The Best Case Scenario for Black Americans After the ACW

Booker T. Washington stressed education and entrepreneurship over direct confrontation. In many areas this was working. (Building wealth within a minority group is a much more solid course towards equality than state handouts. This is readily evident in the Catholic, Asian and Gay communities.). Following the ideaology of W.E.B. Du Bois was a mistake in the long run and helped to create an African-American community far too dependent on government hand outs and lacking a motivated population of self made business owners.

Here's what happened to African-Americans who became middle-class business owners. The path of confrontation was chosen for them - by the whites - before Du Bois ever wrote a word.

On the topic of the OP, I'd argue that the best-case outcome for African-Americans, short of a full federal commitment to Reconstruction, is a continuation of the equilibrium of the 1880s - i.e., after the Redeemer takeover but before full-scale disenfranchisement. During this period there were black members of Congress and state legislators (more of them in some states than during the 1870s, in fact), biracial fusion politics in a few states, middle-class black neighborhoods, black banks, etc. It wasn't necessarily preordained that race relations would continue from there to the nadir, although the Bourbon Democrats would have to see the black middle class as a potential ally against populism rather than a threat, which in turn would require a significant black Democratic organization in the lowland Carolinas or the Black Belt. Alternatively, coalitions like the Virginia Readjusters and the North Carolina populists, which relied in part on black support, could continue the 1880s racial status quo if they managed to stay in power.
 
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Any thoughts on what Reconstruction would have looked like if, his bodyguards were better or Booth more inept, and Lincoln had survived his 2nd term?
 
Any thoughts on what Reconstruction would have looked like if, his bodyguards were better or Booth more inept, and Lincoln had survived his 2nd term?
Probably not as harsh as OTL--Lincoln wanted to reconcile North and South, and despite his status as the "Great Emancipator" he probably wouldn't have been too concerned with the postwar status of Southern blacks.
 
I am not talking about black control over several states, I' am not even talking about black control over one state but black control over dozens of counties spread across the south.

The trouble here is that, unlike states, counties aren't sovereign. Counties don't set voting qualifications, and their form of government is determined by state law. So if, say, Alabama wants to replace elected county commissioners with centrally appointed ones or strip counties of the power to pass laws without state consent, it can do that. It's very easy for a Redeemer-run state to prevent black voters from gaining control of counties, even where they make up a substantial majority. Control of a sovereign entity is necessary to ensure control of any part of it.

ETA: Now that I think of it, one possible solution might be for the Reconstruction-era federal government to force the Southern states to adopt constitutions in which the provisions regarding voting rights and local government are either unamendable or very hard to amend (e.g., can only be amended by a four-fifths vote at a subsequent convention). This could prevent state constitutional conventions from disenfranchising African-Americans in the 1890s and 1900s, and might also entrench black (or biracial fusion) control of the Black Belt, the lowland Carolina counties, and parts of the Mississippi Delta, although there would still be other ways - terror, for instance - to limit or take away their power.
 
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Probably not as harsh as OTL--Lincoln wanted to reconcile North and South, and despite his status as the "Great Emancipator" he probably wouldn't have been too concerned with the postwar status of Southern blacks.

He certainly would be. Lincoln was all in favor of coming together in peace and moving past revenge and resentment, but he was not in favor of the South having carte blanche to blatantly violate the progress that had been made, and the Constitutional rights of the newly freed Black Americans. The resurgence of White Southern elites pushing for an antebellum status quo, abusing, harassing and oppressing Black Americans as if they had never been freed, was precisely the type of revenge and resentment he did not want from the North in regards to the South, nor of the South in regards to freedmen. White supremacy in legal and illegal action was what the Civil War had become a struggle against, and Lincoln would not have tolerated it.
 
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He certainly would be. Lincoln was all in favor of coming together in peace and moving past revenge and resentment, but he was not in favor of the South having carte blanche to blatantly violate the progress that had been made, and the Constitutional rights of the newly freed Black Americans. The resurgence of White Southern elites pushing for an antebellum status quo, abusing, harassing and oppressing Black Americans as if they had never been freed, was precisely the type of revenge and resentment he did not want from the North in regards to the South, nor of the South in regards to freedmen. White supremacy in legal and illegal action was what the Civil War had become a struggle against, and Lincoln would not have tolerated it.
Well said. The main reason that Reconstruction became "Radical" was that it was recognized that the South was attempting to resist the changes imposed upon it by the 13th Amendment. It was thought that the best way to protect blacks from White encroachment was to give them full rights and (for a time) a military presence. Assuming that Lincoln would automatically be willing to let Blacks be put back into slavery is fallacious, especially considering that shortly before his death he had already endorsed limited forms of Black suffrage. Once that was granted, he would certainly have been willing to fight for it.
 
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He certainly would be. Lincoln was all in favor of coming together in peace and moving past revenge and resentment, but he was not in favor of the South having carte blanche to blatantly violate the progress that had been made, and the Constitutional rights of the newly freed Black Americans. The resurgence of White Southern elites pushing for an antebellum status quo, abusing, harassing and oppressing Black Americans as if they had never been freed, was precisely the type of revenge and resentment he did not want from the North in regards to the South, nor of the South in regards to freedmen. White supremacy in legal and illegal action was what the Civil War had become a struggle against, and Lincoln would not have tolerated it.


But what could he actually do about it?

Once the Army has shrunk back to peacetime levels - which is going to happen regardless of who is President - The Federal Government's power to protect the freedmen is extremely limited, and eventually slips to virtual nonexistence. How does keeping Lincoln alive make any difference to that? He is popular in the North, but has no magical powers
 
No way the north was going to do anything to alienate the south though, which all of those do. The North's goal was to reunite the nation, and cutting off southern whites on favor of blacks, who still were much smaller in number and power, isn't the way to do it.

If you distribute planter land between blacks and poor whites, you keep most of them on board.
 
If you distribute planter land between blacks and poor whites, you keep most of them on board.


And who the blazes was going to do that?

The Senate wouldn't even accept a clause in the 14th Amendment which would have disfranchised Confederates until 1870. So what possible chance does wholesale property confiscation have, either in Congress or in any conceivable Supreme Court?

Incidentally, "poor whites" were frequently poor relations of planters, so "redistributing" land to them would still keep much of it in the same families. As for the Freedmen, any Black [1] rash enough to bid for it at auction would be found a few days later on some lonely stretch of road with several bullets in his back.

[1] Outside a few counties which were 90% Black or more. Anywhere with a significant white population he'd probably be signing his own death warrant.
 
Why couldn't they build up a culture of black militias for self-defense to make Redeemers think twice. Have those militias be backed by Army occupation troops.
 
Why couldn't they build up a culture of black militias for self-defense to make Redeemers think twice. Have those militias be backed by Army occupation troops.

What Army? By 1876 the US Army was down to less than 30,000 men, the great majority of whom were needed out West, and couldn't be spared for policing the South. Iirc quite a few of the troops were Black, but they were being used to protect Whites against Indians - a far higher priority than protecting Blacks against Whites.

As for Black Militias, these did exist OTL, but didn't achieve very much in a region containing a million-plus Confederate veterans.
 
The Klan was founded in 1865, so maybe the Army could have done more to hunt down such groups from the get-go.


Iirc it was 1866. But in any case I don't see how they could be prevented from reviving as the occupying forces dwindled. The 1860s South was an overwhelmingly rural society, and you'd need a huge army to guard every country lane or isolated shack. How successful were British forces in Ireland at preventing local nationalists from bumping off those they disliked?
 
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