How long could Jim Crow survive?

What could have happened to hold back the cause of Civil Rights, and what effect is that likely to have on American politics? Throwing in a few anti-Civil Rights Presidents would push things back a bit, but that probably wouldn't be enough on its own, given the importance of Congress and the Civil Rights movement.
 
Depends when the PoD is. Probably to keep it to today you need to avoid WWII. Also can Jim Crow survive after Brown v Board? Perhaps if it fails to pass Congress the movement could turn violent and alienate potential white supporters. It could certainly be delayed, the passing of civil rights in 1964 was the perfect time storm of MLK's successful activism, JFK's martyrdom and LBJ's congressional prowess. An anti-civil rights Democratic Party would impede it quite a bit, maybe 2/3 rule is kept or segregationist POTUS (eg James F Byrnes)
 
You also need to avoid the Cold War. This put the US and SU in competition for the support of a lot of non-white ex-colonies. The Southern racial set up thus became an intolerable handicap, about which Something Must Be Done.
 
You also need to avoid the Cold War. This put the US and SU in competition for the support of a lot of non-white ex-colonies. The Southern racial set up thus became an intolerable handicap, about which Something Must Be Done.

If that was true, the problem would've been solved earlier.
 
It did start in the 1950s, only a few years after the Cold War began. Just took a few more years to overcome Southern opposition.

It actually started in 1948 when Truman ordered desegregation of the armed forces, which was a crucial step. Considering how deeply institutionalized segregation was, this was moving fairly quickly. Recall that the Pentagon was opened less than a decade prior and was designed to accommodate Virginia's segregation laws and that World War Two was fought with a segregated military. It was not until Korea that the US military fought a war without segregated forces.
 
If Kennedy had lived, or a Dixiecrat had swung the 1960 election, it could've lasted until the 80's. Reagan was still making racist appeals to white voters then, and even Carter felt the need to demurr on the subject, so the sentiment was still there and could still win votes. Foggy bottom might have felt the need for a change, but since when do gray suited bureaucrats sway the man on the street, especially when it comes to irrational hate?
 
A lot of social justice people today think civil rights movements victories were inevitable and unstoppable. They weren't... to use an analogy, just look at how Thatcher and Reagan brought a firm and decisive end to the Keynesian "soft socialism" consensus and the narrative of the "inexorable drift to the left" which had been current since FDR's day.
 
A lot of social justice people today think civil rights movements victories were inevitable and unstoppable. They weren't... to use an analogy, just look at how Thatcher and Reagan brought a firm and decisive end to the Keynesian "soft socialism" consensus and the narrative of the "inexorable drift to the left" which had been current since FDR's day.

Soft socialism...I'm sorry, do you actually think Keynesianism is soft socialism?
 
Depends when the PoD is. Probably to keep it to today you need to avoid WWII. Also can Jim Crow survive after Brown v Board? Perhaps if it fails to pass Congress the movement could turn violent and alienate potential white supporters. It could certainly be delayed, the passing of civil rights in 1964 was the perfect time storm of MLK's successful activism, JFK's martyrdom and LBJ's congressional prowess. An anti-civil rights Democratic Party would impede it quite a bit, maybe 2/3 rule is kept or segregationist POTUS (eg James F Byrnes)

or even avoid WW1, and no decolonisation things could last up to today
 
If Kennedy had lived, I can see him pass a Civil Rights Act in 1965 after Congress becomes a lot more favorable to him.

I can't. It wasn't a top priority for Kennedy and he didn't have the legislative skills of Johnson. The Dixiecrats are still a thing. And the American public is broadly ambivalent.
 
I can't. It wasn't a top priority for Kennedy and he didn't have the legislative skills of Johnson. The Dixiecrats are still a thing. And the American public is broadly ambivalent.

It will be somewhat less powerful, but with supermajorities in Congress post-1964 (and I can see him win a slightly smaller landslide), it will get through Congress.
 
It will be somewhat less powerful, but with supermajorities in Congress post-1964 (and I can see him win a slightly smaller landslide), it will get through Congress.

Will he have that supermarjority though? Sure, he'll beat Goldwater (assuming butterflies don't push Rocky over the top), but the victory won't be as decisive. Given that support for civil rights would lose the white working class permanently and Kennedy's pragmatic nature, I can see him backburnering the issue in favour of some economic policies that broadly help all poor people including blacks.

But then I've always been a bit anti-Kennedymyth so maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Did 60s democrats see how much civil rights would cost them electorally?
 
Will he have that supermarjority though? Sure, he'll beat Goldwater (assuming butterflies don't push Rocky over the top), but the victory won't be as decisive. Given that support for civil rights would lose the white working class permanently and Kennedy's pragmatic nature, I can see him backburnering the issue in favour of some economic policies that broadly help all poor people including blacks.

The victory won't be as decisive, but I do think he'll still get a supermajority. He may decide to go for the New Frontier, but Congress post-1964 introduced a lot of liberals. He will have pressure to get civil rights through.

But then I've always been a bit anti-Kennedymyth so maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Did 60s democrats see how much civil rights would cost them electorally?

Nope, and a lot of Democrats also believed in civil rights. There will, at the very least, be quite a bit of pressure by Congress for him to pass some sort of Civil Rights Act. More likely than not, this will be weaker than OTL, but he will still get it through.
 
Will he have that supermarjority though? Sure, he'll beat Goldwater (assuming butterflies don't push Rocky over the top), but the victory won't be as decisive. Given that support for civil rights would lose the white working class permanently and Kennedy's pragmatic nature, I can see him backburnering the issue in favour of some economic policies that broadly help all poor people including blacks.

But then I've always been a bit anti-Kennedymyth so maybe I'm not giving him enough credit. Did 60s democrats see how much civil rights would cost them electorally?

Lyndon Johnson famously said after he signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that he was signing away the south to the Republicans for an entire generation. 1960s Democrats (the liberal-ish northerner Democrats I'm talking about here) certainly knew that it would anger the southern segregationist Democrats in their party. But when their constituents in the north we're seeing little girls getting killed in a church bombing, the police attacking marchers with German Shepards, and two northern white men (Michael Schwerner & Andrew Goodman) killed in Mississippi while doing voter registration, it was becoming increasingly hard for northern Democrats to ignore what was going on in the south to black people. We have to remember this was towards the beginning of white flight. So there were still a lot of white Americans living in big cities in the north and many of them (though prejudiced) still worked along side with and had went to school with black people. And for decades they had been led to believe by southern whites that "separate but equal" was working fine in the south. But in the late 1950s and early 1960s the majority of Americans had television sets and TV news cameras showed the world (to the USSR's delight) the brutality and the injustices of Jim Crow laws in the south. Democratic politicians in the north could not by the mid-1960s continue to overlook the injustices of Jim Crow anymore. Not while it was being shown on America's TV screens every evening. This is why things like the Civil Rights at of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965 would have still happened even if JFK had lived. Probably a year later and slightly weaker bills for both than in OTL, but they still would have happened. Especially if we hadn't escalated in Vietnam under Kennedy as much as we did under Johnson (which is a whole other debate). With a smaller escalation in Vietnam or none at all, more focus would have went to domestic issues like civil rights.
 
If immigration was restricted in the 20th and the growing industrial sector was forced to use black American workers instead of immigrant Europeans, and thus the situation of black people and communities were improved by better wages and taxes...

That could have helped make "separate but equal" more of a real policy than... complete bullshit.
 
or even avoid WW1, and no decolonisation things could last up to today

I still think decolonization would have happened without WWI, because there already were nascent stirrings of nationalist sentiment in some colonies and pushes for at least some degree of self-government...
And once they get that, then others will follow...
 

Wallet

Banned
Prevent WWI, WWII, and the Cold War

With a peaceful 20th century, while maintaining the European Empires, greatly slows down technological and social progress.
 
social progress slowing down, yes. technical progress slowing down, i don't think so, some things might go faster.
also no WW1 means also no spanish flu. far less dead at an early stage. (ww1 : approx 150M from the flu, 24M from the war)
a lot more white emigration to the colonies.
 
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