AHC: Long Red Summer and Stronger African Blood Brotherhood

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
Howdy. I challenge you to expand and extend the Red Summer (Chicago & DC) and 1921 race riots (Elaine, Arkansas & Tulsa) to their greatest possible, non-ASB extent. I also challenge you to make the African Blood Brotherhood gain traction, become as strong as possible to a non-ASB extent, make inroads amongst the Southern Black population, and act as a foil to the Klan.

I'm not too knowledgeable about this period in history, so I would be grateful to anyone who can inform me of useful details.
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
No black organization can act as a foil to the Klan in the South (or really anywhere) because no black organization will ever receive the popular- or state-sanction and support that the Klan received, especially in the '20s.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
No black organization can act as a foil to the Klan in the South (or really anywhere) because no black organization will ever receive the popular- or state-sanction and support that the Klan received, especially in the '20s.

There were Communists and the UNIA which would presumably sympathise. It may not be possible to be a symmetrical resistance, but were Southern blacks really so completely controlled that it's impossible to get guns and organisers to them?
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
There were Communists and the UNIA which would presumably sympathise. It may not be possible to be a symmetrical resistance, but were Southern blacks really so completely controlled that it's impossible to get guns and organisers to them?
Any group of black people with guns (no matter how small) will likely be enough to bring out State Militias, the Klan, and all sorts of auxiliary paramilitaries in any state South of the Mason-Dixon. Apartheid does not take any resistance lightly. And insurgency would be the polar opposite of the UNIA's strategy, which was to have all black people flee America and establish an "empire" for themselves in Africa. Too, the UNIA did not have a great deal of pull outside of Harlem.

Nor is it in any Institution's (Federal or State) interest to see armed blacks. Communists were borderline non-existant in the South due to persecution, and they were far more gung-ho about arming the proletariat than the peasantry (with blacks overwhelmingly belonging to the latter category at this point).

Black militancy at this point in American history is a recipe for worse treatment all across the board. A lot did the best they could do by "voting with their feet," as the saying goes.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
Any group of black people with guns (no matter how small) will likely be enough to bring out State Militias, the Klan, and all sorts of auxiliary paramilitaries in any state South of the Mason-Dixon. Apartheid does not take any resistance lightly. And insurgency would be the polar opposite of the UNIA's strategy, which was to have all black people flee America and establish an "empire" for themselves in Africa. Too, the UNIA did not have a great deal of pull outside of Harlem.

Nor is it in any Institution's (Federal or State) interest to see armed blacks. Communists were borderline non-existant in the South due to persecution, and they were far more gung-ho about arming the proletariat than the peasantry (with blacks overwhelmingly belonging to the latter category at this point).

Black militancy at this point in American history is a recipe for worse treatment all across the board. A lot did the best they could do by "voting with their feet," as the saying goes.

As always, thank you for your thoughtful replies.

How would such activities fare in the North? Would Indiana be the same as the South in terms of state-Klan collaboration? What would be the reaction to the African Blood Brotherhood helping black communities defend themselves during race riots? If the ABB had had a bigger presence in Tulsa and been circulating arms, would they have just ended up on the receiving end of an attack by the Oklahoma National Guard? I know the American Legion was present in Tulsa too.
 
As always, thank you for your thoughtful replies.

How would such activities fare in the North? Would Indiana be the same as the South in terms of state-Klan collaboration?

The Klan was a LOT bigger in the 20s than just the South. Indiana was one of the Klan's biggest strongholds during that period.
 

Rush Tarquin

Gone Fishin'
The Klan was a LOT bigger in the 20s than just the South. Indiana was one of the Klan's biggest strongholds during that period.

Yes, but were they present in the state government to the same extent as in the South?
 
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