Earliest Possible Desegregation Post-Wilson

When was the earliest possible point for desegregation, at least at the federal level, after Woodrow Wilson's segregation of the government and armed forces? Would/could a Charles Evans Hughes presidency (say, in 1917) reverse the segregation policies instated by his predecessor?
 
It seems to me that Warren G. Harding could have overturned it if he wanted to do so. Harding supported other civil rights measures, and at the time the Republicans were traditionally the protectors of blacks in America.
 
It might be possible to de-segregate the Navy - they had only been segregated for a few years by the early 1920s.
 
Were FDR to die between January 1941 and January 1945, Henry Wallace might do it. Perhaps Dewey or Taft might if they beat Truman.
 
It seems to me that Warren G. Harding could have overturned it if he wanted to do so. Harding supported other civil rights measures, and at the time the Republicans were traditionally the protectors of blacks in America.

I don't think this is possible given the resurgence of the KKK in the early 1920s.
 
Hughes wins 1916, goes to war in less unified nation that Wilson otl

Conservative Democrat rule 1921-33, Republicans go progressive and do analogue of New deal otl without the Southern Democrat baggage
 

katchen

Banned
Not without executive emergency powers during the Great Depression that temporarily (we hope) suspend constitutional lawmaking itself. Read Ira Katznelson's new work "Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time". Basically, it details how at every turn, New Deal legislation was passed only with caveats that kept the Southern racial system in place because of the Southern Senators and Congresspeople FDR needed for his Democratic majority, let alone to have his legislation come up in Congress. To end desegregation, Roosevelt (or Hughes) would have had to impose martial law for an extended period. and suspend constitutional government. And whose to say when if ever the constitution would ever be restored and under what circumstances?
Would African Americans then be identified with the forces of dictatorship or communism? How far to the Left would a government, such as that of Henry Wallace, that used martial law to ram civil rights down the South's throat at the point of a gun wind up going? Probably a lot further than most of it's leaders initially intended to go. It will make an interesting TL. Maybe a good novel.
 
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