Could Segregated South survive into the 21st century?

There weren't too many riots in the South, mostly in the North. As Wallace said in '68: "We don't have riots in Alabama. If someone picks up a brick, we shoot them in the head." You would have to butterfly LBJ's presidency, because he's the only one who can pass undiluted CRA and VRA.
 
If you change or move people (e.g., Dr. Martin Luther King), all you do is delay civil rights for a few years. Segregation survived in 1900 because so many people of all races lived in a pre-modern environment; poverty by today's standards. People traveled by railroad and "separate but equal" could be tolerated because people of all races could still get where they needed to go.

To retain segregation today, you would have to butterfly away most automobiles, cinema and television. In other words, no twentieth century progress. When did South Africa finally get television? I think it was after 1970. Apartheid simply does not survive in a modern, quasi-free society.
 

DAMIENEVIL

Banned
Well if it was litterally seperate but equal segregation would be easily able to stay till today and way into the future.
 
OK

People traveled by railroad and and the fallacy of separate but equal could be tolerated because people of all races could still get where they needed to go.

That's why I put quotes around the phrase.

Segregation alone did not motivate people to stand up, march and risk injury (or worse) to secure equal rights. The blatant denial of participation in mainstream society did.
 
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If you change or move people (e.g., Dr. Martin Luther King), all you do is delay civil rights for a few years. Segregation survived in 1900 because so many people of all races lived in a pre-modern environment; poverty by today's standards. People traveled by railroad and "separate but equal" could be tolerated because people of all races could still get where they needed to go.

I don't think this is fair. During reconstructions, radical republicans in southern state legislatures tried to abolish seperate but equal in terms of some things; education, public accomodation, etc.

The response was terrorism on the part of the KKK and some white southerners.
 
People traveled by railroad and and the fallacy of separate but equal could be tolerated because people of all races could still get where they needed to go.

That's why I put quotes around the phrase.

Segregation alone did not motivate people to stand up, march and risk injury (or worse) to secure equal rights. The blatant denial of participation in mainstream society did.

Rosa Parks didn't do what she did because Jim Crow was a symbolic burden, Mark E. African Americans received genuinely appalling public services under segregation--being forced to sit at the back of the bus merely added insult to injury.

Though it's interesting that you bring up railroads.

One of the greatest personal impacts Jim Crow had on LBJ was the poor treatment his limousine driver received when ferrying the Johnsons' car between DC and Texas (LBJ felt humiliated for his employee). At many stops on the interstate highway system black people couldn't buy decent food or use the bathroom facilities. And remember, this is the modern interstate built by Ike.

That is one example of how segregation laws were never meant to take modernisation or efficiency into account. I have no doubt that long distance travel became more uncomfortable & inconvenient for Southern AAs once the era of the railways started to pass (interesting that the sixties is right at the end of mass rail travel across America.)
 
You think African Americans in Dixie would resort to organised political violence?

That's far out there.
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When I say organised political violence, I don't mean large-scale terrorism or anything like that, I mean more riots, etc, that disrupt the normal functioning of everyday society.

Now, I'm not suggesting that all African-Americans would suddenly become violent political activists, but history shows that it only takes a relatively small group of violent activists (often acting with the passive support of the group they claim to represent) to severely disrupt society.

Provided that this group does have the passive support of the group they claim to represent, sooner or later history shows the government must negotiate in order to resolve the situation.
 
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