Republican WW1 ==> Earlier Civil Rights Movement?

WW2 and the Korean War had a driving effect behind the Civil Rights Movement. The US military began to be reintegrated in Korea. Black servicemen returning from WW2 and Korea understandably expected their political rights after having fought for the United States.

Let's say a Republican (Charles Evan Hughes) wins in 1916 and brings the country into WWI sooner. The American toll is greater and the United States military integrated during the war. Increased exposure to freedom in Europe by African-Americans coupled with two years of serving in integrated units results in an earlier push for Civil Rights upon returning to the United States.

Is this plausible?

Wilson OTL had intended to appoint Hughes VP and then resign had he lost the election. Wilson declared war in April 1917, so I imagine TTL the US joins the war in November or December of 1916.
 
Last edited:
Just a note; Wilson was going to appoint Hughes as Secretary of State and then have himself and the VP resign, as the law to appoint Vice Presidents didn't come until after Kennedy's assassination.

Also it would be interesting to see how the American Expeditionary Force would be different under a different commander. IOTL Leonard Wood was the Republican's choice to lead, he was a friend of Roosevelt's and progressive in terms of civil rights.
 
Trouble is Hughes can't bring the US into the war much sooner. Germany didn't commence USW until Feb 1917 and without that the votes in Congress for a DoW will be unobtainable.
 
WW2 and the Korean War had a driving effect behind the Civil Rights Movement. The US military began to be reintegrated in Korea. Black servicemen returning from WW2 and Korea understandably expected their political rights after having fought for the United States.

Let's say a Republican (Charles Evan Hughes) wins in 1916 and brings the country into WWI sooner. The American toll is greater and the United States military integrated during the war. Increased exposure to freedom in Europe by African-Americans coupled with two years of serving in integrated units results in an earlier push for Civil Rights upon returning to the United States.

Is this plausible?

Wilson OTL had intended to appoint Hughes VP and then resign had he lost the election. Wilson declared war in April 1917, so I imagine TTL the US joins the war in November or December of 1916.

Is there any evidence that Hughes would've racially integrated the military had he been elected? In fact, what do we know of Hughes' racial views? I suspect he was more progressive than Wilson, but then again that's not a particularly high bar...
 
Is there any evidence that Hughes would've racially integrated the military had he been elected? In fact, what do we know of Hughes' racial views? I suspect he was more progressive than Wilson, but then again that's not a particularly high bar...

@LuckyLuciano notes that the GOP choice for leading the American Expeditionary Force was Leonard Wood - a civil rights progressive.
 
Hughes was not particularly friendly to African Americans:

"In view of the low esteem in which African Americans held President Wilson by 1916 because of his racial policies, it might have seemed logical for Hughes to have made inroads among black voters. The former New York governor, however, had not been a notable friend of black Americans in Albany. As governor, "he did not make good on solitary colored appointment, big or little." To repeated requests for a black appointee, Hughes had replied that he would not appoint any man because he was colored, Irish, German, or what-not. As one black leader noted, "usually that high idealistic attitude results in the utter ignoring of Ham."" So it was with Hughes. With no reference to black issues in the GOP platform, the whole question boiled down to "since we know that nothing can be expected of Mr. Wilson, all we can do is to support Hughes and trust to luck as to what he would say or do.”." Lewis L. Gould, The First Modern Clash Over Federal Power: Wilson Versus Hughes in the Presidential Election of 1916, pp. 112-113.

Even if a President Hughes wanted to take a position strongly in favor of African American rights, he would have to reckon with the southern Democrats in Congress who might be essential to supporting his other programs and to getting his peace treaty ratified.
 
You mean to let integration of the armed forces be at all plausible during WWI?
No, I mean to get a Republican president to conduct World War I in any fashion akin to Wilson. Either a Republican tries to get in much earlier, or a Republican tries to get in later. Hughes could win in 1916, but he's not going to be able to get even his own party into the war, and, by then I think the army is already segregated. As for 1912, it's very difficult for a Republican (and/or TR) to win that election.
 
[QU OTE="Wendell, post: 19381777, member: 971"]No, I mean to get a Republican president to conduct World War I in any fashion akin to Wilson. Either a Republican tries to get in much earlier, or a Republican tries to get in later. Hughes could win in 1916, but he's not going to be able to get even his own party into the war[/QUOTE]

He can (and almost certainly will) if the Germans still adopt USW in Feb 1917. And if they still send the Zimmermann Note it's pretty well guaranteed.
 
If you manage to make Teddy Roosevelt again president instead of Wilson
USA would be earlier active in WW1 with faster victory for Entente

Only a couple of months earlier. Until Germany went for full-blown USW there was no way that any POTUS could have brought the US into the war.

The World would be quite different, no US racial segregation and Imperialism politic of Wilson

Huh! TR was at least as "imperialistic" as Wilson, and showed no especial interest in Black rights.
 
Huh! TR was at least as "imperialistic" as Wilson, and showed no especial interest in Black rights.

To be fair, Roosevelt’s views on race, especially in his later years, seemed meaningfully more enlightened than either Hughes or Wilson, though obviously none of them look good by the standards of today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Theodore_Roosevelt

Directly relevant to this question is the fact that Roosevelt spoke well of the contributions of the soldiers of color he served alongside in the Spanish-American War.
 
To be fair, Roosevelt’s views on race, especially in his later years, seemed meaningfully more enlightened than either Hughes or Wilson, though obviously none of them look good by the standards of today.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_positions_of_Theodore_Roosevelt

Directly relevant to this question is the fact that Roosevelt spoke well of the contributions of the soldiers of color he served alongside in the Spanish-American War.


OTOH also note his letter to Henry Cabot Lodge of Dec 4, 1916 [1]

"I regard the condition of affairs in the South as an outrage. Mr Wilson will owe his seat to the fact that the negroes of the south, who are not allowed to vote, are nevertheless used to give to - - - the Democratic Party fifty electoral votes and fifty Congressmen to whom they are no more entitled than the people of Kamchatka. But - - I believe that the great majority of the negroes of the south are wholly unfit for the suffrage, and [giving them the suffrage] would reduce parts of the South to the level of Haiti - -"

I have no wish to knock TR for being a man of his time, but I can't take seriously Michel Van's notion that putting h8im in Wilson's place would change the world in any big way. He might not have segregated the Federal government, but the same could be said for quite a few others, and the effect would matter little save to the individuals concerned.

[1] Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol 8, No 6161
 
OTOH also note his letter to Henry Cabot Lodge of Dec 4, 1916 [1]

"I regard the condition of affairs in the South as an outrage. Mr Wilson will owe his seat to the fact that the negroes of the south, who are not allowed to vote, are nevertheless used to give to - - - the Democratic Party fifty electoral votes and fifty Congressmen to whom they are no more entitled than the people of Kamchatka. But - - I believe that the great majority of the negroes of the south are wholly unfit for the suffrage, and [giving them the suffrage] would reduce parts of the South to the level of Haiti - -"

I have no wish to knock TR for being a man of his time, but I can't take seriously Michel Van's notion that putting h8im in Wilson's place would change the world in any big way. He might not have segregated the Federal government, but the same could be said for quite a few others, and the effect would matter little save to the individuals concerned.

[1] Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, Vol 8, No 6161

I am not going to dispute that he and most Americans of that time were quite racist by today’s standards. But step one of accomplishing the challenge in the original post (assuming that you buy the premise that high levels of black deployment in a prolonged American war would be a first step to earlier effective civil rights legislation) is to make the United States military at least somewhat more integrated than it was at the time, and given some of his statements, Roosevelt seems more likely to push for this than Hughes.
 
Huh! TR was at least as "imperialistic" as Wilson, and showed no especial interest in Black rights.

Roosevelt was a ardent imperialist respecting the Monroe Doctrine
Mean if Europe Empires not meddle in Americans Affaire, stay USA out European conflicts

in contrast Wilson authorized allot military interventions, see the Banana Wars and others.
and once with Declaration of War to German Empire, Wilson try to put his vision of politic on the world map.
one of result was German leader from Austrian...

Roosevelt and lack of interest in Black Right is the lesser of the two evils, compare to Wilson sick attitude towards racial segregation...
 

Thomas1195

Banned
I am not going to dispute that he and most Americans of that time were quite racist by today’s standards. But step one of accomplishing the challenge in the original post (assuming that you buy the premise that high levels of black deployment in a prolonged American war would be a first step to earlier effective civil rights legislation) is to make the United States military at least somewhat more integrated than it was at the time, and given some of his statements, Roosevelt seems more likely to push for this than Hughes.
Well, you only need to have Leonard Wood at the helm of the AEF to make that happen
 
Top