so I've been reading up on the North Irish Troubles, it seems they were set off (at lest in the short term) by a number of Civil Rights marches started by young Students who took their cues from black civil rights marchers in the American South during the 1950s and 60s, so I was thinking is there any way that the American South could turn into a Northern Ireland like place? with terrorism as a norm and the Army spending 30 years on the ground trying to keep the peace?
The Troubles in the American South
- Thread starter black angel
- Start date
Some type of militant reaction was always possible, but it was avoided because:
1) The early civil rights movement was specifically guided by non-violence. By the time more militant people challenged the old guard, most of the civil right victories had already occurred. Much of the dissatisfaction wasn't that it wasn't working, but that it wasn't working fast enough. And it combined with the general unrest caused by controversy over the Vietnam War and the beginning of economic decline in the 1970s. Without those things, even the rather tame kind of militantism that did happen probably would have been much less.
2) Martin Luther King had a lot of moral authority, and most people deferred to him (and his legacy even after his death).
3) The civil rights movement in America had started much earlier than the similar movement in Northern Ireland, and had many years of success. The armed forces were desegregated in 1948. "Separate, But Equal" was overturned in 1954. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed in 1964. Various local laws were challenged and beaten throughout the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. So peaceful protest was working.
4) The Federal government was taking the side of the protestors and sent in troops to enforce those laws. This was done both of real sympathy and a desire to avoid giving the Communists propaganda fodder.
5) Both political parties had strong civil right adherers, especially in the crucial period of the first twenty years after WWII. While this was concentrated mainly in the north, even the south had such people. LBJ was from texas after all.
6) More and more blacks were holding political offices and had a direct stake in the stability of the system.
So it was a different situation than in Northern Ireland. The civil rights movement started much later there, and ran into much more severe opposition by the Unionist Party and Orangemen who controlled Northern Ireland at a time of much greater civil unrest than the US had in 1945-1965.
To have the kind of organized violence in the American South, you need to change so many things that the US starts to become unrecognizable. You would need PODs going back to the 1930s or 1920s, and that probably creates a lot more changes than what you want.
1) The early civil rights movement was specifically guided by non-violence. By the time more militant people challenged the old guard, most of the civil right victories had already occurred. Much of the dissatisfaction wasn't that it wasn't working, but that it wasn't working fast enough. And it combined with the general unrest caused by controversy over the Vietnam War and the beginning of economic decline in the 1970s. Without those things, even the rather tame kind of militantism that did happen probably would have been much less.
2) Martin Luther King had a lot of moral authority, and most people deferred to him (and his legacy even after his death).
3) The civil rights movement in America had started much earlier than the similar movement in Northern Ireland, and had many years of success. The armed forces were desegregated in 1948. "Separate, But Equal" was overturned in 1954. The Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act were passed in 1964. Various local laws were challenged and beaten throughout the Eisenhower and Kennedy years. So peaceful protest was working.
4) The Federal government was taking the side of the protestors and sent in troops to enforce those laws. This was done both of real sympathy and a desire to avoid giving the Communists propaganda fodder.
5) Both political parties had strong civil right adherers, especially in the crucial period of the first twenty years after WWII. While this was concentrated mainly in the north, even the south had such people. LBJ was from texas after all.
6) More and more blacks were holding political offices and had a direct stake in the stability of the system.
So it was a different situation than in Northern Ireland. The civil rights movement started much later there, and ran into much more severe opposition by the Unionist Party and Orangemen who controlled Northern Ireland at a time of much greater civil unrest than the US had in 1945-1965.
To have the kind of organized violence in the American South, you need to change so many things that the US starts to become unrecognizable. You would need PODs going back to the 1930s or 1920s, and that probably creates a lot more changes than what you want.
NothingNow
Banned
The FBI had taskforces for that IOTL, and if it's that bad ITTL, then we could probably see Regular Army forces being deployed as security, since the National guard might not be reliable enough for the job.
I don't think that's likely. You don't really get IRA-style campaigns out of a group that's losing its superiority. Intimidation and vigilante beatings of blacks who "don't know their place", sure-a genuine bombing campaign, not a chance.
I disagree, though, that you'd need to go all the way back to the 1920's and 1930's to create the Troubles in the US. You'd need no progress in the South through the 1950's and 1960's, though, and state violence employed against non-violent protesters.
Orville_third
Banned
Get more people to listen to this guy.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Williams
This is very true, and arguably the UVF was more sociopathic and sectarian than the IRA (as violent and terroristic an organization as the IRA was, it was outside their mode of operation to kill and maim simply because the targets were Protestants; the UVF and other Protestant paramilitaries, were more likely to attack targets simply because they were Catholics). However, you couldn't get the UVF in the American South unless there was a black version of the IRA first; Southern whites had their own forms of extralegal violence-lynchings and beatings yes, but bombings aren't likely, at least at first.
Well, I don't see why no progress would be made in the South through the 1950s and 1960s if they start the same as IOTL. Is the Warren Court not going to overturn Brown vs Board of Education (it was unanimous after all)? Is Eisenhower not going to send Federal troops to enforce the decision in Arkansas? What about the other decisions of the federal courts? Is no black baseball player going to break the color barrier and join the major ranks despite several owners who finally planned to? Are southern blacks not going to organize and demand changes? Witht he US engaged in a struggle against world Communism, are the country's elites going to simply allow all moral authority to ebb away? There is a very broad based change in society by then versus what the US was like, say, in the 1890s-1920s when attempts at civil rights could very often be met with violence and government approval of such.
Too much had changed int he country by the 1950s and 1960s that civil rights progress won't be made. For no progress to be made, you need a very different 1950s and 1960s, which means an earlier POD. You need a 1950s which allows whites to respond with violence, the states to encourage it, and the federal government to do nothing. That combination does not exist IOTL. You can change individual events, but I think there will be others to replace them.
celt
Banned
Um so it was just an accident that most of the PIRA's victims were Protestants?
I can remember in the bad old days the laughable PIRA claim that their were freedom fighters,but all Protestant paramilitarys were death squads.
The only difference really was the Provos tended to blow their victims ups,while the UVF,UDA/UFF tended to shoot them more.
The PIRA had tons of semtex the rest didn't.
I'm not defending the IRA as an organization; they were clearly terrorists, but they were terrorists with a different mode of operation.
Gusty Spence, the UVF man, has been quoted as saying "At the time, the attitude was that if you couldn't get an IRA man you could shoot a Taig, he's your last resort." You also didn't see groups like the Shankill Butchers coming out of the IRA.
Part of it was the attitudes involved-the UVF and the Protestant paramilitaries saw Catholics as the enemy, but the IRA and the Republican paramilitaries saw the British as the enemy. Now, the IRA certainly didn't go out of their way to prevent the deaths of Protestant civilians, but they also didn't produce a group like the Shankill Butchers.
Both groups are terrorists, but they were also operating differently.
The Warren Court will likely overturn Brown v. Board of Education, but there's nothing saying that Eisenhower will send troops to enforce it. Or that Eisenhower has to be President in an ATL scenario-what if Bob Taft is elected and then dies, and then his VP decides to back down on the issue?
What if they organize and demand changes, but fail? No symbolic Civil Rights Act in 1957, no successful Montgomery bus boycott? This could possibly discredit non-violence as a means of gaining ground; there were those who turned their backs on it in OTL even with rapid gains.
And Jackie Robinson was a symbol. An important, relevant symbol, but without any accompanying progress it does him no good.
But inertia remains a powerful force. Its not a certain thing that Federal troops will desegregate the Little Rock Schools; a different president than Eisenhower could play it more cautiously. Its not a certain thing that the Montgomery Bus Boycott will succeed, and that would go a long way to harming the idea of a nonviolent protest movement.
Why is Civil Rights progress guaranteed? Even in 1964, LBJ had to call in every trick he'd learned in the Senate to get the Civil Rights bill passed; JFK failed utterly to do it. It took maybe the best parliamentarian in American history, wielding the legacy of a martyr, to pass a major civil rights bill, and this is 14 years after 1950.
If you can find a way to make the Montgomery Bus Boycott fail, that could possibly discredit Martin Luther King. You do that, you open the way for more violent forms of protest in the South; it wouldn't start with bombings but with riots. All of a sudden, you've given "classy" segregationists like Richard Russell the opportunity to say with credibility that these aren't innocent victims but communist agitators. A few years of that kind of frustration, and then the first bomb goes off.
If you were to look at Northern Ireland in the mid-1960's, the idea that by 1972 there would be paramilitaries killing each other in the streets and bombs ripping pubs apart would seem insane, but any civil rights movement of that kind is walking a real tightrope, and it can go to hell in a handbasket very, very quickly.
Dan Reilly The Great
Banned
You could go with the 'great man theory' by having someone survive WWII that didn't IOTL. He comes back home and is angered at his experiences during WWII and blames an overreaching federal government for forcing the rest of the US into a horrible war. He becomes a neo-confederate and vows that "the south will rise again!" then does everything in his power to ensure that that happens. He uses his military training to form a "new confederate army" and fights a geurrilla style war against the US government.
If the feds respond to the first couple incidents with a too much fervor(wouldn't be surprised with J.E. Hoover running the FBI, perhaps a violent shootout that gets some innocent bystanders killed or something), the 'NCA' starts to gain popular support from southerners who are alienated by the in their view authoritarianism of the federal government. Eventually the movement gains enough of a critical mass that it continues along with its own inertia even if this leader figure gets killed or jailed at some point. By tyhe sixties you've got regular Army troops acting as a quasi 'occupation force' and the NCA committing bombings and other forms of violent acts.
If the feds respond to the first couple incidents with a too much fervor(wouldn't be surprised with J.E. Hoover running the FBI, perhaps a violent shootout that gets some innocent bystanders killed or something), the 'NCA' starts to gain popular support from southerners who are alienated by the in their view authoritarianism of the federal government. Eventually the movement gains enough of a critical mass that it continues along with its own inertia even if this leader figure gets killed or jailed at some point. By tyhe sixties you've got regular Army troops acting as a quasi 'occupation force' and the NCA committing bombings and other forms of violent acts.