AHC: Less Racist US

This is getting irritating. The South was never America's exclusively racist segment, just its most egregious and/or obvious example. Otherwise, explain how things like the Indian Wars (perpetrated largely by non-southerners in the post-1830 era) or the Filipino Insurrections were fought? Having a seceding South doesn't change the fact that racism was the morality de jour of ALL Western nations, including the "progressive" Northern US. You could argue that makes it "less racist" in a strictly literal sense, but I don't see the lot of northern African-Americans (Jim Crow was pretty heavily enforced throughout most of the Midwest, mind), or Natives, or Asians, getting any better outside the South than OTL (unless you consider anti-Chinese acts, originating in California, to not be racist? :rolleyes:).
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Moreover - contrary to popular belief - abolitionists themselves were generally racists. Many hated slavery precisely because it meant having black people in their country. ("Free soil" proponents often wanted their territories to free of black people, period.) The American Colonization Society was founded for the express purpose of shipping as many freed slaves back to Africa as possible, and while it didn't send away as many it wanted, it did succeed in establishing the country of Liberia.

Those who actually believed that African Americans should be treated as regular citizens were a fringe minority. John Brown was one abolitionist who genuinely believed in racial equality - and was shunned and ridiculed by his peers for it.
 
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Thats glossing over a very complicated aspect of the issue. But regardless of how simplified it is, the fact is that their actions were better for blacks in America than their opponents.
 
Thats glossing over a very complicated aspect of the issue. But regardless of how simplified it is, the fact is that their actions were better for blacks in America than their opponents.

I suppose, but it was inertia, more than anything, that prevented more ex-slaves from being deported to Liberia. It was logistically too difficult to pull it off on a massive scale. But the historical evidence suggests that most abolitionists would have favored mass deportation if possible.

American history textbooks have really whitewashed (no pun intended) the slavery debate into some romantic notion of freedom vs. bondage when both sides were pretty loathsome by our standards today. For example, the "free" state of Oregon adopted a clause in its state constitution in 1859 forbidding black people from settling there. It was fundamentally accepted by most people at that time, regardless of whether or not they believed in human bondage, that black people were inferior to whites.
 
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Get black Americans more accepted into society early. I'm not saying everyone would be hunky dory at first, but over time it would lead to less racism. Also, when I say "early," I mean the outset of the country. The founding fathers all had mixed opinions on slavery and if some different paths are followed (greater early industrialization and involvement of blacks in the military) then it could leader to greater acceptance and provide for an economic base for blacks.
 

Meerkat92

Banned
Finding some way to butterfly the Trail of Tears would probably help improve the US' attitudes towards the American Indians. Exactly how much, I don't really know.
 
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