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The following reference(s) may be useful when improving this article in the future: King, Wilma (2005). "The Long Way from the Gold Dust Twins to the Williams Sisters: Images of African American Children in Selected Nineteenth- and Twentieth-Century Print Media". African American Childhoods: Historical Perspectives from Slavery to Civil Rights. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. pp. 119–136. doi:10.1007/978-1-349-73165-7_8. ISBN 978-1-4039-6251-5. Slaughter-Defoe, Diana (2008). "Reviewed work: African American Childhoods: Historical Perspectives from Slavery to Civil Rights by Wilma King". The Journal of African American History. 93 (2): 294–296. ISSN 1548-1867. JSTOR 25609979. Turner, Patricia A. (1994). "Alligator Bait". Ceramic Uncles & Celluloid Mammies: Black Images and Their Influence on Culture (1st ed.). New York: Anchor Books. pp. 31–40. ISBN 978-0-385-46784-1.

I have raised the matter of deleting this article not because I necessarily think it should be entirely deleted, but solely because the balance is far too uneven. and it appears to be being used to promote a fringe theory.

I described the topic as a conspiracy theory because the belief that it really happened appears to only be propagated by a single (barely notable) employee of a museum, (personally I think this is akin to a security guard at the Louvre giving his personal opinions on the Mona Lisa). I did not want to remove too much from the article and left Hughes' claims in because the responses to him debunking his assertions are notable.

I am not fully beholden to the "conspiracy theory" label, I would not describe topics that are clearly mere legend as such because they tend not to have proponents advancing them as fact. If Hughes' claims are to be included in the article then that does make it a conspiracy theory, in my humble opinion of course. CorwenAv (talk) 02:05, 12 December 2022 (UTC) User has been blocked for sockpuppetry. —Sangdeboeuf (talk) 10:19, 11 September 2025 (UTC)[reply]

• "used to promote a fringe theory"? What? OK, I saw the edits you made to the article, and I'm not going to waste any more time on this. Drmies (talk) 03:45, 12 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

By and large this article tends to describe the topic as a racist trope (which it certainly was), but largely dismisses the possibly that it could have been an (equally racist) practice. But can be we be sure of this? While all sources I've found tend to agree that the use of children (whether Black or not) in alligator or crocodile hunting was never a widespread practice, some accept that it may well have happened.

While debunking myths and urban legends is fine, I think we need to be careful here not to "debunk" practices whose historical reality is debated even in serious sources. Some sources missing from this article that are less inclined to dismiss the practice as entirely fictitious are: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].

There are likely others. I'll try to improve the article by covering the arguments in these and similar sources more seriously. If anyone wants to help, that's of course welcome. If anyone here thinks this is a bad idea, let me know why so we can discuss it. Gawaon (talk) 18:18, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

1. Three Jim Crow/Ferris State articles are already referenced but do your thing.

2. I think we can prove there are stories. I don't think we can verify the stories. All the tales referenced in both the other two articles you linked are, to my reading, transparently glib racist-bullying-as-"joke" instances of a local news editor cracking himself up with his bigotry.

I think there is ample evidence of unspeakable cruelty visited on American chattel slaves and their descendants. I think we should write about it all. I've simply never seen a single convincing report of "child murdered by putting a hook through them and using them to trick an alligator to come out of the water" so...then someone can shoot the alligator and skin it and sell it for shoes and handbags...I guess?

One element of this issue that I think we should research at some point is "how and why did Americans hunt alligators from 1840 to 1940." I suspect the larger canvas of "alligators in ecosystem and economy" would give us some much needed context.

I think people are violent and people are assholes. I think this is more about the latter than the former but I truly wish you the best in your research on this topic and potential expansion of this article. jengod (talk) 18:37, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks, I'll sure try to avoid duplication, I guess I missed the existing Jim Crow Museum references because the URLs have changed. And I think it's more about "child recklessly endangered" (by using living children to attract alligators) rather than "child murdered". And maybe even that is nonsense but a more careful look at the known evidence and what people have made of it shouldn't hurt. Gawaon (talk) 19:19, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Rock on and good luck. It's a really interesting subject. I'd never heard of it until the Florida Gators football team situation and it does seem to be a pervasive image with some interesting folklore to it. Best, jengod (talk) 19:35, 24 October 2025 (UTC)[reply]

After working through the sources so far I too am fairly unconvinced that there was anything to it, except possibly in a few very exceptional cases. I have improved the covering of the accounts cited by Hughes. The Rio Times article is quite sensationalist, claiming that the practice was "widely accepted" in the late 1800s and early 1900s and even that "many" babies "were eaten up or killed by the alligators during the entrapment". As it doesn't give sources for most of its claims, I'm going to dismiss it as unreliable. Gawaon (talk) 17:39, 2 November 2025 (UTC)[reply]