Bengal and were not far from port facilities at Calcutta.

The first B-29 bombing raid from India took place on 5 June 1944. Ninety-eight B-29s took off from bases in eastern India to attack the Makasan railroad yards at Bangkok, Thailand. Bombardment operations against Japan were planned to be carried out from bases in China. There were four sites in the Chengtu area of China that were assigned to the B-29 operation—at Kwanghan, Kuinglai, Hsinching, and Pengshan. The primary flaw in the Operation Matterhorn plan was the fact that all the supplies of fuel, bombs, and spares needed to support the forward bases in China had to be flown in from India over the Hump, since Japanese control of the seas around the Chinese coast made seaborne supply of China impossible.

By mid-June, enough supplies had been stockpiled at Chinese forward bases to permit the launching of a single attack against targets in Japan. It was a nighttime raid to be carried out on the night of 14/15 June 1944 against the Imperial Iron and Steel Works at Yawata on Kyūshū. Unfortunately, the Japanese had been warned of the approaching raid and the city of Yawata was blacked out and haze and/or smoke helped to obscure the target. Only 15 aircraft bombed visually while 32 bombed by radar. Only one bomb actually hit anywhere near the intended target, and the steel industry was essentially untouched. Although very little damage was actually done, the Yawata raid was hailed as a great victory in the American press, since it was the first time since the Doolittle raid of April 1942 that American aircraft had hit the Japanese home islands.

On the night 10–11 August, 56 B-29s staged through British air bases in Ceylon attacked the Plajdoe oil storage facilities at Palembang on Sumatra in Indonesia. This involved a 4030-mile, 19-hour mission from Ceylon to Sumatra, the longest American air raid of the war. Other B-29s laid mines in the Moesi River. At the same time, a third batch of B-29s attacked targets in Nagasaki. These raids all showed a lack of operational control and inadequate combat techniques, drifting from target to target without a central plan and were largely ineffective.

In Washington, it was decided that new leadership was needed for Twentieth Air Force. General Wolfe's replacement was Major General Curtis E. LeMay, who arrived in India on 29 August. Supply problems and aircraft accidents were still preventing a fully effective concentration of force and effort. In addition, Japanese defensive efforts were becoming more effective.

By late 1944, it was becoming apparent that B-29 operations against Japan staged out of bases in China and India were far too expensive in men and materials and would have to be stopped. In December 1944, the Joint Chiefs of Staff made the decision that Operation Matterhorn would be phased out, and the 58th Bombardment Wing's B-29s would be moved to newly captured bases in the Marianas in the central Pacific. The last raid out of China was flown on 15 January 1945, which was an attack on targets in Formosa (Taiwan). The 58th Bombardment Wing then redeployed to new bases in the Marianas in February.

Attacks on Japan from the Marianas

 * See: XXI Bomber Command for expanded history

The Marianas chain of islands, consisting primarily of Saipan, Tinian, and Guam, were considered as being ideal bases from which to launch B-29 Superfortress operations against Japan. The islands were about 1500 miles from Tokyo, a range which the B-29s could just about manage. Most important of all, they could be put on a direct supply line from the United States by ship. The XXI Bombardment Command had been assigned the overall responsibility of the B-29 operations out of the Marianas bases.

The first B-29 arrived on Saipan on 12 October 1944. It was piloted by General Hansell himself. By 22 November, over 100 B-29s were on Saipan. The XXI Bomber Command was assigned the task of destroying the aircraft industry of Japan in a series of high-altitude, daylight precision attacks.

The first raid against Japan took place on 24 November 1944. The target was the Nakajima Aircraft Company's Musashi engine plant just outside Tokyo. 111 B-29s took off, Seventeen of them had to abort due to the usual spate of engine failures. The remainder approached the target at altitudes of 27–32,000 feet. For the first time, the B-29 encountered the jet stream, which was a high-speed wind coming out of the west at speeds as high as 200 mph at precisely the altitudes at which the bombers were operating. This caused the bomber formations to be disrupted and made accurate bombing impossible.

Concerned about the relative failure of the B-29 offensive to deal any crippling blows to Japan, General LeMay issued a new directive on 19 February. General LeMay had analyzed the structure of the Japanese economy, which depended heavily on cottage industries housed in cities close to major industrial areas. By destroying these feeder industries, the flow of vital components to the central plants could be slowed, disorganizing production of weapons vital to Japan. He decided to do this by using incendiary bombs rather than purely high-explosive bombs, which would, it was hoped, cause general conflagrations in large cities like Tokyo or Nagoya, spreading to some of the priority targets.

The first raid to use these new techniques was on the night of 9–10 March against Tokyo. Another wing—the 314th Bombardment Wing (19th, 29th, 39th, and 330th BG) commanded by Brig. Gen. Thomas S. Power—had arrived in the Marianas and was stationed at North Field on Guam. A total of 302 B-29s participated in the raid, with 279 arriving over the target. The raid was led by special pathfinder crews who marked central aiming points. It lasted for two hours. The raid was a success beyond General LeMay's wildest expectations. The individual fires caused by the bombs joined to create a general conflagration due to strong winds of some 17 to 28 mph (27 to 45 km/h) at ground level, that prevented a more specific firestorm event. When it was over, sixteen square miles (41 km2.) of the center of Tokyo had gone up in flames and nearly 84,000 people had been killed. Fourteen B-29s were lost. The B-29 was finally beginning to have an effect.

By mid-June, most of the larger Japanese cities had been gutted, and LeMay ordered new incendiary raids against 58 smaller Japanese cities. By now, the B-29 raids were essentially unopposed by Japanese fighters. In late June, B-29 crews felt sufficiently confident that they began to drop leaflets warning the population of forthcoming attacks, followed three days later by a raid in which the specified urban area was devastated. By the end of June, the civilian population began to show signs of panic, and the Imperial Cabinet first began to consider negotiating an end to the war. However, at that time, the Japanese military was adamant about continuing on to the bitter end.

In June 1945, the XX and XXI Bombardment Commands were grouped under the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific (USASTAF), under the command of General Carl A. Spaatz. The history of XXI Bomber Command terminated on 16 July 1945. On that date the command was redesignated Headquarters and Headquarters Squadron, Twentieth Air Force. This redesignation brought to an end the XXI Bomber Command as a separate establishment, as it was absorbed into the internal organizational structure of Twentieth Air Force and was placed under the command of USASTAF.

Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific operations

 * See: United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific and Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki for expanded history

A reorganization of United States military commands on 16 July 1945 placed Twentieth Air Force under the command and control of the new United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific. Twentieth Air Force would command B-29 wings directly based in the Mariana Islands, while the newly re-deployed Eighth Air Force would command B-29 wings based on Okinawa. This realignment was made in advance of the planned Invasion of Japan (Operation Downfall) set to begin in October 1945. XXI Bomber Command was inactivated, its organization under the direct control of Twentieth Air Force.

By mid-July 1945, the combat missions over Japan were essentially un-opposed, with VII Fighter Command long range P-51 Mustangs operating from captured Iwo Jima airfields flying escort to the Marianas-based B-29s. Missions primarily consisted of low-level incendiary raids on smaller Japanese cities, both at night as well as daylight on a daily basis. The 315th Bombardment Wing, which became operational at the beginning of July, carried out a series of strikes against oil production facilities which essentially shut down the Japanese oil industry.

509th Composite Group

 * See: 509th Composite Group for expanded history

The 509th Composite Group was deployed overseas in the spring of 1945. The 509th was initially a part of XXI Bombardment Command based in the Marianas. By July, the bombers were established at North Field on Tinian, which had just been completed for the 313th Bombardment Wing. It was, however, under the direct operational control of the commander, Twentieth Air Force. The mission of the unit was the operational use of the Atomic Bomb.

It had only one Bombardment Squadron—the 393rd, commanded by Major Charles W. Sweeney. The 509th Composite Group was a completely self-sufficient unit, with its own engineer, material, and troop squadrons as well as its own military police unit. Since the Manhattan project was carried out in an atmosphere of high secrecy, the vast majority of the officers and men of the 509th Composite Group were completely ignorant of its intended mission.

With the testing of the Atomic Bomb completed in the United States, the two other bombs (Little Boy, Fat Man) had arrived on Tinian on 26 July, being delivered by the USS Indianapolis (CA-35). On 24 July, a directive was sent to General Carl A. Spaatz ordering the 509th to deliver its first atomic bomb as soon as weather would permit. The Japanese cities of Hiroshima, Kokura, Niigata and Nagasaki were potential targets. President Harry S. Truman gave his final go-ahead from the Potsdam Conference on 31 July.

On 6 August the atomic attack began with a flight of three special reconnaissance F-13As (RB-29s) which took off to report the weather over the primary and secondary targets. Col. Tibbets followed in his B-29 aircraft, Enola Gay, an hour later, accompanied by two other B-29s which would observe the drop. While on the way to Japan, Major Claude Eatherly, flying Straight Flush, radioed that Hiroshima was clear for a visual bomb drop. Navy weapons expert Captain William Parsons armed the bomb while in flight, as it was deemed too dangerous to do this on the ground at North Field, lest an accident happen and the bomb go off, wiping out the entire base. At 8:15 am, the Enola Gay released Little Boy from an altitude of 31500 ft. The radar fuse on the bomb had been preset to go off at an altitude of 2000 ft above the ground. In the ensuing explosion, yielding about 12 kilotons of TNT in explosive power, about 75,000 people were killed and 48,000 buildings were destroyed.

With no official statement from the Japanese government, there was no let-up with the conventional B-29 raids. B-29s from the 58th, 73rd, and 313th Bombardment Wings hit the Toyokawa Arsenal the next day. On the night of 7 August, the 525th Bombardment Group dropped 189 tons of mines on several different sea targets. On 8 August, the 58th, 73rd, and 313th Bomb Wings dropped incendiary bombs on targets at Yawata in the southern island of Kyūshū. At the same time, the 314th BW hit an industrial area of Tokyo. The Japanese defenses were still effective enough to down four B-29s during the Yawata raid and three at Tokyo.

Since there was still no official reaction from Japan, the Americans felt that there was no alternative but to prepare a second atomic attack. The plutonium bomb called "Fat Man" was loaded into a B-29 known as Bockscar (Martin-Omaha built B-29-35-MO serial number 44-27297, the name often spelled Bock's Car), named after its usual commander, Captain Frederick C. Bock. However, on this mission, the aircraft was flown by Major Sweeney, with Capt. Bock flying one of the observation planes. The primary target was to be the Kokura Arsenal, with the seaport city of Nagasaki as the alternative.

Bockscar took off on 9 August, with Fat Man on board. This time, the primary target of Kokura was obscured by dense smoke left over from the earlier B-29 raid on nearby Yawata, and the bombardier could not pinpoint the specified aiming point despite three separate runs. So Sweeney turned to the secondary target, Nagasaki. There were clouds over Nagasaki as well, and a couple of runs over the target had to be made before the bombardier could find an opening in the clouds. At 11:00 am, Fat Man was released from the aircraft and after a long descent, the bomb exploded. The yield was estimated at 22 kilotons of TNT. Approximately 35,000 people died at Nagasaki from the immediate blast and fire.

After releasing the bomb, Sweeney was forced to divert to Okinawa because of a problem with a fuel transfer pump, and because of the long flight with multiple bomb runs and circling for better weather. There was not even enough fuel left to fly to Iwo Jima. After refueling on Okinawa, the B-29 returned to Tinian. The Japanese Emperor ordered that the government accept the Allied terms of surrender at once. It took time for the full details to be worked out, and there was a very real danger that some elements of the Japanese military would still not accept surrender, and might attempt a military coup d'état, even against their Emperor.

In the meantime, conventional bombing of Japanese targets still continued, with a record number of 804 B-29s hitting targets in Japan on 14 August. On the morning of 15 August, the Emperor broadcast by radio his command of Japan's surrender in an address to his nation. Practically none of his subjects had never heard his voice before. All further offensive operations against Japan ceased after the Emperor's broadcast.

After that time, most of the B-29s in the Pacific were diverted to missions of mercy, dropping food and clothing to thousands of Allied prisoners of war held in Japan, China, Manchuria, and Korea. 1066 B-29s participated in 900 missions to 154 camps. Some 63,500 prisoners were provided with 4470 tons of supplies. These flights cost eight B-29s lost by accidents, with 77 crew members aboard.

The Japanese surrender was formally signed on 2 September 1945, aboard the huge battleship USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay, bringing the Pacific War to an end.

Postwar era
Following the end of World War II, Twentieth Air Force remained in the Pacific, being headquartered on Guam. The vast majority of its fleet of B-29 Superfortreses were returned to the United States as part of "Operation Sunset". The United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific was inactivated on 6 December 1945, and Twentieth Air Force placed under the Pacific Air Command, United States Army.

The last of the World War II combat wings, the 315th Bombardment Wing, returned to the United States on 30 May 1946. The 19th Bombardment Group remained at North Field, Guam as its only operational group. In 1949, budget reductions forced the realignment and consolidation of Air Force units in the Pacific, and the mission of Twentieth Air Force became the defense of the Ryukyu Islands and it was reassigned to Kadena AB, Okinawa. It commanded the following units:

51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing/Group (F-80, F-82) 31st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron, (RB-29) 19th Bombardment Wing/Group (B-29)
 * Naha Air Base, Okinawa
 * Kadena Air Base, Okinawa
 * Anderson Air Force Base, Guam

Korean War
On 27 June 1950, the United Nations Security Council voted to assist the South Koreans in resisting the invasion of their nation by North Korea. President Harry S. Truman authorized General Douglas MacArthur (commander of the US occupying forces in Japan) to commit units to the battle. MacArthur ordered General George E. Stratemeyer, CIC of the Far Eastern Air Force (FEAF) to attack attacking North Korean forces between the front lines and the 38th parallel. At that time, the 22 B-29s of the 19th Bombardment Group stationed at Andersen Field on Guam were the only aircraft capable of hitting the Korean peninsula, and this unit was ordered to move to Kadena air base on Okinawa and begin attacks on North Korea. These raids began on 28 June. On 29 June, clearance was given for B-29 attacks on airfields in North Korea. The B-29s were frequently diverted into tactical attacks against advancing North Korean troops.

On 8 July, a special FEAF Bomber Command was set up under the command of Major General Emmett O'Donnell. On 13 July, the FEAF Bomber Command took over command of the 19th Bombardment Group and of the 22nd and 92nd Bombardment Groups which had been transferred from SAC bases in the United States.

The other major components of Twentieth Air Force, the 51st Fighter-Interceptor Wing was reassigned to Fifth Air Force at Itazuke AB, Japan in September 1950, where its F-82 Twin Mustangs and F-80 Shooting Stars were used in combat over Korea. The very long-range RB-29s of the 31st Strategic Reconnaissance Squadron (unarmed B-29s fitted with additional internal fuel tanks within the bomb bays and various photo mapping cameras) were also reassigned to Fifth Air Force at Johnson AB, Japan where they were combined with other aerial reconnaissance units.

With the end of the Korean War in 1953, Far East Air Forces reorganized its forces and Twentieth Air Force units were reassigned. The bombardment units were reassigned to Strategic Air Command in 1954; fighter units to Fifth Air Force in 1955 and used for air defense. It was inactivated on 1 March 1955.

Modern era
Twentieth Air Force was reactivated on 1 September 1991 as a component of Strategic Air Command and located at Vandenberg AFB, California. Its mission was the responsibility for all land-based Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM)s. 20th Air Force's rebirth came at a time when America's nuclear forces were entering a decade of unprecedented force reductions and changes. Spawned by the Cold War's end and the breakup of the Soviet Union, these changes reshaped the basic fabric of the nation's nuclear deterrent forces.

In the decades since its reactivation, 20th Air Force has experienced four major command identities. After one year in Strategic Air Command and another year in Air Combat Command, 20th Air Force was moved under Air Force Space Command in 1993. December 2009 marked the final transition of 20th Air Force to the newly created Air Force Global Strike Command. Twentieth Air Force Headquarters' changed its location in 1993, moving from Vandenberg AFB, Calif., to its current home at FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming. Today 450 Minuteman III missiles remain on alert.

Twentieth Air Force headquarters is unique in that it has dual responsibilities to Air Force Global Strike Command and United States Strategic Command. As the missile Numbered Air Force for AFGSC, 20th Air Force is responsible for maintaining and operating the Air Force's ICBM force. Designated as STRATCOM's Task Force 214, 20th Air Force provides on-alert, combat ready ICBMs to the president. Combined with the other two legs of the Triad, bombers and submarines, STRATCOM forces protect the United States with an umbrella of deterrence.

Lineage

 * Established as Twentieth Air Force and activated on 4 April 1944
 * Inactivated on 1 March 1955

 * Activated on 1 September 1991.
 * Redesignated as: Twentieth Air Force (Air Forces Strategic) on 1 December 2009.

Assignments

 * United States Army Air Forces, 4 April 1944
 * Attached to United States Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, 16 July-6 December 1945

 * Pacific Air Command, U.S. Army, (later Far East Air Forces), 6 December 1945 – 1 March 1955
 * Strategic Air Command, 1 September 1991
 * Air Combat Command, 1 June 1992
 * Air Force Space Command, 1 July 1993
 * Air Force Global Strike Command, 7 August 2009

World War II

 * VII Fighter Command, 5 Aug 1945-c. Aug 1946
 * XX Bomber Command, 19 April 1944 – 18 July 1945
 * XXI Bomber Command, 9 November 1944 – 18 July 1945
 * Assumed direct control of XXI Bomber Command organization, 16 July 1945
 * 58th Bombardment Wing, 29 Jun-12 Oct 1944; 16 July 1945 – 15 November 1945
 * 73d Bombardment Wing, 16 July 1945 – 13 March 1946
 * 313th Bombardment Wing, 16 July 1945 – 13 March 1946
 * 314th Bombardment Wing, 16 July 1945 – 15 May 1946
 * 315th Bombardment Wing, 16 July 1945 – 30 May 1946

 * 301st Fighter Wing, 21 May 1945 – 29 November 1945
 * Detached 21 May 1945 – 14 August 1945

 * 3d Photographic Reconnaissance Squadron
 * Attached to: Twentieth Air Force, 1 November 1944
 * Attached to: XXI Bomber Command, December 1944
 * Attached to: Twentieth Air Force, 16 July 1945
 * Assigned to: Twentieth Air Force, 3 February–15 March 1947

United States Air Force
Bombardment Wings
 * 19th Bombardment Wing, 17 August 1948 – 16 May 1949, 17 October 1949 – 11 June 1954
 * Detached 1 Jun 1953 – c. 28 May 1954

 * 98th Bombardment Wing (Attached 18 Jun-25 Jul 1954)
 * 307th Bombardment Wing (Attached 18 Jun-19 Nov 1954)

Fighter Wings
 * 18th Fighter-Bomber Wing, 10 November 1954 – 31 January 1955
 * 23d Fighter Wing, 16 August 1948 – 25 April 1949
 * 51st Fighter Wing, 16 May 1949 – 1 March 1955
 * Detached 25 Sep-12 Oct 1950

Missile Wings
 * 44th Missile Wing, 1 September 1991 – 5 July 1994
 * 90th Missile (later, 90th Space) Wing, 1 September 1991 – present
 * 91st Missile (later, 91st Missile Group; 91st Missile Wing; 91st Space Wing, 91st Missile Wing); 1 September 1991 – present
 * 321st Missile Wing (later, 321st Missile Group), 1 September 1991 – 2 July 1998
 * 341st Missile (later, 341st Space) Wing, 1 September 1991 – present
 * 351st Missile Wing, 1 September 1991 – 31 July 1995

Other Wings and Groups
 * 529th Aircraft Control & Warning Group – 16 May 1949 – 1 August 1952
 * 310th Training and Test Wing 1 September 1991 – 1 July 1993
 * 374th Troop Carrier Wing, (Attached 17 August 1948 – 5 March 1949).
 * 377th Air Base Wing, 1 Oct 2015–present
 * 582d Helicopter Group, early 2015–present

Stations

 * Washington, D.C., 4 April 1944
 * Harmon Field, Guam, Mariana Islands, July 1945
 * Kadena AB, Okinawa, 16 May 1949 – 1 March 1955
 * Vandenberg Air Force Base, California, 1 September 1991 – 1993
 * FE Warren Air Force Base, Wyoming, 1993 – present

title: Twentieth Air Force


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Talk:Madison, Indiana

Untitled
We really need to add an infobox here.--Bedford 16:06, 6 September 2006 (UTC)

inMadison.org
Back in February, I removed a link to inMadison.org, which was an unmaintained site of limited value. An editor has replaced that link. It's a new version of the site which looks less useful that the first iteration. I don't want to enter in an edit war here, so I won't just remove it, but I really question the intent and value of the repeated addition of this link. Planetneutral talk  23:09, 10 April 2007 (UTC)

Madison Indiana Observer
The reference to Madison Indiana Observer has gone back and forth between a few different editors. The site was wrongly classified as a blog. It does present news in a chronological format, but the site has paid several writers, editorial oversight, and not advertising. Disclosure: I am the owner of the mentioned site but I believe it will stand up as a valuable resource along with any of the other links. Tony Kummer (talk) 01:31, 6 May 2011 (UTC)
 * Momentarily ignoring the obvious conflict of interest, you are misrepresenting your site. You call yourself "blogger-in-chief" and now tell us it isn't a blog? Your "citizen journalists" are, in fact, bloggers. Also, the first time you added it, you called it, a "Citizen news blog". I removed it, as a blog. Then, you decided it was "Citizen news". As for the "back and forth between a few different editors", I see someone adding the blog several places (under an IP address). Then, 11 minutes after having it removed as a blog, you materialize citing "a few different editors" and saying it's not a blog.
 * You have a conflict of interest and yes, it's a blog. - SummerPhD (talk) 02:32, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

 * Point taken. I am removing the link myself. Eventually, I would expect the value of that site will be more obvious. The different IP was mainly because I was editing w/o having logged in first. Thanks for the helpful suggestions. I do apologize for any difficulty. Tony Kummer (talk) 03:07, 6 May 2011 (UTC)

Mayor Damon Welch Death September 25, 2019
Conrad T. Pino (talk) 00:35, 26 September 2019 (UTC) Conrad T. Pino (talk) 03:27, 30 September 2019 (UTC)

title: Talk:Madison, Indiana


text:
Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Kentucky

Hello and welcome to the Kentucky State Highways Task Force page! If you would like to help, please jump in and start adding or editing. If you would like to join the group, please sign up below.

Scope
This WikiProject aims primarily to encourage participation in creating or expanding articles about state highways in Kentucky. This project also aims to establish standards relating to the display of information in these articles.

An article describing the logic and basic history of the Kentucky State Highway System is necessary to accompany the current List of State Highways in Kentucky article. This article should feature information regarding the state's Interstate, Primary, Secondary, Rural and Supplemental routes as well as Scenic Byways, and other worthy material.

The following highways can have entire articles dedicated to them:

 * Routes that are constructed, traversable, state-maintained, and signed with its own route number.
 * Routes that are partly constructed or partly signed.
 * Deleted routes with significant information worthy of an article.
 * Interstates that run entirely in Kentucky (mostly spur and loop routes). Ideally, these should also be part of this WikiProject.

Supplemental or minor secondary state routes, such as the 6000-series, should be combined into a single article (List of State Highways in Kentucky (6000-6999)).

Goals

 * 1) Develop and maintain articles on all primary and secondary system roads in Kentucky.
 * 2) Develop and maintain articles on all named parkways in Kentucky.
 * 3) Refrain from creating articles related to supplementary system roads in Kentucky that provide no encyclopedic or historical notability.

Resources

 * Mileage Log
 * Traffic counts
 * also traffic counts (must have Microsoft Silverlight)
 * Historical Maps
 * /Full list of routes
 * /Supplemental roads
 * All-time list

Specific needs

 * Complete the network at Roads of Louisville, Kentucky.
 * Expand/improve the "Roads" section of the Kentucky article.

Recently completed

 * Citation Boulevard for Roads of Lexington, Kentucky.

Structure
To maintain a consistent format, articles will follow WP:USRD/STDS.

Naming conventions
Articles are to be named "Kentucky Route X" per WP:USSH.

Categories
All articles are placed into a subcategory of Category:Transportation in Kentucky: either Category:Kentucky state highways, Category:U.S. Highways in Kentucky, or Category:Interstate Highways in Kentucky. The sort key is a four-digit number representing the route number.

Examples:

Shields
Shields for Kentucky State Highways have been created in the format "Elongated circle X.svg", where X is the number of the route.

Stub
Kentucky-road-stub Designates this article relating to roads in Kentucky as a stub. Articles are listed in Category:Kentucky road stubs.

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Designates the current article as part of the Kentucky State Highways Task Force. Place on the article's talk page.

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WP:WikiProject U.S. Roads/Kentucky/Userbox

Produces a userbox for editors' user pages.

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Template containing news for all USRD WikiProjects.


text:
Talk:Interior minister

"The way it was"
I would like to point out, that since User:Instantnood has taken to using "previous version" or "refraining from adding controversial edits until the dispute is settled" as excuses for promoting his point of view, may I call for him to exercise greater initiative on his part. For example, he reverts my edits which involve the addition of "Hong Kong, China", without explicitely expressing his objections when the proposal was first put up in Wikipedia talk:HK wikipedians' notice board. He claims he is justified to do so due to "disputes" which arise from such edits. If that is the case, I clearly made it known from the above page and in other pages, that I dispute the term HK appearing in country lists without any relevant quantifyers attached, be it in terms of the ", China" tag, being classified as a sub-entry of the PRC, or with footnotes and others notifications. As such, if Instantnood wants to preach what he says, than to reciprocate, he is also disallowed from adding Hong Kong from any country list.--Huaiwei 16:11, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Yes Hong Kong is a special administrative region of the PRC, and "Hong Kong Special Administrative Region" is its official name, and it joins international organisations under the name "Hong Kong, China", I don't agree it is necessary to state its full name or "Hong Kong, China" every single time Hong Kong is mentioned on Wikipedia. "Hong Kong", with a wikilink, already provides adequate information to readers. Pretty much like we normally don't write "the Commonwealth of Australia", but "Australia". If I were promoting my point of view user:Huaiwei is doing just the same thing. She/he edited many articles to change "Hong Kong" into "Hong Kong, China", or move listing of Hong Kong as a subsection of China, despite opposition at the talk page of the Hong Kong wikipedians' notice board. As it is not likely any consensus can be reached shortly I am having a policy to keep things as they were until the disagreements are finally settled, that is, to keep the format it first appears in the article. If its earliest edit to write Hong Kong is in the form "Hong Kong, China", I'd keep it as it is (the same applies to listing as separate section or as subsection of China). At the same time I'd edit with the format I prefer when I'm adding materials about Hong Kong to articles previously with no reference to Hong Kong. I consider this a way to avoid more edit warring, and I would expect the other parties to do the same. So far user:Huaiwei may not have discovered this, and is probably carrying on tailing my edits and modifying them according to his point of view. — Instantnood 16:37, August 22, 2005 (UTC)
 * tl;dr after the first two sentences. Australia is a country, HK is not. SchmuckyTheCat 18:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

 * If there are content-disputes, we leave that aside for now, since the issue is more to do with conduct anyway as per the "dispute" at hand. I dont deny my pushing of POV the way you do, and which you claim I shun responsibility from. I do not think you are in any better position to comment on this at all. Since both of us are equally attempting to push a POV, than perhaps you would agree that equal restrictions should be in place to prevent both from pushing forth a POV? Your "policy" is what is it...your policy. I saw it as unfair, and I saw you utilising it as a veil to continue pushing your POV across. If that is what you want to continue doing, than do you not think we should apply the same standards on your own edits?

 * Your solution clearly does not work. If you insist that the "first version" is "preferred", than may I know how you would define it? In some articles, you call first version to refer to the first version of the title. In some cases, you call it the first versions before the disputes. In this case, you call it the first instance you put in an edit which is a promotion of your POV. In other words, every single case of these "first versions" are simply the versiona you prefer. You consider that fair? I find that pretty amusing. So I suppose in order to "counter" your "policy", I must now try, as quickly as I can, to add "Hong Kong, China" to every article in wikipedia before you have a chance to add "Hong Kong"? Ridiculous!

 * And so, I should have the liberty to similarly form my own "policies" to counter your POV-pushing, wont you think so? Since you want others to avoid contentious edits, than yes, you jolly well adhere to that as well. As I said before, I am now going to aggresively remove all your efforts in adding "Hong Kong" to country lists without the neccesary quantifyers. If you react dismally to my latest salvo, you only have yourself to blame for formulating your own "skewed policy" and forcing a response like this from me.

 * Last but not least, you shall continue to discover "tailing edits" so long that you persist in doing the exact same thing to others.--Huaiwei 05:34, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

 * No. If you do a bit homework you can tell I do not always restore to an earlier version that represent my point of view. Stop making denunciations that even you yourself are aware that's not true facts. If you're going to be agressive, be bold, and good luck. — Instantnood 08:29, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

 * I have done enough homework to speak out against someone who continues to push POVs while hiding behind pretentious viles of "reconciliation". Your above statement is yet another sparkling example of this. Constant denials is not going to erase your edit histories, and no, you didnt get 2 arbcoms and a RFC for nothing. I have always been aggresive against the aggressive, so lets see how it goes, yah? ;)--Huaiwei 09:54, 23 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Let's say, Universitas 21, Electronic Road Pricing and national dish. Is my denial of your denouncements backed? Those are actually not 2 ArbCom cases. It was reopened based on technical ground (it was closed without the required 4 net support vote). And please don't take the advantage of the kindness of other people who have not taken any action against you to be agressive and to push forward your point of view. — Instantnood 10:15, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

United States "Interior Minister"
Hello everybody.

Would anybody object if I removed the U.S... Secretary of the Interior from the list in this article and replaced it with the U.S. Attorney General? I feel like the Secretary of the Interior, while having "Interior" in the title, doesn't really belong on this list because the function of its office is better covered by the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General. And the difference between the two is sufficiently explained in a paragraph in the body text of this article.

What do you guys think? – Novem Lingvae (talk) 09:25, 31 January 2009 (UTC)

 * Please remove it! It has nothing to do with this page. But neither does the Attorney General. ASJ94 (talk) 18:12, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I did a little research, and the United States Department of Justice is in charge of all the federal law enforcement agencies (such as FBI, ATF, US Marshals), administers federal prisons, and runs the immigration courts. To me, that suggests that the Attorney General does at least as much as the Director of Homeland Security in terms of policing, national security, and immigration. Which is why I want to add that position instead of just removing the Secretary of the Interior. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 18:32, 1 February 2009 (UTC)

 * I went ahead and made the change. – Novem Lingvae (talk) 01:48, 3 February 2009 (UTC)

Church-State relations
While researching Church-State relations, I noticed that the interior ministry is often the ministry that deals with issues regarding religions and their proper place in society. It would be interesting if we could add a short note on this in the article. ADM (talk) 16:59, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

title: Talk:Interior minister


text:
Talk:Martinsville, Indiana

Early discussions
The following sentence is, at best not NPOV, and at worst grossly inaccurate. The town also had a serious racial incident involving the football or basketball team, with fans accosting the bus from a visiting school. This incident resulted in a suspension from their league for a period of time. This talk area is not a good area to argue the merits of either incident, nor to get into an argument about how racial Martinsville is and/or was. I would suggest moving this to the bottom of the page, with further research and citations.

"The town has, through popular media and hearsay, (inaccurately) received a reputation within central Indiana as a racist community. This is largely due to a violent and tragic murder in the mid-20th century involving a Klansman from Indianapolis and an African-American teenager who crossed paths in the town."

--Boomcoach 16:21, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

I added the following: A year before the killing the KKK marched through Martinsville. Also Indiana has known ties to racist events. Like sundown towns, numerous kkk rallies, D.C. Stephenson, the 1990 IHSAA racism case. Some even claim Martinsville to be the home of the KKK.

Here are real facts from the Sports Illustrated in an article.......

Racial Incident In Indiana MARTINSVILLE'S SAD SEASON

Martinsville, Ind., ought to be basking in the accomplishments of the girls' basketball team at the town's namesake high school. Through Sunday the team had won 45 straight games and was ranked second nationally by USA Today. Instead, this basketball-crazy town, the hometown of John Wooden, is reeling from a harrowing racial incident during a boys' basketball game that has put Martinsville High on probation with the state athletic association and imperiled the future of the school's athletic program.

According to an Indiana High School Athletics Association (IHSAA) report, on Jan. 23, as Bloomington High North's racially mixed team got off the bus upon arriving for a game at Martinsville, about a dozen Martinsville students greeted the visitors with a barrage of racial epithets. Sue Beerman, principal of Bloomington North, said that the comments included: "Here come the darkies." Not surprisingly, the evening was marked by animosity.

During the junior varsity game several Bloomington players were bitten by Martinsville players. During the varsity game a member of Martinsville's all-white team elbowed a black North player in the stomach so fiercely that the player began vomiting. As he was doubled over on the sidelines, a fan yelled, "That nigger's spitting on the floor! Get his ass off the floor."

According to a report that Bloomington North filed with the IHSAA, epithets like "baboon" and threats such as "You're not safe in this town" continued after the game, which Martinsville won 69-66. "It wasn't just nasty," says one Bloomington North fan, an adult who was in attendance, "it was downright scary."

The severity of the sanctions handed down by both Conference Indiana (the league in which Martinsville plays) and the IHSAA, among them a ban on Martinsville's hosting conference games in any sport until February 1999, is without precedent for an Indiana high school. The IHSAA has also warned that another incident of this sort involving a Martinsville team could result in suspension of play for that team.

This wasn't the first time that charges of racist behavior were leveled against one of Martinsville's teams. In the last year at least two high schools in central Indiana have dropped the Artesians from their schedules after games were marred by brawls and racial slurs. School administrators in Martinsville--which has few black residents among its population of 12,000 and has long had a reputation for Ku Klux Klan activity--were unwilling to discuss the incident or its aftermath.

Beerman says "the matter has been resolved to our satisfaction," but the actions of her school's girls' team, which is racially mixed, speak louder: The Cougars chose to end their season and forgo a chance at a state championship rather than take part in the first of their sectional games, scheduled to be played at Martinsville High.

Source: https://www.si.com/vault/1998/02/23/239233/scorecard

FYI sources are backed by facts not opinions and selfish intentions

Here is another eyewitness account of Martinsville In.

We pulled into a mom and pop gas station. A string of Christmas lights framed the shop window. The clerk on duty, an older white man, peeked his head out. Seeing our dark bodies emerging from the car, he walked outside, slowly, with a perplexed look on his face. Presumably, because Black folks knew to steer clear of Martinsville, whites in Martinsville had become accustomed to rarely, if ever, seeing us in real life.

My mother explained what had brought us to his establishment on this crisp winter evening. I searched the man’s eyes for some tell-tale sign of his comfort level. He wasn’t outwardly hostile—I’d experienced overt racism enough times in my young life to know what it looked like. But he also wasn’t kind in that way that mom and dad’s white friends who came to the house were.

Mom and the clerk performed an awkward dance of human politeness as he led us into the gas station so mom could call my father collect. He offered us space to sit inside while we waited for my father to arrive. Aunt Janice was fixing her mouth to say “hell no!” when my mother jumped in and politely declined his offer, saying we would wait in the car. Mom and aunt Janice poured cups of the shop’s bitter coffee to help them stay alert. We made our way back to the car.

No one bothered us. Not even the clerk, who had returned to his mundane shop duties. But my mother and aunt began sharing stories with me—some joyous, some utterly terrifying—about what is was like to be college students in Klan country during the peak years of the Black Power movement.

This was more than a mere passing of the time. This was two Black women trying to work through fear and trauma, sharing their vulnerability with me, a girl of a different era, of a different generation, but of the same blood.

In 1968, just four years before my mother arrived on IU’s campus, a twenty-one-year-old Black encyclopedia saleswoman named Carol Jenkins was brutally murdered in Martinsville by a Klan member. The murder went unsolved for more than three decades. Meanwhile, hundreds of young Black women like my mother left their homes each year to attend IU, the specter of Jenkins’ murder a constant reminder that they could never—and would never—feel or be safe.

The racial violence of the area was even more explicit for my family. My mom told me her brother, my uncle Howard, was beaten bloody in Martinsville when he, not being from the area, stopped to get food on his way to visit her at college.

The IU campus wasn’t even a refuge from anti-Black harassment. My mom told stories of the KKK marching on public streets. University police officers would harass Black students for gathering on the yard in groups considered “too large.” White professors assumed that Black students were not prepared for the rigors of college, often grading them more harshly than their white counterparts. Many of these stories of racial discrimination on campus were chronicled in the IU Arbutus yearbook, given titles such as “Black Life in the Ivory Tower.” These stories mirrored those written on the pages of Essence in the early ’70s, by and about Black students at predominantly white institutions.

Up until that Christmas Eve, the only depictions I’d seen of the Klan were in films, like the scene in Lady Sings the Blues (1972), in which Klan members attack Billie Holiday’s tour bus, hitting her in the eye with the butt of a wooden stake. But here I was, now, hearing of my own family’s encounters with these enigmas in white hoods. I now understood that there were fleshy bodies underneath those hoods—real people—who hated us simply because we were Black.

But in the quiet spaces of their dorm rooms and apartments, mom and her peers could dance out their rage, they could style out their rage. I could hear it in their voices, in the ways they told their stories, but it would not truly sink in until I was much older: survival then—as it is now—was about stealing moments of intoxicating pleasure amidst many more that were singed by violence.

I heard tales of Black, sweaty bodies doing dances like “the dawg” and “the hustle” at the annual Omega Psi Phi Mardi Gras party. Mom and her friends would go decked out in elephant-leg pants—bout the widest bell bottoms you’ll ever see—and lace-front dresses and knee-high boots, with their Afros picked just so. Those parties were safe havens where young Black folks, who were few in number on campus, could dance and listen to soul and funk tracks—unapologetically young and Black.

My mom and my aunt had gotten into a rhythm, telling their stories, feeding off of each other like a well-trained performance duo. Black girl hand gestures abounded. Aunt Janice would let out her signature screeching cackle when things got really funny. Mom’s voice would boom when she told one of her “bet not no one mess with me” stories. They laughed as they tried to remember the name of “so-and-so’s boyfriend” who did “woopty woop” at “such-and-such’s” apartment “that one night.” I learned of the men my mom loved long before she and my father became a thing.

I would interject here and there with questions, wanting more details to add to the mental movie of the past that I was directing in my head. But for the most part, I knew to keep quiet because something big, something important was happening here. This was more than a mere passing of the time. This was two Black women trying to work through fear and trauma, sharing their vulnerability with me, a girl of a different era, of a different generation, but of the same blood. Through them, I experienced the full range of Black emotion, their stories offering a context for my aunt’s fear earlier that evening. It came from a real place.

By the time my father dashed up to the gas station in his big, mint green Mercury Cougar to rescue his wife and daughter, I felt a little older, a little less innocent. I had come face-to-face with white supremacy, learning at a young age that people will do anything—including taking a life—in order to maintain some semblance of power. It was a rite of passage that, even then, I knew my white peers did not have to experience. Their privilege shielded them from ever having to learn about this real American horror story. Yet, the trauma of the past was now etched into my skin. To be a Black girl in this world meant pain would be part of the experience.

But my passage also taught me about Black resilience, Black joy, Black creativity. Something about sharing the tiny space of the old Mustang with my mom and my aunt helped us to bond. For those few hours, we were on equal footing. All of us scared, and them telling stories to keep the haints away. The stories were our survival. The air never went silent. ■

https://beltmag.com/traveling-black-indiana/ Tanisha C. Ford

Here is another source of Martinsvilles due title as a racist town.

Earlier this year, a 2013 photo of a Martinsville, Indiana, mayoral candidate wearing blackface resurfaced.

Acts of racism and bigotry in the city have made it into stories from local and national news organizations, giving the community a reputation for being intolerant. With this happening two years after the city held a memorial for a victim of an act of racism, the photo has opened wounds the community has been trying hard to heal.

Kevin Coryell, 52, is a longtime resident of Martinsville who works in aerospace and is running for mayor. A photo of Coryell in blackface, specifically dressed as Mammy from “Gone With the Wind,” from 2013 recirculated on Facebook at the beginning of this year.

The photo can be found in the comments of one of Coryell’s public posts from March 29, 2014. The post is of a person with a beard wearing feminine clothing.

Coryell’s comment on the photo reads, “Question: is it a female with a small facial hair issue or a man that likes to cross dress. I just don't know any more.”

The post was met with more than 60 comments of people saying things such as, “That’s just a bit messed up! Lol!” and “Either way, it seems to be very comfortable with itself. Personally, I find it disturbing. j/s.”

A screenshot from a 2014 Facebook post shows the photo of Kevin Coryell dressed as Mammy from "Gone With the Wind" for Halloween in 2013. SCREENSHOT Buy Photos SEE the Photo HERE (https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/04/blackface-photos-of-martinsville-mayoral-candidate-resurface-months-before-election)

Coryell is one of three Republican candidates on the ballot along with one Democrat candidate. The mayoral election for Martinsville is May 7.

Anthony Woodside, a reporter from the Reporter-Times and The Mooresville-Decatur Times, said conversations about Coryell only lasted for around three weeks before the issue was brushed aside.

“Vote Coryell for Mayor” signs can still be seen lining streets in Martinsville.

The African American population in Martinsville has always been sparse. A New York Times article shows there were only 11 African Americans out of a total population of almost 12,000 people in 2000 in Martinsville.

Now, that number is only 1.6% of the total population. That’s still less than 200 people who identify as black or African American.

Martinsville has a long history of racial tension. It has been deemed a “sundown town,” which means black people were not welcome in the area after the sun went down. Rumors have also harmed the city, such as the belief Martinsville was a headquarters for the Ku Klux Klan, even though it wasn’t.

Recent events in the city have made it difficult for people to look past the city's history and rumors.

Only a few people in Martinsville have been outspoken about Coryell and the blackface photos. Shannon Kohl, the current mayor of Martinsville, is one of them.

Kohl said she doesn’t think the photos were taken with malicious intentions, since it was a Halloween costume, but it still shocked her how the city reacted to them. People made jokes on Facebook and said it was funny that he dressed up as the “maple syrup lady.”

Kohl has received negative feedback for speaking out against the incident.

“Doing the right things is hard because here, you pay a price for it,” Kohl said in an interview.

Kohl, who is also a Republican, isn’t happy with any of the Republican candidates who are running. She said she was hoping someone more qualified would jump into the race.

She is not running for reelection for personal reasons, though she said Martinsville has been good to her.

Coryell declined to speak on the record about the situation. He did say the story has already been written by the local paper and he has already addressed it in a video and in Facebook posts. Though the story has been written, columns continued to be written and some people who live in Martinsville still don't know about the photos.

After the photos resurfaced, the Reporter-Times wrote an article Feb. 8 about him addressing the photo in his video. The video came after he was allegedly told Fox 59 in Indianapolis had the photo.

The news station didn’t do anything with the photo, and Coryell hasn't done anything concrete to make up for the photo.

“I own it,” he said in his video. “I did it, I wore it.”

A "Vote Coryell for Mayor" sign sits April 29 in the yard of an administration building in downtown Martinsville, Indiana. Coryell is under scrutiny for a photo of himself in blackface from 2013. TY VINSON Buy Photos Carol Jenkins, an African American woman from Franklin, Indiana, was selling encyclopedias in September 1968 when she was stabbed to death with a screwdriver in Martinsville. She was 21.

The man who killed Jenkins was also found to not be from Martinsville. He wasn’t arrested until police received an anonymous tip in 2002, almost 34 years after the murder. The case has even appeared in an article in the New Yorker.

Another incident which highlighted the city's complicated relationship with race was the Jan. 23, 1998, basketball game between Martinsville and Bloomington High School North.

Bloomington North had won the championships the previous year. Steven Philbeck, the assistant basketball coach at Bloomington North at the time, said his players were used to other teams being hostile toward them.

They weren’t expecting what they would be greeted with in Martinsville when they arrived that day.

Around 10-12 male students ran to the bus and lined the sidewalk. The Martinsville team, which was all white, knew there were black players on the Bloomington North team. As the players exited the bus, the boys started chanting.

“Dark, dark, dark,…”

Throughout the junior varsity game, Philbeck said the Martinsville players were incredibly violent. The coaches even asked each other if Bloomington North should take the forfeit and just go home.

Philbeck said when the varsity game started, things got uglier.

The Martinsville players became more violent, and one of them elbowed a black Bloomington North player in the stomach hard enough to make him vomit. A man in the audience yelled for the player to be taken off the court and shouted a racial slur.

“It really was an awful experience,” Philbeck said.

The Indiana High School Athletic Association banned Martinsville from hosting any conference games for a year, and the incident made it into an issue of Sports Illustrated with the headline, “Martinsville’s Sad Season.”

The city has attempted to seek closure and move past these situations. In 2017, a memorial was organized for Carol Jenkins and her family. Shannon Kohl, the current mayor of Martinsville, dedicated a "memorial stone" in Jenkins' honor at the entrance to City Hall, according to an IndyStar article.

Kohl said she thought the memorial was healing for the family and for the community. Jenkins’ father died soon after the memorial.

Kohl said the photos of Coryell makes her worry for the future of Martinsville.

“I felt like it set our community back a little bit,” Kohl said.

Martinsville High School is located on the outskirts of downtown Martinsville, Indiana, near State Road 37. The high school is the location of the 1998 basketball game between Martinsville and Bloomington High School North. TY VINSON Buy Photos Like Kohl, other members of the community have spoken out about Coryell and received backlash. Some are also leaving their positions in and around the city.

Before he announced he was running for mayor, Coryell and his campaign created a Facebook group called "Porch Time" to engage with the community. It began with posts to organize and announce fundraisers, but it quickly became a page for people to talk about the election and post political memes. Kohl and others believe it was created with political motivation from the beginning.

For months, Coryell was given permission by Michele Moore, the superintendent of the Metropolitan School District of Martinsville, to make Facebook Live videos on Porch Time of events and games at Martinsville High School. After the photos of Coryell resurfaced, Moore banned Coryell from accessing games and players.

Though she isn’t originally from Martinsville, she knows of the reputation surrounding the city.

“Martinsville has a history of intolerance,” Moore said.

Moore reached out to the school community before she made the decision to cut ties with Coryell. She specifically reached out to the group of African American students, which is only around 30 students, and the group of African American employees of the school district, which is only four or five people.

Once they expressed they were uncomfortable with how Coryell apologized for the photos, she made the decision.

“I felt like it was the right thing to do to speak up,” Moore said. “It’s important to stand up for things you feel strongly about.”

Soon after, Moore decided to look at the curriculum being taught in her schools. During a principals meeting, she made sure diversity in America and Black History Month were being taught. There was no mention of Martinsville’s history being in the curriculum.

Moore is stepping down as superintendent of Martinsville at the end of this school year. She believes she has accomplished what she set out to do.

Community members who don’t hold any sort of office or position have also faced scrutiny for being outspoken about Coryell and the photos of him in blackface.

Justin Drake, 40, has lived in Martinsville since he was 5 years old. Drake has been publicly outcast for speaking out against Coryell. He was blamed by Coryell and others on Facebook and in person for sending the photos of Coryell in blackface to Fox 59, even though he said he didn't.

Drake has biracial family members and said he fears for them being in Martinsville. He said the backlash was a large part of why he and his family are moving to Pennsylvania this year.

“I can’t be stuck in the 1950s,” Drake said.

Drake said he believes the city needs a mayor that stands for all its people, not just those they think deserve it.

Drake recognizes that Coryell has done many good things for families in Martinsville, such as food drives and fundraisers. But Drake believes they were done to gain attention.

Drake said he feels like he doesn’t belong in Martinsville anymore.

“We can’t continue to fight for something we love that doesn’t love us back,” Drake said.

IU freshman Devin Coryell sits April 29 outside Herman B Wells Library. Coryell said she didn't know about the photos of her dad in blackface until this February because she was blocked on Facebook when they were originally posted. A previous photo caption stated Devin is a sophomore. The IDS regrets this error. TY VINSON Buy Photos In a video in February, Coryell said he owned what he posted. He recognized the costume was insensitive and said he didn’t know the connotations of blackface.

“I apologize if it offended people,” he said in the video.

Some believe since Coryell “owned” the photos he has gained more support.

Despite this, others believe he knew what he was doing and that he shouldn’t be a mayoral candidate.

Coryell’s daughter Devin Coryell, a freshman at IU, said she can’t believe her father is still running for mayor.

Devin Coryell said she has not been close with her father in a long time. She had no idea Coryell posted photos of himself wearing blackface. She was blocked on Facebook at the time because her parents had just gotten a divorce.

Devin Coryell found out about the photos of her dad Feb. 7, and the next day she told him and his campaign she could no longer support them. Soon after, people began to reach out to her.

When she posted on Facebook about how she couldn’t support her father, people attacked her in the comments, accusing her of going against her family.

“With how he’s been acting and the stuff he’s done, I don’t think he should be mayor,” Devin Coryell told them in a Facebook comment.

Devin Coryell and her friends were told by Coryell’s followers and friends they were part of the problem, not her father. Some of Coryell’s followers changed their profile pictures to photos of people in blackface with the caption, “Just for you crybabies.”

“I was confused, whenever I was being attacked for saying blackface was wrong, I was like, what?” Devin Coryell said. “Like, anywhere else, that would be right. It just doesn’t make sense.”

Her father's apology disappointed her. In the video and in several posts he said he was going to use this as a learning opportunity. He said he hoped to be able to educate others on similar issues, but he hasn’t done any of that so far.

Devin Coryell said she has worked hard to not have the same image as her father.

“Growing up, you’re instilled with those beliefs,” Devin Coryell said. “But I feel like I tried to educate myself to become more inclusive and not be racist and stuff.”

This story has been updated with a screenshot of the Facebook post from 2014 of Coryell dressed as Mammy from "Gone With the Wind" from the previous Halloween.

https://www.idsnews.com/article/2019/04/blackface-photos-of-martinsville-mayoral-candidate-resurface-months-before-election

In Indiana, there were several areas that were considered to have a strong concentration of Klan memberships, mainly in central Indiana around Martinsville, Noblesville, Indianapolis and the other was in Daviess County in southwest Indiana. The Klan attracted many otherwise decent citizens by presenting itself as a “lodge” dedicated to being god-fearing and 100 percent American and quite often was known to march, white robes, hoods, and all, into a church laying a large offering on the altar then filing out single file without saying a thing.

This was known to have actually happened in Odon and Washington. From the turn of the century, to the mid 1930’s, private clubs and organizations became extremely popular and it became quite fashionable to belong to the Masons, the Odd Fellows, Redmen, Knights of Pithios, The Woodsman of America, all openly tolerating Klan activity, and all could be described as secret closed organizations, often with suspected dual membership of several of their members as Klansmen.

It was quite common for a man to spend two or three nights a week with lodge activities. It is a documented fact that several Klan rallies, membership initiations, including cross burnings and parades were conducted, not only in Washington but Odon, Plainville, and Elnora. One such cross burning and parade was held on the side of a hill at Campbell Hill in Washington on May 30, 1923. Also in 1924, thousands of KKK faithful descended upon Washington with a parade and ceremony.

In his Daviess County history, Rex Myers described quite ably, several other Klan incidents locally, including the Klan related murder of William Gilley and his funeral at Aikman Creek Cemetery which was attended by numerous hooded Klansmen.

The Klan had fashioned a structured organization where their members were required to swear to an oath of loyalty and allegiance to the Klan, to secrecy, swearing to never reveal the words and grips or any other secret information of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

The Klan also required a most solemn signed pledge to “Klanishness” to never slander, defraud, deceive or do any manner of wrong to any other Klansman or any member of a Klansman family. They had secret hand shakes and grips, signs and greeting of a fellow Klansman. They even had a secret Klan vocabulary calling themselves the “Invisible Empire of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, devised by the Imperial Wizard of Georgia and the hierarchy of his fifteen Genis, all of whose title began with “K.”

The “Kludd” did the praying; the “Kligrapp” was the secretary; the “Klarogo was the inner guard; the “Kleagle” was the organizer, the “Klabee” was the treasurer, etc. A cavalcade according to the Klan was spelled with a “K” and was a Klan parade.

Regional Klans were known as Klaverns, therefore there was the Odon Klavern, the Washington Klavern, the Petersburg Klavern etc. Each Klavern had its own chain of command and was subservient to the Grand Dragon of Indiana, who at that time was D. C. Stephenson.

Check out the Indiana Klan March in 1922 HERE https://indianahistory.org/wp-content/uploads/Hoosiers-and-the-American-Story-ch-08.pdf

Furthermore this website can be edited by anyone. So it can never be 100% fact. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.102.151.73 (talk) 22:31, 30 January 2020 (UTC)

"Later discovered evidence showed that the act was perpetuated by someone passing through the town, and that the racist tag was largely manufactured. Several instances since that time in the city of Martinsville, and the increasing minority population in the community proves that Martinsville has shucked the racist label and is in fact a welcoming community of all races and cultures."

It is POV and not phrased in a manner appropriate to the Encyclopedia. I would certainly welcome cited information about what really happened in the 60's. The article already mentions that the reputation was inaccurate, but the text removed comes down to blatant propoganda.

Are there any IndyStar references available from the court case a few years back, that can be cited for more information? Boomcoach 14:30, 20 December 2006 (UTC)

Have revised to add link to Indy Star Article. I still believe your entry is as biased and POV laden as any other, and have revised it again. If we cannot agree upon it, perhaps we should remove the reference altogether? As a local resident, I see your statement as biased and propoganda as well, so we need to either reword this, or drop the reference altogether as this time. Your choice, as I'll push this as far as I have to in order to clarify your words, which appear biased and incomplete.

 * Your article was just what was needed. I attached the link directly to its mention in your first sentence, thus removing the need for the second sentence.  The main terminology I was objecting to was Martinsville has shucked the racist label and is in fact a welcoming community of all races and cultures which was not worded in a way that seemed appropriate to this venue.  I think that giving the link was excellent.  I am a former resident and I know that story has been spread far and wide, so I think it is better to addressm and clarify it, than to simply ignore it.

 * Thanks also for the Mineral water information, as I don't think the section on racism needs to dominate the article.Boomcoach 15:49, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

 * I still don't think this is NPOV. It takes the position that the racist reputation is undeserved, without any real evidence.  A negative argument like "no documented ties to the KKK" just isn't sufficient.  There's also no evidence cited that the reputation emerged primarily from the 1968 murder.  Beyond the murder, in recent times, there's the basketball bus incident and the assistant police chief's letter.  A balanced treatment of this would say something like: "Martinsville has a reputation for racism.  [68 murder] [basketball incident] [letter].  Local residents deny this claim. [murder was by an outsider] [no documented kkk ties]."  That way, the rebuttals can remain without the article seeming to endorse them.  --Rmlucas 16:25, 5 January 2007 (UTC)

Added discussion regarding reputation as City of Mineral Water to description of town. Can be found any number of places on net, including http://www.scican.net, and following links to local history.

Nail Letter addition
What is the point of this addition? I find the letter reprehensible, but an encyclopedic entry does not need to discuss the various idiotic comments by various members of the town, even if they have some sort of official position.

I have deleted the following:

 * ==The 2001 Dennis Nail Letter==
 * In response to the September 11, 2001 attacks and press coverage of the military presence in Afghanistan following the attacks, assistant police chief Dennis Nail wrote to the Martinsville Reporter-Times in October of that year:

 * If some of the major networks can only show sympathy for the enemy, I might suggest they move their studios and equipment to the end of oblivion with the rest of the cave-dwelling rats that opened death’s door to our countrymen on Sept. 11.
 * If some of the major networks can only show sympathy for the enemy, I might suggest they move their studios and equipment to the end of oblivion with the rest of the cave-dwelling rats that opened death’s door to our countrymen on Sept. 11.

 * Offended? I, too, am offended... It offends me when I have to give up prayer in school. Once again because it might upset Hadji Hindu or Buddy Buddha. I don’t believe the founding fathers were either of these. They were Christian and believed in the one true God of the universe….

 * Talk about majority. When I look around and I see no Mosque, or fat bald guys with bowls in their laps. I see churches. I’m offended when I turn on a television show and without fail a queer is in the plot just like it’s a natural thing.

 * America put God in the closet and let the queers out. When the planes struck the twin towers I never heard anyone utter, ‘Oh Ellen.’ I heard a lot of ‘Oh my God.’ Now we want to pull God off the shelf, rub His head and expect a miracle.

 * Offended? Well, get over it, because it’s time the dog started wagging the tail. Let’s not be led around by a minority of weirdoes and feel-gooders. I, for one, am tired of it.

 * According to an article by the Souther Poverty Law Center, Nail's letter was signed as a private citizen, but his position in the local police force was common knowledge. Some national news attention was paid the letter's publishing, and 2 weeks later the City Council held a public meeting attended by 80 people.  It is said 21 people voiced their support of Nail (there was 1 speaker who criticized the assistant police chief and the City Council's handling of the situation) and that when Nail addressed the council, he received a standing ovation (it isn't noted what Nail said.)

 * An article on the incident including a quote from Nail's apology (Source: People For the American Way)

If a reasonable discussion determines that this is appropriate for this forum, it is available to be re-added. Boomcoach 18:37, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

If an article is considered erroneous or misrepresentative of the facts, than I agree it should be removed. This incident was reported by reputable sources and is part of the recent history of Martinsville. Deleting it outright is the same as attempting to cover it up. I'm sure it was your civic pride more than your editorial judgment at work when you deleted my post.

 * Not at all. I am no longer a resident.  I am not a particularly big fan of the city, but I think that this is supposed to be an encyclopedia entry about a town, not a commentary on one of its residents.  I don't doubt that Mr. Nail's comments represent an embarrassingly number of the residents, but I don't think that it belongs in an encyclopedia entry.

 * Looking at entries for other towns, I do not see the entries about individual citizens foibles and idiocies, and it is hard to make a claim that Mr. Nail has any real importance to the world at large (as opposed to, for instance, details about Mayor Daly in an entry about Chicago.) I have no intention to foster any sort of coverup, I lived in Martinsville for about 6 years, in the 70's, so I am not suffering under any sort of "Civic pride" in regard to it. Boomcoach 19:21, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This'll shock you, Boomcoach, but you've convinced me. I won't repost. However, I do feel the Martinsville article paints the town in a particularly forgiving light. I think perhaps it is due its own article (there's whole pages devoted to college quarterbacks who threw hail mary passes) so I don't think it's inappropriate for Wikipedia. The incident bespeaks the town's recent cultural climate, but it doesn't single-handedly encompass the municipality's history.

 * I agree. I will certainly read the article you linked to, and I think leaving it on the Talk page is a good thing. Boomcoach 20:04, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

Martinsville High School
The links to martinsville high school link to the wrong martinsville high school. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 66.185.71.194 (talk) 03:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC).

 * The article for Martinsville High School was deleted, and is now a link for the school with the same name in Virginia. I removed the linkage, but left the text. Boomcoach 13:41, 9 March 2007 (UTC)

Corrections, updates, and comments
I edited the Martinsville, Indiana page. I apology for the formatting as I am just learning Wikipedia's code. I am used to HTML. Give me a week and I will have the article corrected.

Some errors I corrected or deleted:

 * There were over 12 sanitariums in Martinsville including the first black sanitarium. It may have been the first black sanitarium in the United States, but I cannot verify that at the moment and am still looking for that source.

 * The person murdered in Martinsville was not a teenager, but a 21-year-old woman.
 * There was no Klan rally and march in Martinsville 1967. The city leaders refused to allow it, but they found no legal way to stop the Klan's motorcade from driving around the square.  The city leaders asked that all residents not go to the square and ignore the Klan's actions.  As a result the Klan's visit to Martinsville was a nonevent, which is perhaps that is why the Klan never returned to Martinsville (last sentence simply my comment, not something I added to the article).

 * I deleted the following, "According to the Southern Poverty Law Center's Hate Groups Map for the state of Indiana from 2005[2], there is no Ku Klux Klan Chapter in Martinsville, although it does refer to a group called 'Council Of Conservative Citizens'." I could not find anything to substantiate the comment except the old (2002 I think) blurp on the Southern Poverty Law Center's Web site. I checked Reporter articles, the Council Of Conservative Citizens' Web site, which has no listing for Martinsville at all, and the only reference I could find was to a scheduled meeting (no evidence as to whether it actually took place) on Southern Poverty Law Center Web site.  I cannot even currently locate that reference on their Web site.  Barring any proof that the meeting actually took place and that this organization has a presence in Martinsville/Morgan County I see no reason for the inclusion of this information.  The information is not verifiable.

Added new historical information:

I am the digital archivist for the Morgan County Library and I added a lot of new historical information and added to the list of names of notables.

I will be contacting members of the historical society and city leaders to see if they will add information.

NOTE: Regarding the African American/racial incidents in Martinsville, while I admit it is much more titillating to focus on the very few racial incidents that has occurred in the area, IMO it gives a much factual picture of Martinsville, the surrounding area and its residents if those incidents are balanced with the hundreds of African Americans who have safely lived and worked in the area for over a hundred years.

There may be facts that the other authors here might be unaware of. Here is an article by one of Morgan County's historians - http://scican3.scican.net/bh/index.html.

VLH2375 10:07, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

Reformatting
VLH2375 added a ton of excellent information. I have started to reformat the various links and cites throughout the article. My goals are: This should allow the numbered citations to be actual citations, reduce the numbers. The article was up to citation 26, the vast majority of which were not actual citations.Boomcoach 14:35, 12 June 2007 (UTC)
 * Add reference section
 * Change links that should be citations to reference format
 * When possible, change external links to textual links (see Historical Photographs example in opening)
 * Wikilink internal articles.

Question
Broomcoach is there any way I can just send you the material I have and can get? I can write the copy and provide verification, but since I have yet to learn the code Wikipedia uses it might be helpful if we could work together. Please, do not misunderstand I fully intend to learn the code. I am just in a time crunch right now. VLH2375 10:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

Deletion of history
I reverted the anonymous deletion of the information about the murder. As many people who have some familiarity with Martinsville know of the incident, it seems wrong to ignore it, and the explanation clears up misconceptions. Boomcoach 01:42, 16 September 2007 (UTC)

remarkability
"The racial makeup of the city was remarkably homogeneous, with 98.62% of Martinsville's residents claiming White" What? How is a town's being nearly pure white remarkable? Your use of the language has lost me.IanHistor (talk) 18:54, 27 July 2009 (UTC)

Carol Jenkins murder
I wanted to go ahead and explain my changes on the main page to avoid any kind of edit war. First of all I think the Carol Jenkins murder, if it deserves mentioning under Martinsville's history (and frankly I don't know that it is quite THAT notable, but whatever), it should have its own section. As it was it just kind of came out of nowhere right after normal run-of-the-mill factoids.

Second, I removed and changed two bits that seem to indicate a certain bias or slant. The first part was that I changed the sentence about Martinsville "enduring charges..." Using the word enduring and thus describing Martinsville as a poor victim of enormous persecution that had to endure this terrible burden is a little bit over the top. Yes it added to the perception that Martinsville is racist, so just leave it at that unless you can provide sources that Martinsville was targeted or its citizens had to "endure" something out of the ordinary as a result of this murder. Also, while I see no reason to speculate that the cops dragged their feet or refused to investigate the crime, saying the murder was nearly impossible to solve is idle speculation. Cops solve crimes all the time when the criminal is from out of town or where there is little initial evidence. Saying it was nearly impossible is as much baseless speculation as saying they should have been able to solve it. Bottom line here is without some source saying that these conditions made it very difficult to solve the case, it's just an unsourced opinion and should be removed.

Third, part of my problem with the whole "Martinsville endured accusations..." is that the paragraph seemed to have a tone that suggested that this murder was somehow the only accusation of racism or racial problems in Martinsville. Anyone from Martinsville is full of it if they suggest that there have been no other episodes of racial tension, and you know you are full of it. Martinsville has a long running (and well deserved) reputation of racism and general bigotry, and no it wasn't just because of the Carol Jenkins episode. So I added the fact that the Jenkins murder wasn't the sole basis of Martinsville's reputation (with a valid source) lest the reader get the idea that somehow a racist town like Martinsville has been completely exonerated just because Jenkins's murderer turned out to be from another county.Jdlund (talk) 19:48, 19 March 2010 (UTC)

Various Edits
I apologize if I offend anyone by moving the entries from the first section into the businesses section, as it was becoming just a list of businesses, rather than emphasizing anything specific about Martinsville itself. It also was implying that any businesses listed were popular, due to choice of wording. I realize the editor was attempting to add content, hence me explaining my choice here. My actual addition to the businesses entry is generic, I realize, and I welcome people to fix that. If I had more time, I'd add things about shelters and activity areas in Martinsville.

I've also moved the Carol Jenkins murder down, but not to de-emphasize it. I've looked at other wiki pages as examples, and many place notable events near this area. This also allows a spot for articles on events like the recent shooting, which I tried to write out myself but had trouble finding unlocked news articles on. The name 'Notable Events' itself is in lieu of a better choice of words; I just used the title commonly used for this area.

I've also started a festival section with the few I could think of off the top of my head. I invite others to add entries and links. Tanyuu (talk) 03:57, 14 November 2011 (UTC)

Someone has removed my reference to the murder of Carol Jenkins. I am not making up things I am only quoting from the program. If you like you may view the program here http://www.investigationdiscovery.com/tv-shows/injustice-files and you will see I am not making up any of this. Injustice Files Episode "Sundown Towns" (premiered on February 24, 2014) on |Investigation Discovery hosted by Keith Beauchamp Apriv40dj (talk) 20:08, 28 February 2014 (UTC)
 * Hey! I don't think the reason they deleted it is that they think you're "making things up". More like, it's not really appropriate for this particular page as well as several issues with the way it's written (I think I saw you mention in Teahouse that you were new here). I am not familiar with this particular story, but it may be notable enough to have its own page. If the story is notable, it may be worthy of a 2-3 sentence blurb on the Martinsville page, but it otherwise doesn't fit with the flow of this particular page, not to mention the point of it to put in a really long description of the murder there. Why don't you copy and paste the story in your sandbox and I'll help you edit it there. When it's up to snuff, I'll help you post it as its own page. :-) Bali88 (talk) 03:39, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

On second thought, I reread the article, and I think the blub just doesn't fit at all. I created the page for you: Murder of Carol Jenkins You can edit it there. Let me know if you need any help! Bali88 (talk) 04:01, 3 March 2014 (UTC)

2008 Flood
Should the 2008 flood be mentioned? It's an event that still has marks on the city today. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dr Hugsy McFur (talk • contribs) 19:19, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

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Martinsville Superfund Site
Something that may be considered for achieving notability guidelines is the fact that the majority of the town is a superfund site. I would argue that this is notable because it affects every citizen and has been a political point of contention for the city's memorable history, the groundwater plume(s) having existed since at least 1986. It contributes to Martinsville's County, Morgan, having the second highest cancer rate in the state due to the presence of PCEs and TCEs in the municipal water. Conrad Thompson (talk) 22:28, 7 April 2019 (UTC)

Population Discrepancies
There have been some major changes to the various population figures on the page in the last few months, I've unilaterally made some changes because of how drastically incorrect the figures were, but someone with more experience and know-how should probably clean it up further. My source for the numbers came from the 2020 Census: https://www.census.gov/programs-surveys/popest/technical-documentation/research/evaluation-estimates/2020-evaluation-estimates/2010s-cities-and-towns-total.html

The >30k figure is wildly wrong, I've seen a few numbers floating around all in the 11-12k range and they're all vastly more reasonable then whats been on the page for months now. GuyFox5 (talk) 00:40, 13 July 2022 (UTC)

 * Yeah, I noticed too. If you look in the history, there's a series of edits by an anonymous account that were semi-corrected, but then another account (likely the same person) came in and added more made up numbers. It's hard to tell what parts remain from the prank, but hopefully they'll get ironed out. Tanyuu (talk) 23:11, 15 November 2022 (UTC)

Mosquitoes
Read many years ago about an Indiana town that was about to be abandoned, left as a ghost town, because, of the over-abundance of mosquitoes. Then, someone heard that Purple Martin birds loved eating mosquitoes. Special birdhouses were put up, designed to attract these birds. The birds came; the town survived. In honor of the birds, the town was renamed as: "Martinsville". Don't remember if previous town name was given. According to the Martinsville website, the town's surveyor was named John Martin(s), and, the town was named after him. It doesn't seem logical that both stories of how the town was named could be right, so, which way was it? 97.130.175.2 (talk) 21:19, 27 September 2023 (UTC)

title: Talk:Martinsville, Indiana