Post 1950 US version of the North Irish "Troubles"

[Father Maryland]

So the basic challenge is for someone to come up with a plausible way for their to be a decades long version of the Northern Irish "Troubles" involving a long running multi faceted insurgency with paramilitaries from different groups trying to target each other's paramilitaries and civilians. This situation must also involve the US Federal Government deploying large numbers of troops from the regular Armed Forces with the various paramilitaries trying to fight the US Army in similar way to the manner the Loyalist/Unionist Paramilitaries and the various IRA (and IRA spin off groups) tried to fight the British Armed Forces.

My personal guess would be the most likely way for this to occur is for the US Federal government to proceed with expanding civil rights for black Americans post WW2 partially as a result of a civil rights movement. Only for Southern White segregationists to decide to try and fight back against this "oppression" by forming covert paramilitary groups to try and launch insurgent strikes on civil rights workers, black southerners, and eventually the US Army. These strikes will then lead to the formation of black radical paramilitary groups trying much the same tactics. As a result of the brewing conflict Congress overrides "Posse Comitatus" and the Federal Government sends large numbers of troops from the Regular Army to restore order.

So thoughts?

 

[sampleswift]

So the basic challenge is for someone to come up with a plausible way for their to be a decades long version of the Northern Irish "Troubles" involving a long running multi faceted insurgency with paramilitaries from different groups trying to target each other's paramilitaries and civilians. This situation must also involve the US Federal Government deploying large numbers of troops from the regular Armed Forces with the various paramilitaries trying to fight the US Army in similar way to the manner the Loyalist/Unionist Paramilitaries and the various IRA (and IRA spin off groups) tried to fight the British Armed Forces.

My personal guess would be the most likely way for this to occur is for the US Federal government to proceed with expanding civil rights for black Americans post WW2 partially as a result of a civil rights movement. Only for Southern White segregationists to decide to try and fight back against this "oppression" by forming covert paramilitary groups to try and launch insurgent strikes on civil rights workers, black southerners, and eventually the US Army. These strikes will then lead to the formation of black radical paramilitary groups trying much the same tactics. As a result of the brewing conflict Congress overrides "Posse Comitatus" and the Federal Government sends large numbers of troops from the Regular Army to restore order.

So thoughts?

This might happen in current or future politics, but I will attempt to make a version of this in the Civil Rights era.
Paramilitary groups did arise in the south (think the KKK), but were put down relatively quickly. For this one, I don't really know.

There were also some black groups trying covert tactics, but they never got anywhere significant. For the latter, maybe an alternate timeline where Malcolm X is the ringleader of much of the Civil Rights movement and doesn't espouse nonviolence to the degree Martin Luther King Jr. did?

 

[walmart]

where Malcolm X is the ringleader of much of the Civil Rights movement and doesn't espouse nonviolence to the degree Martin Luther King Jr. did?

Any non-violence civil rights movement will devolve into separatist movement like what happened with the Northern Irish one.

 

[Warlock1986]

Perhaps a ratification of the League of Nations by the U.S., leading to international intervention during the “Red Summer” with white southerners supporting violent militias fighting the interventionist forces, and black militias in turn combatting the white ones. The South is occupied by peacekeepers and America becomes a second-rate power bogged down by instability.

 

[Marius Mazzini]

Perhaps a ratification of the League of Nations by the U.S., leading to international intervention during the “Red Summer” with white southerners supporting violent militias fighting the interventionist forces, and black militias in turn combatting the white ones. The South is occupied by peacekeepers and America becomes a second-rate power bogged down by instability.

Michael F. Flynn's short story "Southern Strategy" has that exact plot with Erwin Rommel playing the role of Wesley Clark.

 

[Warlock1986]

Michael F. Flynn's short story "Southern Strategy" has that exact plot with Erwin Rommel playing the role of Wesley Clark.

That’s where I got the idea. The Alternate Generals Anthology is terrific.

 

[Jito]

I think one way would be Conservative Robert Taft winning the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 1952. That would mean no Chief Justice Earl Warren, and perhaps the Supreme Court opposes Civil Rights rather than ushering it in. Robert Taft could be followed by Adlai Stevenson in '56 or '60, a Democrat who was pretty cautious on Civil Rights and didn't want to upset the South by moving too quickly on desegregation. Thus from 1952 - 1968, you have a Supreme Court that isn't removing separate but equal policies, a Conservative Republican Party that actively opposes Civil Rights and a Democratic Party that is much more cautious about challenging 'states rights'.

The nonviolent Civil Right's Movement goes on between 1955 - 1965, but it's lack of success and federal support increases frustrations among the black community and emboldens white supremacist paramilitaries to attack black communities with increasing frequency. At some point between 1968 - 1972, with sectarian violence increasing steadily in the South and in major Northern cities, the US federal government will probably send in troops to keep the peace. At some point, a jumpy military unit, perhaps coming off a combat tour in the Caribbean or Asia, opens fire on a rioting crowd or suspected sniper (see Detroit '67 but worse). Also sometime 1968 - 1976 the economy is probably gonna take a significant downturn.

Now African-Americans are coming off the '50s and '60s being a mostly stagnant time for Civil Rights, the federal government is clearly opposed to any progress, and the economic prospects for the next generation look bleak. Young leaders like George Jackson, Huey Newton, Stokely Carmichael, and Fred Hampton are advocating for a more militant approach. Police are driven out of primarily black communities, to be replaced by Black Nationalist militias. White paramilitary leaders, Southern politicians, and military officers are frequently assassinated. Army units are ambushed, armories raided, and key economic targets bombed (airports, seaports, financial districts). Between 1965 - 1995, the death toll will probably climb into the tens of thousands, and the United State's standing in the world will plummet.

 

[Father Maryland]

Perhaps a ratification of the League of Nations by the U.S., leading to international intervention during the “Red Summer” with white southerners supporting violent militias fighting the interventionist forces, and black militias in turn combatting the white ones. The South is occupied by peacekeepers and America becomes a second-rate power bogged down by instability.

The problem is that instability in the South doesn't actually really effect the US status as a major power. At that point the South didn't really contribute much in terms of industry and the like. The real strength of the US was in the North, Midwest, and West. That's where all the industry and most of the really important mineral deposits (other then oil) was for the US post Civil war until like the 50s/60's. So the South turning into a clusterfuck doesn't really do much to destabilize the rest of the US or effect it's overall power (other then looking really bad in terms of PR).

 

[Agra]

Puerto Rican Nationalists successfully assassinate President Truman, leading to a larger US military presence in Puerto Rico, leading to more Puerto Ricans joining and creating their own nationalist based movements and greater levels of violence, thus requiring even more US soldiers leading to decades of violence and continued attacks.

 

[Bob in Pittsburgh]

I think one way would be Conservative Robert Taft winning the Republican nomination and then the presidency in 1952. That would mean no Chief Justice Earl Warren, and perhaps the Supreme Court opposes Civil Rights rather than ushering it in.

I think Brown v Board was inevitable, The Court had decided three cases in the years before Brown v Board that ate away at separate but equal in professional and graduate education and clearly showed which winds were blowing. The first was Sipuel v. Board of Regents of the University of Oklahoma, 332 U.S. 631 (1948), which resulted in a unanimous per cerium decision that the State of Oklahoma owed a black female petitioner a law school education. Oklahoma had only one public law school. Two years latter ln Sweatt v. Painter, 339 U.S. 629 (1950), the Court struck down the Texas public law school system as unequal because the separate law school had fewer professors, law books in the library and disparate admission to the Texas bar. The same day the Court decided McLaurin v. Oklahoma State Regents, 339 U.S. 637 (1950). This involved a graduate student in education who sued for admission to doctorate program at the University of Oklahoma. The University admitted McLaurin but provided him separate facilities, including a special table in the cafeteria, a designated desk in the library, a desk just outside the classroom doorway, and sometimes even made him eat at different times than the other students. The Court's holding clearly foreshadowed Brown. "We conclude that the conditions under which this appellant is required to receive his education deprive him of his personal and present right to the equal protection of the laws. Sweatt v. Painter, ante, p. 339 U. S. 629. We hold that, under these circumstances, the Fourteenth Amendment precludes differences in treatment by the state based upon race. Appellant, having been admitted to a state-supported graduate school, must receive the same treatment at the hands of the state as students of other races."

A Taft Presidency may have encouraged the fringe elements in the South to turn to arms. Look at what happened in Little Rock and the University of Mississippi. In each case there were armed vigilantes in the streets fermenting violence. I am not at all sure Taft would have sent in the Army.

 

[Dingus Khan]

I wonder how a paramilitary conflict between the Black Panthers and KKK would go? I bet the former would probably be at a severe disadvantage for obvious reasons.

 

[the Imperium of Canada]

Didn't The Selma Massacre have something like this?