What do you think could be the best way to reduce the level of racial violence in the US of the late 1960s? An obvious way might be to have Martin Luther King survive the assassination attempt in 1968, and if you want to try that out it's fine, but are there any other solutions?
The problem is that there was already large-scale urban riots starting in the summer of 1965. By the time MLK was killed in 1968 summer riots were becoming a trend that MLK's assassination obviously worsened.
The riots that were seen in the late '60s probably couldn't be avoided, but since you only want to stop them in the late '60s how about this . . . Eisenhower doesn't run in '52, whether because of health concerns or because hes dead or whatever . . . so a different Republican wins the nomination, then the presidency, but without Eisenhower's gravitas the GOP is probably more riven with the McCarthyist/John Bircher/future Goldwaterites vs the Eastern Establishment. This leads to, in 1956 Adlai Stevenson being elected President. Stevenson passes some of social agenda in his first 4 years, and starts to back the civil rights movement. After his re-election in 1960 Stevenson decides to back the civil rights campaign to the hilt, in spite of massive protests from inside and outside his party. At this point the Republicans are still committed to civil rights as the Party of Lincoln (having not yet had the "Southern Strategy" moment of clarity), and with northern liberals of the Democrats back Stevenson's landmark civil rights bills. The much earlier support on the federal level for the civil rights movement leads to earlier confrontations with those in the South who still stand for segregation. The Civil Rights Act of '62 was a landmark piece of legislation, though the urban riots that ignited across the country starting in '63 began to turn some against the new legislation.
Lyndon Johnson's nomination by the Democratic Party in 1964 was seen by some as a gesture of good will towards the southern parts of the Democratic Party, and Johnson made it clear that his "Great Society" was just as much about lifting poor whites out of poverty as it was about lifting up poor blacks. Johnson believed that Stevenson had been too timid in dealing with the urban rioting of '63 and '64 and that the timidness nearly cost him the election. His first state of the union emphasized his willingness to use "whatever force necessary to safeguard the life, liberty and property of law-abiding citizens".
Have Malcolm X die earlier, and reduce the success of the Nation of Islam.
Let King take charge of the struggle against segregation, and rely on tactics similar to those of Gandhi. Have King seek more and more support from White liberals.
So let me get this straight, the Nation of Islam was responsible for the urban rioting of the late '60's? It didn't have anything to do with endemically corrupt police forces or the overt and systemic racism in northern cities municipal governments? Or the orders of magnitude higher black unemployment rate versus the national average? Nothing to do with poverty or crime or anything like that, simply some those militants.
King did rely on those tactics. Those tactics were what delivered the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, but those tactics did not address the basic inequalities that existed vis a vis black and white America.