DBWI: Fred Phelps survives assassination

Kansas attorney and civil rights leader Fred Phelps is remembered today as a tough-as-nails civil rights attorney in Kansas, the land of Brown vs. Board of Education, and like many civil rights leaders, he was taken well before his time when a car bomb killed him and three of his children in 1981. That car bomb was linked to a local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan, and the leaders of the attack are still in prison to this day.

Phelps was a controversial man, regarded as a difficult man to get along with and carrying some rigid and unyielding religious views. However, his clients regarded him as an effective attorney, essentially the Civil Rights movement's greatest anti-hero. Today a scholarship for aspiring legal minds bears his name, as does the Fred Phelps Civil Rights Clinic in Topeka.

However, he was in some legal trouble before his death and was facing disbarment. It's hard to say if he would have been able to keep practicing or how he would be remembered had his life not been cut tragically short.
 
Maybe he becomes a player in Black Lives Matter as some sort of tumultuous anti-Atticus Finch?

Yeah, probably a figure in the Ferguson fracas if he lives that long. I know his views on homosexuality weren't really that tolerant but given that he was willing to fight for black folks, he would probably be regarded similarly by the gay rights crowd even if it's just that he tolerates them because they pay him. Money's money, right? And he'd probably want to get under the government's skin more than he would want to be anti-gay. I'd think, anyway.
 
So he continues his role as the modern John Adams if he lives past '81? That'd be interesting, since he's often compared to Adams as a lawyer; a person who puts his own principles ahead of his prejudices. I could especially see him continue this comparison if he defended the LGBT crowd, since it'd have parallels to Adam's defense of the British soldiers who were convicted for the Boston Massacre.
 
I don't know if he would continue his legal work, the man looked tired towards the end of his life, he might just retire and dedicate himself to the word of god.
 
Top