I'm mulling over writing a fairly ambitious alternate Reconstruction timeline, but I'd like help with opinions and research before beginning it.
Blacks made up over 50% of South Carolina, Louisiana, and Mississippi until ~1900, when seeking economic opportunity and refuge from segregation, poverty, and disenfranchisement took them to the northern cities.
How could Reconstruction have gone differently, so that the black populations could have retained proportionate political control of these states? What would the effects of this have been?
Would the results have led to "white flight" from these states?
Would there have been discrimination against whites, a la Haiti, or would the northern Republicans have made sure to protect white rights in these states?