WI: Roosevelt/Bankhead 1944

How Racist was he (must have been some to get elected by the white Alabama electorate)

How important were Black Northern votes in FDR's 1944 win?

Assuming FDR wins who is hie Sec of State, who would become Presdient on Bankhead's death.

By the way as well as politics how big a problem would his age have been in getting him nominated and elected
 
Maybe he like Lyndon Johnson was a closet integrationist. wWe could hope so. oOTL the Secretary of State was Jimmy Brynes, but he was appointed by Truman. sSo we don't know who would be Secretary of Stae. tThe putting the Speaker of the House second in line was passed in 1946. I don't know when. mMaybe we would get President Sam Rayburn.
 
Seeing the thread title "Roosevelt/Bankhead," my first thought was Tallulah Bankhead. I didn't actually even realize she came from a political family, but apparently John was her uncle.

In any case, I think she's a non-starter.:p
Gender aside, she's totally out there. She'd make Henry Wallace look reasonable. Read her wiki for a fun time.
 
Seeing the thread title "Roosevelt/Bankhead," my first thought was Tallulah Bankhead. I didn't actually even realize she came from a political family, but apparently John was her uncle.

In any case, I think she's a non-starter.:p
Gender aside, she's totally out there. She'd make Henry Wallace look reasonable. Read her wiki for a fun time.

But she would be great for the movie version. This movie version...(and yes, its a real movie...)

FDR-American-Badass-002.jpg
 
What happens if John H. Bankhead was FDR's Vice President in 1944?

AFAIK, Bankhead was not even considered. The most likely southern VP candidate was James Byrnes of South Carolina: former Representative (1910-1924), Senator (1930-1941), Supreme Court Justice (1941-1942),
"assistant President" (FDR's war economy czar) (1942-1944).

FDR in his charmingly duplicitous way let Byrnes think he would be the nominee. Truman went to the convention expecting to make the nominating speech for Byrnes.

If Byrnes is VP - it may alienate some black votes in 1944, but it won't affect the election.

He becomes President in 1945 instead of Sec of State as in OTL. I don't see his foreign policy being much different from Truman's.

Where the rubber meets the road is 1948. Byrnes will not desegregate the Armed Forces. There will be no civil rights plank in the Democrat platform, and obviously no Dixiecrat ticket. That means a much stronger campaign by Henry Wallace. (OTL, a lot of liberals who had doubts about Truman were reassured by the enmity of the Dixiecrats. ATL, they'll go with Wallace.)

That probably means that the Republicans adopt and publicize a strong civil rights plank, and win back a lot of the black votes that were shifting Democrat. (Those votes were more important by 1948, with the Great Migration in progress.)

Between extra black votes, and additional liberals splitting to Wallace, Dewey will win. The Republicans will be the civil rights party. Warren will be VP, not Chief Justice.
 
According to the Wikipedia article on Bankhead, he was third in the challenge for the second spot on the ticket at the '44 convention, but threw his support to Truman. For the sake of discussion, assuming he somehow got the nod, he would have been president for a relatively short time--that is, until June 1946.

That would have brought into play for the first time the succession act of 1886, wherein the next in line was the Secretary of State: in this case, none other than James Byrnes. That puts us pretty much right where we were in RR's conjecture. Seems to me that arriving at fundamentally the same place from two separate starting points makes that conclusion fairly sound.
 
Truman appointed Byrnes the big question is who would Bankhead have appointed. tThe other question is when did the new law of succession pass. We could have President Rayburn.
 
I missed that rather obvious fact about Byrnes' appointment. My mistake. As to the other item: the present-day order of succession is set forth in a bill passed in 1947; hence, at the time of Bankhead's death in '46 (assuming it was the same as in OTL), the same order as prescribed in the 1886 law was in effect--and hence the SecState would be next in line.
 
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