American Racial Equality before 1900?

[Kaptin Kurk]

It's not that hard. Make the American much worse at waging the war of Independence, yet somehow able to win it, with only Virginia and Above. How exactly, leave it to your imagination. It probably involves the British somehow abandoingn all racial stuff. And so you have to an independent Rebuplic Consisting of Virginia, Maryland, annd the rest of the North.

 

[Mikestone8]

Now if slavery is removed early and with less conflict, I suspect it could still take well over a century to achieve racial equality, but I could be wrong.

Note that American Jews were never slaves, but still suffered any number of discriminations down into the mid 20C. Gregory Peck's film Gentleman's Agreement portrays it vividly.

So just getting rid of slavery does not ensure equal treatment.

 

[Rich Rostrom]

What PODs (Preferably after 1789) would be needed to make the races be equal to each other in the united states of america, by the year 1900.

After 1789... that's harder.

Two pre-1789 possibilities:

1) A decision that British law applies in the Colonies, and that since there is no positive British law establishing slavery, slavery cannot exist in the British colonies. The colonists replace chattel slavery with perpetual indentures, but the system gradually declines over time.

2) A decision by the Constitutional Convention to decree the eventual end of slavery; perhaps by a clause stating that slavery will no longer be hereditary.

A third pre-1789 possibility: the Confederation Congress bans slavery in all western territories, not just the Northwest (this move failed by one vote OTL).

A post-1789 ruling by the Supreme Court that hereditary slavery violates the Fifth Amendment (deprivation of liberty without due process).

All of these PoDs mean that slavery is not entrenched in the U.S. that in fact the eventual end of slavery has been accepted by everyone.

Racism in the U.S. developed as a conscious ideology in the late 18th and early 19th century, as a defense of slavery. Without the need to defend slavery, the need for racial ideology goes away.

Racial bigotry and discrimination, and legal inequality persist for decades, but agitation against this invidious practice begins in the early 1800s, and by 1900 has succeeded. If that seems unlikely - remember that racial discrimination conflicts with, and racial equality conforms with, the founding ideals of the U.S.

Nominal legal equality of races was established OTL with the Reconstruction Amendments in 1865-1870. ATL, a similar result could be achieved by the 1880s, with general acceptance, and resistance generally dying out by 1900.

 

[Dathi THorfinnsson]

Hmmm... All blacks are exterminated/shipped to Haiti and/or Africa, all Native American shoved across a border. Then everyone left is 'white' and all races (remaining) are equal.

Most likely scenario I can think of. Letting blacks be equal to whites, basically anywhere in the world before 1900 is probably ASB, I'm afraid.

 

[DTF955Baseballfan]

I think it may depend on various PoDs. TBH, this probably can be done as early as, say, 1860 or so in some places. But nationally? Probably not until the 1940s at the earliest.

I agree; as Mikestone8 said, at best they'd be subject to discrimination like the Jewish people were up till the 1940s.

With an 1863 POD in my AH books I have it coming after WW II and a Civil Rights movement in the 1920s, but that's just becasue they avoid the period known to historians as the nadir. In my "Created Equal" there is the start of it, plus some places are quite equal (a free Louisiana, for instance). But, I suspect even with that (1796 POD) it would be hard to find total acceptance.

 

[StevenAttewell]

I agree; as Mikestone8 said, at best they'd be subject to discrimination like the Jewish people were up till the 1940s.

With an 1863 POD in my AH books I have it coming after WW II and a Civil Rights movement in the 1920s, but that's just becasue they avoid the period known to historians as the nadir. In my "Created Equal" there is the start of it, plus some places are quite equal (a free Louisiana, for instance). But, I suspect even with that (1796 POD) it would be hard to find total acceptance.

And that's kind of my point - it all depends on what you consider racial equality. If there is formal legal equality, distribution of land, and political power established by the 1870s, I think your Wendell Phillipses and Frederick Douglasses would call that as good as it gets, and pass on the task of ending social and private discrimination to the next generation.

 

[mrmandias]

Note that American Jews were never slaves, but still suffered any number of discriminations down into the mid 20C. Gregory Peck's film Gentleman's Agreement portrays it vividly.

So just getting rid of slavery does not ensure equal treatment.

Jews actually suffered less discrimination before the big influx of immigrant Jews in the late 19th and early 20th. Their situation actually got worse and reinforces what I and a couple of other people have been saying on this thread, which is that they key factor in reducing discrimination against other races is reducing their numbers.

 

[Porthos]

Not a race, but don't forget that Catholics suffered discrimination in the mid/early 1800s once the Irish and Germans started to immigrate in larger numbers.

And even before that there was elements of anti-Catholicism in the US.

So even if slavery is curtailed/butterflied away, there's gonna be problems.

 

[Fiver]

What PODs (Preferably after 1789) would be needed to make the races be equal to each other in the united states of america, by the year 1900.

An ATL where the Irish, Italians, and Poles are treated as equals is highly unlikely. Equal treatment for the Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans is probably impossible.

 

[Zuvarq]

An ATL where the Irish, Italians, and Poles are treated as equals is highly unlikely. Equal treatment for the Blacks, Hispanics, Asians, and Native Americans is probably impossible.

Blacks would speak English and be Protestant. And if the US tolerates Christian non-Catholic, English-speaking Asians, Hispanics, and Natives, but dislikes Catholics and 'pagans', that would still technically be a pre-1900 racially equal America.

 

[el t]

Racial Equality

Very extensive intermarriage would do the trick. You would have needed a very severe shortage of white women during the colonial period, which would have forced a racial fusion. Look at Paraguay (Indian/Spanish), and the Dominican Republic (African/Spanish). Also the "one drop rule" could not develop here.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Jefferson heeds Thomas Paine's pleas and disallows slavery in the Louisiana Territory, settling it with German farmers instead of sugar planters and their legions of slaves.

It might not solve anything, but limiting slavery to a Cis-Mississippi institution can't hurt.

 

[Wolfpaw]

Not a race, but don't forget that Catholics suffered discrimination in the mid/early 1800s once the Irish and Germans started to immigrate in larger numbers.

And even before that there was elements of anti-Catholicism in the US.

Anti-Catholicism was a major reason for New England's rebellion against the Crown, and Royal-Papist conspiracies were quite in vogue beginning in the late 1760s.