What if Tom Watson doesn't become racist? Populists win?

http://www.georgiaencyclopedia.org/nge/Article.jsp?id=h-2540

He appealed to Georgians as a defender of the old way of life when he was first elected to the state legislature, representing McDuffie County, in 1882. Watson discovered that the support of the black voting population was necessary to win. Once in office he supported the elimination of the state's convict lease system, favored taxes to support public education, and championed the needs of poor farmers and sharecroppers of both races.

... He also earned the support of many rural black voters in his 1892 bid for reelection to Congress through his condemnation of lynching and his protection of a black supporter from a lynch mob in the final days before the election. Nevertheless, he was narrowly defeated by his Democratic opponent, as he would be again in 1894, when there was substantial evidence of election fraud, and thereafter divisions increased between the Democrats and the Populists.

... Although Watson had long supported black enfranchisement in Georgia and throughout the South, he changed his stance by 1904. Resentful of Democratic manipulation and exploitation of black voters and strongly opposed to the increased visibility and influence of such leaders as W. E. B. Du Bois and Booker T. Washington, Watson endorsed the disenfranchisement of African American voters, and no longer defined Populism in racially inclusive terms. During his 1908 presidential bid he ran as a white supremacist and launched vehement diatribes in his magazine and newspaper against blacks.
Watson also launched an aggressive campaign against the Catholic Church. He took issue with the hierarchy of the church and railed against abuses by its leaders. He mistrusted the church's foreign missions and its historic political activities. The Catholic Church responded by putting pressure on businesses that advertised in Watson's publications, resulting in an effective boycott. In 1913, during the trial of Leo Frank, Watson's strong attacks on Frank and on the pervasive influence of Jewish and northern interests in the state heavily influenced sentiment against Frank, who was lynched by a mob in 1915.

Also: http://etymonline.com/cw/populists.htm

So what if he didn't become a bigot? Would that even have been possible, given how racist society at large was at the time?
 

Japhy

Banned
Watson's views on race are an interesting subject. Frankly to me he's always seemed to be a George Wallace type a few decades early. Wallace in '58 was of course running as a reformer who in his own words got "Out-niggered" by an Old School Democrat. And we know how he came back 4 years later...

Watson on the other hand, was in the 1890's running outside of the locked in Democratic Machine and needed support so he and alot of other Southern Populists turned to blacks to get it. This worked well for them when they regionally fused with the Republican Party and you saw the GOP-Populist Southerners taking Governors and Senate elections. At such a time it was easy for a man like Watson to support Civil Rights as it got him votes.

In 1896 of course the GOP-Populist alliance in the South came to a crashing end when the Populists joined with the Democrats nationally. Southern Democrats took great pride in using the new alliance to push back the slow reforms that had been pushed in recent years. Disenfranchisement came back with a vengence for Southern Blacks in states such as Georgia and North Carolina where the Populists had gained the most ground previously. Having been Bryan's Populist VP Canidate, and with his Black support effectively eliminated, Watson faced either defeat and obscurity or the abandonment of his old position.

Watson probably never really cared for Blacks too much in the First place, and after the utter disaster of 1896 the Populist party, betrayers of American Blacks arn't in any position to win them back, or get them on the voter roles at all. Even if Watson didn't idly stand by in 1896 and turn after, the Populist Party was never going to recover from its fusion with the Democrats and -abit ironiclly- the recovering economy of 1896-1907.

In 1904 when Watson is the Populist Presidential Candidate Blacks had long been stripped of their votes, and he like Wallace in 1958 faced being "outniggered" so, he went all out the other way. He could have stuck to his not-to-firm principals and ended his political career right then. Unfortunately he didn't, and tragically it worked and he would eventually make it to the Senate.
 
So I guess the wheels of history are against the possibility of a southern Populist/Farmer's Alliance er, alliance between poor blacks and poor whites. Probably requires a different Reconstruction and pre-1900 POD. Shame.

Maybe they just needed Marx.
 

Japhy

Banned
I wouldn't say the situation is inevitable. I think you just have to go back to 1896 or maybe 1888. By 1900 the Populist course has basically been set.
 
So, what would it be like if there was a viable working-class, distinctly American (non-immigrant), rural, pan-racial party? Perhaps it would be somewhat constrained to the South, where it would continue to face off against the Democrats. Hopefully it could last long enough until 1912 or so, and fuse with the Progressives. A Populist-Progressive Party?

Perhaps the POD should be 1896- Bryan makes a big fuss at the DNC, but fails to sway the party establishment. As a result, he defects to the Populists, taking many others. As a result, the GOP-Populist coalition is disrupted, but not destroyed. There are many racists in the party, still, but the party line is not a return to Southern Democratic white supremacism.
 
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