WI: Martin Luther King survives

Mohammed Ali, card carrying member of the Nation of Islam, draft dodger, calls white people the devil, calls beloved campion Floyd Patterson an Uncle Tom, denounces the Vietnam war and the US governments treatment of black people. Can do all that suffer for it but end up the most famous man in the world, but MLK can’t be mildly Socialist and oppose Vietnam? He’s not running for president he’s a community lead.
 

Wallet

Banned
Basically once MLK became a left-winger, spoke against the then-popular war, and worked on real issues that angered white Americans (aka blacks buying houses in their neighbourhoods) his ratings collapsed. MLK is politically toxic in 1968 and likely will continue to be so for some time.



There’s a reason JFK, LBJ, and Nixon didn’t fuck with Hoover. Nor would Humphrey & especially not RFK heh
Hoover had good relations with LBJ, but he hated the Kennedys. RFK was the only Attoney-General to actually do his job and act like the boss to the FBI. JFK wanted to crack down on Hoover but he had to much evidence of his affairs.

RFK was much cleaner then JFK. And having already made an enemy of Hoover, I'd bet he would fire him. They were several well publicize arguments between the two of them.

Nixon hated Hoover, and was the only man Hoover was afraid of. Rumor had it that Nixon had blackmail on Hoover. Nixon wanted an intelligence agency loyal only to him.
 
I think the big activist issue is the decline of middle-class jobs.*

Too big an issue for one person, but working together as a part of a loose coalition with others, at least putting the issue squarely into public discussion and debate, then sure, of course.

* dating from the 1975 recession. And maybe earlier, although I'm not as up on the messy economic times of the early '70s.
 
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Hoover had good relations with LBJ, but he hated the Kennedys. RFK was the only Attoney-General to actually do his job and act like the boss to the FBI. JFK wanted to crack down on Hoover but he had to much evidence of his affairs.

RFK was much cleaner then JFK. And having already made an enemy of Hoover, I'd bet he would fire him. They were several well publicize arguments between the two of them.

Nixon hated Hoover, and was the only man Hoover was afraid of. Rumor had it that Nixon had blackmail on Hoover. Nixon wanted an intelligence agency loyal only to him.

Both Nixon and RFK knew Hoover was in a relationship with his deputy. RFK has enough leverage to keep Hoover quiet, not enough to fire him, just like Nixon. There’s no way loyal family member RFK would tarnish JFK’s memory and firing Hoover would do so very very fast. (As you noted with their good working relationship, imagine the pressure from LBJ on Hoover to screw RFK—best RFK can do is cut a deal.)

Edit:
I think the big activist issue is the decline of middle-class jobs.*

* dating from the 1975 recession. And maybe earlier, although I'm not as up on the messy economic times of the early '70s.

IIRC the beginning was the firing of half a million? auto workers in 1971 as the UAW ran out of money in their strike.

Double Edit:

Taking the scenario as set (RFK manages victory and MLK lives): what if RFK uses MLK uses strategically? Exploits him being divisive and newly left-wing to push for the step short of MLK policies. MLK wants BLANK, RFK forms a deal for something less than BLANK. Essentially MLK could be used despite his unpopularity to shove the Overton window leftwards by RFK adopting the weaker version of MLK’s policies because he “has to”.
 
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