AH Challenge: We don't serve niggers, even if it's a president nigger...

As rest rooms and water fountains were segregated in the fifties and early sixties, the signs read "white" and "colored." A restaurant that served blacks was labeled "colored cafe." Photos have been published.
 
I had a potential tl that I worked out a few months back... https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=91728&highlight=Revels , where I had a more Populist Blanche K. Bruce maintain his Senate Seat in 1880, and after declining an offer to become the Secretary of Treasury, becomes Senate Pro Tempore and after that became President after Arthur diead....Yeah, its a stretch of Unfortunate of Events.

But I think the only way we could have a Black President in Pre1900 America is for a longer yet gentle northern occupation in the south, that way we can have Black Politicians like Revels and Bruce gain more prominence and be inthe line of succession when a Death occurs, Its just hard to see a A person of color being popularly elected president, without major butterflies...
 

NomadicSky

Banned
Historically accurate. Don't have conniptions people.

I can say that I both respect and appreciate the fact that you allow free speech on your site.

No matter how much I don't think in this case that historicly accurate word needed to be used for this scenerio.
 

Macsporan

Banned
Hey Ian

I get kicked for dissing the Confederacy, yet you let the good ol' boys post this filth. :mad:

Besides which this whole thing is a thinly veiled piece of racist garbage directed at Barak Obama.

Please explain.
 
I just had the idea that at some time between the End of Reconstruction and the OTL Civil Rights Movement, there could be unique scenario with a unique guy comparable in his uniqueness to Genghis Khan, Hitler or Napoleon. Near ASB, but it's so funny and ASB that it could already be plausible again...

I thought of having a black man from the Northern US elected president with segregation still in place in the Southern US.

And furthermore, this black president goes to a whites-only restaurant in the South and reporters witness how the staff refuses to serve the president, just for being black.

What would have to happen to make this WEIRD and rather surreal scenario a reality?

I think we'ld need HUGE Butterflies for this to happen. or ASB

and i agree about the whole N-Word thing.
As a Japanese-american, I know i'ld feel insulted if this was title "we don't serve Japs/Slant eyes even if it's a president...."
Appologizes for using those terms.
 

JohnJacques

Banned
Speaking of which, are you ever going to continue that? I really want to see more!

Coming up on finals weeks now...... so when I get time.

I got bogged down in the military update (I am horrible at military history)

But it will be continued- I'll probably just go forward with a Reconstruction update.
 
I get kicked for dissing the Confederacy, yet you let the good ol' boys post this filth. :mad:

Besides which this whole thing is a thinly veiled piece of racist garbage directed at Barak Obama.

Please explain.

I think it's anti-racist, not pro-racist. If the President of the US was refused service because of his race/colour/ethnicity/religion, there would be such a huge backlash against the bigots, it's not funny.

OTOH, it's hard to see any TL that's sufficiently racist that the scenario could occur, and sufficiently non-racist that a black could be elected President.

OT3H, if it were a presidential tour into the boonies, and the result was that that town/the owner of the establishment that had the uncompromising racism and got totally flattened by the fall-out, that might work.
 
I get kicked for dissing the Confederacy, yet you let the good ol' boys post this filth. :mad:

Besides which this whole thing is a thinly veiled piece of racist garbage directed at Barak Obama.

Please explain.
Is Ian being accused of being a right-wing racist now? That's ... different.

As for the challenge itself, I can think of a couple places in the back woods of East Texas where Obama might get this reception right now; some of the people in the region have less than progressive ideas and REALLY don't like Obama. All you'd really need to do for the challenge is make a bigger breach between North and South so that wide-spread racism is still around when the US gets a black President.

As for the incident itself, I would imagine if the US had a black President and segrigation at the same time the President would be a major opponent of segregation. I could certainly see him going to a segregated restaurant to make in order to deliberately provoke an incident/make a point.

As for the thread title, it's got shock value but that is the people talked back in the segregation era. As Ian said, don't have a connipton just because historically people aren't PC.
 
I think the way to bring this about is actually to have segregation less prevalent. Let's say that Reconstruction went better, and Jim Crow never happened in most of the South, except for some of the really rural places out in the backwoods. With segregation only put in place by a few hamlets full of racist hicks, there's no big popular movement against it, since it isn't visible at all in the national eye, since in the vast majority of the South blacks are living side by side with whites, voting, going to integrated schools, etc. The problem goes mostly unnoticed until 2012 (or whenever), when the President, campaigning for re-election, ventures a little too far into the boonies for a diner photo-op.

The huge backlash would probably see laws against racial discrimination shored up in short order, naturally.
 
As for the incident itself, I would imagine if the US had a black President and segrigation at the same time the President would be a major opponent of segregation. I could certainly see him going to a segregated restaurant to make in order to deliberately provoke an incident/make a point.

I had a similar idea about this.

The president dies or is assassinated.
The VP, President Pro Tem and Speaker of the House are fairly old/don't want to be president.
The Secretary of State doesn't want to be President.
The Secretary of Treasury is black, or has fairly dark skin so he's perceived as black. (Maybe his ancestors are from India, Indonesia, etc.

So the first few resign their positions in order to have the succession devolve to the Secretary of Treasury (or whichever person in line is black.)

They do this in order to, as Chengar suggested, deliberately provoke an incident and bring the Civil Rights Movement Crisis to an end.

This could be during a much more violent Civil Rights movement, and the administration wants to do something drastic. Maybe the president doesn't die in office, but he's unpopular and resigns and agrees with the men in the line of succession that the black person in his cabinet will become president and provoke this incident.

There'd be other reasons, too, of course--he'd be capable and qualified to do the other things a president needs to do.

I had another idea for this.

The Changing The Times site had a timeline where the 1968 election is a draw, and nobody agrees on who won. Two of the candidates were Walter Cronkite and his running mate, Coretta Scott King. So suppose those two are elected and Coretta goes into a restaurant...

(Or Cronkite dies, King becomes president and visits the South...)

I just did a search for it and Changing the Times doesn't seem to be there any more. :rolleyes::confused::(
 
Lester Maddox meets the President

In the resteraunt scenario wouldn't the rules be amended to have the President made an honorary white like diplomats from the few African countries that recognised the apartheid government were made honorary Europeans in South Africa. Surely no American would refused to admit the President even Lester Maddox

However Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh boycotted the premiere of Gone with the Wind as the rules were applied to black members of the cast. The scenario would be that there would not be sufficient votes in Congress the end the Jim Crow Laws. Any exclusion would probably result in segregation being ended in all forms of Federal Government including the services and the FBI by executive action and pressure on the Southern States. Any resteraunt propietor and state government would have been wise to bend the rules.

The scenario would be unlikely for the simple reason that it would probably have been virtually impossible for a black man to have been selected by any major party as they would be seen as a potential vote loser. We are now living in a different post civil rights legislation era in which it seems amazing that the Jim Crow laws lasted so long.
 
How Black is "Black?"

What if the President in question was not obviously black but instead had a black ancestor a few generations back? Any yahoo who refuses to serve blacks in a restaurant is probably also a "one drop" fanatic.
 
What if the President in question was not obviously black but instead had a black ancestor a few generations back? Any yahoo who refuses to serve blacks in a restaurant is probably also a "one drop" fanatic.
That could definately work; it would be fairly easy for a politician to pass as lily white while actually being, say, 1/8th or 1/16th black. That's not much, but for a 1950's era segregationist that would be enoug, especially if he had other reasons to dislike the president besides his race.
 
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