WI Anti-Lynching Bill Passed

A bunch of people get prosecuted, thrown in jail or fines or whatever, but I doubt a bill is going to magically end the root cause of lynching.
 
A bunch of people get prosecuted, thrown in jail or fines or whatever...


I doubt even that will happen. There's going to be almost no chance of enforcing the provisions of the bill.

In 1922 law enforcement on the federal level is almost non-existent. The FBI doesn't exist yet, only a very small precursor, and it's few agents won't be armed until the mid-1930s. Even state police organizations are rare. Any enforcement is going to rely on local law enforcement and they're the same ones who have been turning a blind eye towards these same murders all along.

... but I doubt a bill is going to magically end the root cause of lynching.

There's that too. Any enforcement of the law is going to have to rely on assets from outside the areas where lynchings take place. Sadly, in 1922 those assets do not yet exist.
 
At best some people could have marginally better opportunities for prosecution. Other than that, as said above, not much will change.
 
In 1922 law enforcement on the federal level is almost non-existent. The FBI doesn't exist yet, only a very small precursor, and it's few agents won't be armed until the mid-1930s.

Well, there is prohibition. Speaking of which, could Harding, Coolidge, or another President get around this by, say, absorbing the Bureau of Prohibition into the FBI sooner, then having other agencies arm as well?

A bunch of people get prosecuted, thrown in jail or fines or whatever, but I doubt a bill is going to magically end the root cause of lynching.

Well, if you can create an atmosphere where would be lynchers are afraid of prosecution, then that will be enough to significantly reduce its presence (I doubt most lynchers are willing to go to prison to murder people).

Unless of course, you're talking about enforcement of the law, in which case, see above and below...

There's that too. Any enforcement of the law is going to have to rely on assets from outside the areas where lynchings take place. Sadly, in 1922 those assets do not yet exist.

I'm not sure what you're saying exactly -- by "assets from outside areas", do you mean men who are willing to look for and arrest people in violation of the law?
 
Well, there is prohibition.


No, there isn't. Not in the way you think there is.

Decades of Hollywood bullshit aside, federal prohibition agents were not armed. Most couldn't even make legal arrests. Federal agents investigated, developed a case, and then brought in the locals to actually make the arrests and, usually, prosecute the offenders.

When local co-operation didn't exist, was halting, or otherwise slow, how well do you think federal agents did?

Speaking of which, could Harding, Coolidge, or another President get around this by, say, absorbing the Bureau of Prohibition into the FBI sooner, then having other agencies arm as well?

In too many regions, the prospect of arming federal agents evoked the mythologized "horrors" of Reconstruction and the all to real horrors of the earlier Fugitive Slave Act. Even with Hoover leading the effort, most federal agents weren't legally armed until 1934 and then only after the death of federal agents and civilians during the Mid-West's interstate "Gangster Era" crime sprees.

Well, if you can create an atmosphere...

Without effective prosecution, you aren't going to create squat. Which leads us to...

I'm not sure what you're saying exactly...

Let me explain more simply.

Lynching is a civil rights issue, right? Think about the civil rights effort of the 1960s....

How many klansmen, cops, and other racist scumbags openly killed, bombed, and burned only to be studiously ignored by local southern law enforcement? Of the few that were prosecuted, how many were brought before local southern juries only to be acquitted? And all that was happening with armed federal agents in mix.

Given the institutional blind eye preventing enforcement at the local level in the 1960s civil rights legislation wasn't being enforced even with armed federal agents working cases and making arrests. What the feds eventually had to do was invent the federal crime of "violating civil rights".

When some asshole in Mississippi blew up a church and was either ignored by local law enforcement or acquitted by his asshole peers, the feds could then swoop in and try the SOB for "violating civil rights". Not for murder or arson or setting off bombs, mind you. He'd already got a free pass on that and, thanks to double jeopardy, couldn't be tried again. So new charges covering the same crimes had to be applied and the trial would be moved out of the area so the same shambling herd of racist assholes who'd acquitted the SOB for his other crimes wouldn't let him free again.

For the Anti-lynching act of 1922 to even begin to "create an atmosphere", you're going to need armed federal agents who can investigate the crime, make an arrest, and then move the suspect out of the area to be tried in a venue where local mores won't hinder an effective trial.

None of that exists in 1922, so passing the law is little more than a gesture.
 
Lot to mull over; in the meantime...

Lynching is a civil rights issue, right? Think about the civil rights effort of the 1960s....

One thing I can say is, a bad as it was, the OTL 1920's and 1930's were worse. My idea isn't that an anti-lynching bill end white supremacist violence in the south, so much as make a noticeable dent...
 
well, the big difference is that you have a federal law on the books much earlier. The subsequent changes don't have to be so drastic to affect change. This might lead to white supremecist groups becoming more public as they start protesting the drafting of the anti-lynching law, which in turn brings the widespread racism and the inherent violence it caused into the limelight. This may force the american public to deal with the issue of slavery earlier. However these are mostly social and political issues, the legal aspect is still not going to change the situation in much of the country.
 
The immediate impact would not be much (especially since the number of lynchings gradually went down over the next few decades anyway in OTL with no bill.)

However, the bill passing would put the civil rights issue on the plate a lot sooner than OTL. So--suppose the civil rights issue plays out before the Vietnam War, and before the 60s wave of feminism. The butterflies could be tremendous.

Perhaps the civil rights movement would be much weaker, without other issues galvanizing and radicalizing supporters. If it fails, a more bitter African-American populace could make the 60s even more turbulent.

OTOH, maybe the "Negro issue" would be resolved fairly peacefully in the early 1950s, when postwar prosperity has everyone in a good mood, and makes funding affirmative action programs easier. And then when the issues of the 60s hit, there's one less controversy to deal with.
 
I doubt even that will happen. There's going to be almost no chance of enforcing the provisions of the bill.

In 1922 law enforcement on the federal level is almost non-existent. The FBI doesn't exist yet, only a very small precursor, and it's few agents won't be armed until the mid-1930s. Even state police organizations are rare. Any enforcement is going to rely on local law enforcement and they're the same ones who have been turning a blind eye towards these same murders all along.



There's that too. Any enforcement of the law is going to have to rely on assets from outside the areas where lynchings take place. Sadly, in 1922 those assets do not yet exist.


The point is, you can't legislate away hatred and anger. You can try, and throw harsh sentencing and all that, but it won't eliminate the root cause.
 
The point is...


The point is that, when I wrote "There's that too.", I was agreeing with you when you wrote "... I doubt a bill is going to magically end the root cause of lynching."

That's why I quoted what you wrote in the fashion I did.

A federal anti-lynching bill isn't going to "speed up" civil rights in the US alone. Several basic and wrenching changes must first be made to US society for that to happen. One law isn't going to change a thing.
 
My idea isn't that an anti-lynching bill end white supremacist violence in the south, so much as make a noticeable dent...


Nothing is going to be "dented" by the law because, leaving aside the social changes which are a critical part of the issue and for the third time now, the feds do not have the assets and mechanisms with which to enforce the law.

The locals won't enforce the law and the feds can't enforce the law, but it's somehow still going to make a dent?
 
Ooh--one specific butterfly. In OTL, a young bureaucrat named J. Edgar Hoover was assigned to deal with the KKK. Quickly figuring that local Southern law enforcement was useless at best, and synonymous with the local Klan at worst, he began resorting to dirty tricks to solove this problem. For instance, digging up dirt that the national head of the Klan liked underage girls, and leaking this to the press. The success of these underhanded tactics informed the FBI from then on.

With the lynching bill, Hoover may have a stronger legal basis for action. Does this mean he doesn't have to get so tricky? Or does it mean he uses just as many dirty tricks, but is even more successful with them?
 
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