WI US Violently Oppresses Civil Right Movement 1960's

What if the US Govt (and I mean the Federal Govt either actively supportin g the oppression or not intervening at all) decided to violently oppress the Civil Rights Movement in the 1960's?

For instance jailing Martin Luther King Jr and banning the NAACP? I'm thinking here of Sth African style oppression.

Perhaps attempts made to amend the equal protection clause in order to allow open discrimination against African-Americans.

How long would such oppression be able to go on? I'm thinking here of how S African and Rhodesia were able to hang on for such a long time despite having small minorities (especially in Rhod's case) of white people.

What would be the international reaction?
 
...why? There was a very serious political incentive to favor civil rights for both parties: for the Republicans, it was a way to potentially break apart the Roosevelt Coalition, and perhaps regain the Black vote to the party of Lincoln. For the Democrats, it was about seizing a steadfastly loyal voting block at a time when the Roosevelt Coalition was already cracking.

When one party has an incentive to do something, it's hard for the entire government to go in the opposite direction.
 
...why? There was a very serious political incentive to favor civil rights for both parties: for the Republicans, it was a way to potentially break apart the Roosevelt Coalition, and perhaps regain the Black vote to the party of Lincoln. For the Democrats, it was about seizing a steadfastly loyal voting block at a time when the Roosevelt Coalition was already cracking.

When one party has an incentive to do something, it's hard for the entire government to go in the opposite direction.

True but what if the white opposition had been stronger than it was in OTL?

Also it could be said that although their was a clear reason why S African whites would not have wanted black majority rule, there was also no clear cut reason for disenfranchising Indian and Coloureds, as they did. These 2 groups would quite easily have been intergrated into the non-black 'elite' group.
 

Sachyriel

Banned
Underground Aeroplane to Canada!

Think about it, instead of trains, the much faster movement of blacks to Canada due to their ditching America to come to Canada in Airplanes, dodging draft and setting up camps on federal land.

Think hardcore awesome.
 
But the stronger the white opposition in the South, the more attractive the whole thing becomes for the Republican party as a whole. The near-invincible Roosevelt Coalition was built on having the support of the South as a whole, even if it meant sacraficing civil rights. By pushing Civil Rights, the Republicans would be putting a wedge between the South and everyone-not-as-reactionary as the South. Having a stronger resistance in the South makes it more, not less, attractive.

And plus, the hippie generation is going to be even worse for the Democrats...

True but what if the white opposition had been stronger than it was in OTL?

Also it could be said that although their was a clear reason why S African whites would not have wanted black majority rule, there was also no clear cut reason for disenfranchising Indian and Coloureds, as they did. These 2 groups would quite easily have been intergrated into the non-black 'elite' group.
 
Oh, it isn't that hard.

Kennedy lives, and goes on to beat Goldwater in a narrow victory (polls showed Goldwater ahead at times, and let's say Goldwater really did want to beat Kennedy) after winning a series of major debates in cities as was planned IOTL.

The South was Goldwater solid, as was the Midwest, but Kennedy carried Texas, most of the North, and California—all in all enough to win.

As always, the latest civil rights bill gets filibustered in the Senate. The summer riots of 1965 are particularly bad—requiring military intervention in a number of large cities.

Network news carries a number of them live, and the "Silent Majority" is appalled.

The 1966 summer riots are wider spread and last longer than 1965, and the backlash is even worse ITTL, with the Republicans falling only a dozen seats short of capturing the House. Coupled with Southern Democrats, the conservatives have a solid majority.

Kennedy pushes hard on another civil rights bill, having belatedly woken to the fact that he needs to pass this. The House massively weakens it, and irregardless the Senate once again filibusters it.

South Vietnam is not going well, but Kennedy declines to send troops—instead he heavily increases aid and advisors.


With a stroke of his pen, Kennedy begins to bring the sorts of civil rights he can bring in. Essentially he uses the full force of the United States to enforce everything on the books. It's getting nasty in the South, and the black population elsewhere doesn't particularly care that Kennedy is trying. 1967 sees military law enforced in most cities with a large black population.

The riots aren't nearly as loud, under those conditions, but it creates a fairly large gap between between how the black see the situation (police state) and how the rest of the country sees it (required action, because the blacks are going crazy despite Kennedy helping them).


Early 1968 finally sees a civil rights bill of some force passed, but as happened IOTL this actually results in worse black riots…*leading to a wholesale rejection of the civil rights agenda by the white middle class population.

Distracted by his illness and growing rumblings into his varied and wild infidelity Kennedy is not on top of things. Johnson declines to run in late 1967, citing health concerns and so the 1968 Democratic Presidential race boils down to George Wallace, a reluctant Hubert Humphrey, and some others—it doesn't matter because Wallace, supported by the South and doing quite well in primaries will be the nominee. Let's say Wallace takes a high-profile Northern moderate (not a liberal)….

Meanwhile the Republican side is Rockefeller (who, butterflies, didn't run in 1964), Reagan, and Nixon. Nixon is squeezed out between Rockefeller and Reagan running open campaigns from the beginning of the primary season instead of back and forth (Rockefeller) or not declaring until the convention (Reagan). At the convention Rockefeller cuts a deal with Thurmond who fatally weakens Reagan's southern support in return for a conservative VP candidate.

(Can you tell I'm feeling too lazy to look up the right VP choices?)


A classic Southern Democrat versus Liberal Eastern Republican face-off ensues, with Wallace capturing a slew of Northern industrial states and carrying the South—making a Rockefeller electoral victory impossible.


President George Wallace backed by a conservative Congress stops enforcing civil rights, and begins a large-scale crack down. Naturally this brings about huge black riots, and the police step it up. By the time they're put down, for now, thousands are dead and across the US most major cities are on the brink of utter chaos.

Meanwhile President Wallace is determined to save the faltering South Vietnam, and pours troops in.

The 1969 summer riots are nuts. Having prepped for several months following their previous defeat the radical black leadership strikes hard and fast, seizing key city infrastructure and mounting effective road blocks along major arteries.

Black military troops refuse to intervene at home and simply stop fighting in Viet Nam, tying up limited American military resources. The draft lottery is expanded, and the college exemptions dropped as white liberal colleges join black revolters.


Although generally put down, the 1969 summer riots continue to simmer in guerilla action. Widely speaking the white middle class is behind Wallace, seeing the blacks as tossing away the civil rights they were getting because of (as they see it) some minor required peacekeeping. On the other hand other minorities and the poor are being swept up these riots, and white liberals are firmly on the side of the blacks.


The 1970 midterms see a mix of conservative Democrats and Republicans coming into office, and the liberal Democrats are more and more horrified by their fellow elected officials. Following the 1970 results a mix of liberal (mostly) Northern Republicans and liberal Democrats form the Progressive Party (a name both sides can agree on) and begin to prepare a '72 Presidential run. Robert F. Kennedy is perhaps their most prominent elected member (let's say JFK encouraged him to run in New York as RFK did IOTL after JFK's assassination), with a sorrowful John F. Kennedy announcing that he cannot support his own Democratic Party.


Meanwhile the combination of Viet Nam pulling troops overseas and increasing violence spreading out of the cities (particularly the Southern countryside, with a large number or rural blacks) has expanded policing powers in a broad and generally deadly fashion.


In the Northern cities a few have been somewhat peaceful, but they're mostly marked by the targeting of elected officials—Mayor Lindsay of New York was assassinated in the summer of 1968, and Mayor Daley of Chigaco now walks with a pronounced limp and a very large police escort.

In response even liberal or sympathetic to black local public figures have come down hard—Governor Agnew of Maryland basically bringing in full scale segregation.



Thus the 1970 situation sees the US on the verge of an actual, mostly racial, civil war. There are a lot more police, and hence a lot more incompetent, corrupt, and brutal police (very low standards as they are competing against a larger than OTL draft as well as an even greater than OTL need for police).

The white population will do anything for order, and they believe civil rights is an unacceptable option given that the really nasty black riots started with the passing of a powerful civil rights bill (yes and no, if Wallace had not been elected blacks would have quieted down the following year).

The 1972 election is shaping up to be an odd contest: Northern states look likely to go Progressive, Midwest/Southwest states Republican, and the whole South will be solidly Democratic; California and a few other states are up in the air because of the three-way competition. That leaves no one with the electoral college required but the House is solidly conservative and quite Democratic—Wallace will win an election thrown to the House.


The Republican Party is torn. Wallace has embraced the old Southern Democrat/conservative tradition of pre-New Deal politics while the Progressives are basically the old Teddy Roosevelt Progressive. The Republicans, then, are mostly the Taft Republicans of 1912 and are uneasy both with Wallace and the Progressives: Wallace bothers them more. Quiet talks have gone on between the Republicans and the Progressives about a joint ticket, but Reagan and RFK (their respective leading lights) are each unacceptable to the other side.


Meanwhile the violence gets worse. From Viet Nam the black population is getting a lot of weapons, supplies, and drugs to finance their operations which is just making the situation that much worse.


------------

That's as far as I go for now (and it's already pretty nasty). I don't think it's terribly realistic, but a lot of people forget how bad it was getting in the middle-late '60s. I don't consider this ASB (some details, maybe) or out of the question. It mostly rests on radicalizing the US population more than OTL, and having a larger white backlash coupled with delayed civil rights and hence a larger black backlash.

President Wallace is the easiest figure to work with, but Nixon would almost do given somewhat different conditions.

The Democratic Party practically was two parties, once FDR came to power, and I don't consider the split unreasonable.

I honestly do think Kennedy would have meant things had a chance at turning out better for the US… but I'm quite certain he also means a chance for much much worse—the Johnson legislation program rested on a mix of Kennedy's death & the '64 landslide victory…*take away both and civil rights aren't getting passed in any strong form: especially with an even larger Republican swing than OTL in 1966.
 

hinotoin

Banned
You still would have had a massive backlash to it. Evanually there would be enough public pressure to force the government to give equal civil rights to the people. No bad end for the people.
 
Oh, it isn't that hard.

Kennedy lives, and goes on to beat Goldwater in a narrow victory (polls showed Goldwater ahead at times, and let's say Goldwater really did want to beat Kennedy) after winning a series of major debates in cities as was planned IOTL.

The South was Goldwater solid, as was the Midwest, but Kennedy carried Texas, most of the North, and California—all in all enough to win.

As always, the latest civil rights bill gets filibustered in the Senate. The summer riots of 1965 are particularly bad—requiring military intervention in a number of large cities.

Network news carries a number of them live, and the "Silent Majority" is appalled.

The 1966 summer riots are wider spread and last longer than 1965, and the backlash is even worse ITTL, with the Republicans falling only a dozen seats short of capturing the House. Coupled with Southern Democrats, the conservatives have a solid majority.

Kennedy pushes hard on another civil rights bill, having belatedly woken to the fact that he needs to pass this. The House massively weakens it, and irregardless the Senate once again filibusters it.

South Vietnam is not going well, but Kennedy declines to send troops—instead he heavily increases aid and advisors.


With a stroke of his pen, Kennedy begins to bring the sorts of civil rights he can bring in. Essentially he uses the full force of the United States to enforce everything on the books. It's getting nasty in the South, and the black population elsewhere doesn't particularly care that Kennedy is trying. 1967 sees military law enforced in most cities with a large black population.

The riots aren't nearly as loud, under those conditions, but it creates a fairly large gap between between how the black see the situation (police state) and how the rest of the country sees it (required action, because the blacks are going crazy despite Kennedy helping them).


Early 1968 finally sees a civil rights bill of some force passed, but as happened IOTL this actually results in worse black riots…*leading to a wholesale rejection of the civil rights agenda by the white middle class population.

Distracted by his illness and growing rumblings into his varied and wild infidelity Kennedy is not on top of things. Johnson declines to run in late 1967, citing health concerns and so the 1968 Democratic Presidential race boils down to George Wallace, a reluctant Hubert Humphrey, and some others—it doesn't matter because Wallace, supported by the South and doing quite well in primaries will be the nominee. Let's say Wallace takes a high-profile Northern moderate (not a liberal)….

Meanwhile the Republican side is Rockefeller (who, butterflies, didn't run in 1964), Reagan, and Nixon. Nixon is squeezed out between Rockefeller and Reagan running open campaigns from the beginning of the primary season instead of back and forth (Rockefeller) or not declaring until the convention (Reagan). At the convention Rockefeller cuts a deal with Thurmond who fatally weakens Reagan's southern support in return for a conservative VP candidate.

(Can you tell I'm feeling too lazy to look up the right VP choices?)


A classic Southern Democrat versus Liberal Eastern Republican face-off ensues, with Wallace capturing a slew of Northern industrial states and carrying the South—making a Rockefeller electoral victory impossible.


President George Wallace backed by a conservative Congress stops enforcing civil rights, and begins a large-scale crack down. Naturally this brings about huge black riots, and the police step it up. By the time they're put down, for now, thousands are dead and across the US most major cities are on the brink of utter chaos.

Meanwhile President Wallace is determined to save the faltering South Vietnam, and pours troops in.

The 1969 summer riots are nuts. Having prepped for several months following their previous defeat the radical black leadership strikes hard and fast, seizing key city infrastructure and mounting effective road blocks along major arteries.

Black military troops refuse to intervene at home and simply stop fighting in Viet Nam, tying up limited American military resources. The draft lottery is expanded, and the college exemptions dropped as white liberal colleges join black revolters.


Although generally put down, the 1969 summer riots continue to simmer in guerilla action. Widely speaking the white middle class is behind Wallace, seeing the blacks as tossing away the civil rights they were getting because of (as they see it) some minor required peacekeeping. On the other hand other minorities and the poor are being swept up these riots, and white liberals are firmly on the side of the blacks.


The 1970 midterms see a mix of conservative Democrats and Republicans coming into office, and the liberal Democrats are more and more horrified by their fellow elected officials. Following the 1970 results a mix of liberal (mostly) Northern Republicans and liberal Democrats form the Progressive Party (a name both sides can agree on) and begin to prepare a '72 Presidential run. Robert F. Kennedy is perhaps their most prominent elected member (let's say JFK encouraged him to run in New York as RFK did IOTL after JFK's assassination), with a sorrowful John F. Kennedy announcing that he cannot support his own Democratic Party.


Meanwhile the combination of Viet Nam pulling troops overseas and increasing violence spreading out of the cities (particularly the Southern countryside, with a large number or rural blacks) has expanded policing powers in a broad and generally deadly fashion.


In the Northern cities a few have been somewhat peaceful, but they're mostly marked by the targeting of elected officials—Mayor Lindsay of New York was assassinated in the summer of 1968, and Mayor Daley of Chigaco now walks with a pronounced limp and a very large police escort.

In response even liberal or sympathetic to black local public figures have come down hard—Governor Agnew of Maryland basically bringing in full scale segregation.



Thus the 1970 situation sees the US on the verge of an actual, mostly racial, civil war. There are a lot more police, and hence a lot more incompetent, corrupt, and brutal police (very low standards as they are competing against a larger than OTL draft as well as an even greater than OTL need for police).

The white population will do anything for order, and they believe civil rights is an unacceptable option given that the really nasty black riots started with the passing of a powerful civil rights bill (yes and no, if Wallace had not been elected blacks would have quieted down the following year).

The 1972 election is shaping up to be an odd contest: Northern states look likely to go Progressive, Midwest/Southwest states Republican, and the whole South will be solidly Democratic; California and a few other states are up in the air because of the three-way competition. That leaves no one with the electoral college required but the House is solidly conservative and quite Democratic—Wallace will win an election thrown to the House.


The Republican Party is torn. Wallace has embraced the old Southern Democrat/conservative tradition of pre-New Deal politics while the Progressives are basically the old Teddy Roosevelt Progressive. The Republicans, then, are mostly the Taft Republicans of 1912 and are uneasy both with Wallace and the Progressives: Wallace bothers them more. Quiet talks have gone on between the Republicans and the Progressives about a joint ticket, but Reagan and RFK (their respective leading lights) are each unacceptable to the other side.


Meanwhile the violence gets worse. From Viet Nam the black population is getting a lot of weapons, supplies, and drugs to finance their operations which is just making the situation that much worse.


------------

That's as far as I go for now (and it's already pretty nasty). I don't think it's terribly realistic, but a lot of people forget how bad it was getting in the middle-late '60s. I don't consider this ASB (some details, maybe) or out of the question. It mostly rests on radicalizing the US population more than OTL, and having a larger white backlash coupled with delayed civil rights and hence a larger black backlash.

President Wallace is the easiest figure to work with, but Nixon would almost do given somewhat different conditions.

The Democratic Party practically was two parties, once FDR came to power, and I don't consider the split unreasonable.

I honestly do think Kennedy would have meant things had a chance at turning out better for the US… but I'm quite certain he also means a chance for much much worse—the Johnson legislation program rested on a mix of Kennedy's death & the '64 landslide victory…*take away both and civil rights aren't getting passed in any strong form: especially with an even larger Republican swing than OTL in 1966.

Thanks for the reply. Your idea are very interesting on this. Especially how the non-assasination of Kennedy has such a lot of butterflies.

Would love to see how the scenario you have would turn out. Obviously there will have to be some form of negotiation eventually but how soon?

The reaction of the international community would be interesting. Any strict sanctions (ie those against S Africa and Rhodesia) are out of the question due to the importance of the US economy to the world there would have to instead be symbolic sanctions. In the 'If Gordon Banks Had Played' scenario (if youve read it) the US stops importing Scotch Whisky from the UK as a protest against British policy in Ireland.

Perhaps a useful symbolic sanction against the US could be nations having bans on imports of American movies, tv shows and music (I just thought of that as I'm writing this, but I think it would be a quite effective symbolic sanction).

Perhaps the OPEC oil crisis would be either earlier or worse (prob the latter). The OPEC nations could tie in the rights of Palestinians with human rights concerns toward the US (of course many OPEC nations have more oppressive nations, but that wouldn't stop them criticising).
 
...Perhaps a useful symbolic sanction against the US could be nations having bans on imports of American movies, tv shows and music (I just thought of that as I'm writing this, but I think it would be a quite effective symbolic sanction).

Perhaps the OPEC oil crisis would be either earlier or worse (prob the latter). The OPEC nations could tie in the rights of Palestinians with human rights concerns toward the US (of course many OPEC nations have more oppressive nations, but that wouldn't stop them criticising).

Actually I thought the arabs cultures were generally very discrimatory to blacks. Also this strikes me as likely to negatively impact economic growth in America, and thus worldwide. THus decreased demand for oil.

This would have interesting reprecussions for South Africa also. Indeed there would probably be much less concern for South Africa overall. Both America and Europe would be distracted, for differant reasons.
 
It's hardly a war. More like a massacre.

Considering in 1964, the US white population reached the highest percentage of the population at roughly 90%.

There would probably be no Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965, which means no non-white immigration, which totally changes the demographics of the US.

This would be horrible, but the US could easily put down any troubles by radical blacks.
 
Actually I thought the arabs cultures were generally very discrimatory to blacks. Also this strikes me as likely to negatively impact economic growth in America, and thus worldwide. THus decreased demand for oil.

This would have interesting reprecussions for South Africa also. Indeed there would probably be much less concern for South Africa overall. Both America and Europe would be distracted, for differant reasons.

Yes in many way from what I've read anyway, arab cultures were quite discriminatory towards blacks. However they (and many Latin cultures) were discriminatory in a very different way to N European derived cultures ie no biological racism. In Arab nations intermarriage (at least between an Arab man and a black woman, not often the other way around) was considered totally acceptable in a way that it wasn't in the USA.

What I meant was that even if OPEC nations held low views of blacks they would use this as an added reason to embargo oil (hypocrisy has never tended to be at stumbling block for nations).

For instance in Africa, the Soviets supported anti-Western African nationalist movements (ie in Rhodesia) for realpolitic reasons, even though there are quite a lot of racist elements in Russian culture.

Also although the US will not be critical of S Africa would this stop the rest of the West (esp Europe) from being anti-apartheid. I think these events at the very least would increase anti-Americanism among the European left.
 
True but what if the white opposition had been stronger than it was in OTL?

Also it could be said that although their was a clear reason why S African whites would not have wanted black majority rule, there was also no clear cut reason for disenfranchising Indian and Coloureds, as they did. These 2 groups would quite easily have been intergrated into the non-black 'elite' group.

South Africa was five million whites who had fought the blacks for centuries, led by an Afrikaner government that had just one concern - their tribe staying in power, and the promotion of Afrikaner interests. The Coloreds might have been able to be brought into the front group - most speak Afrikaans and consider themselves to be part Afrikaner anyways. Indians is harder.

The USA has, and will have at least well into the next century, a white majority. White opposition was not all that strong because while the older generations may have been racist, most of the younger ones either had grown up with blacks or had fought with them in WWII.

Electric Monk's scenario is outright scary. Combine that sort of civil unrest with the energy crisis and the early '70s economic problems and you'd get a perfect shitstorm, particularly in racially-charged areas like the South and cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. A really nasty 1970s for America. And thinking bigger still, what does this do for the Cold War? If the US is preoccupied, does the USSR play harder ball?
 
^basically yes: the whites in the US know they'll stay in power no matter what. SA and Rhodesia are totally different in that regard. Similarly, blacks know they'll be exterminated if they fight, so basically they have three real options: peaceful protests, continued second-class citizenship, or annihilation. If the first fails, they'll go with the second. Blacks had endured far worse racial violence after reconstruction.
 
Electric Monk's scenario is outright scary. Combine that sort of civil unrest with the energy crisis and the early '70s economic problems and you'd get a perfect shitstorm, particularly in racially-charged areas like the South and cities like Chicago and Los Angeles. A really nasty 1970s for America. And thinking bigger still, what does this do for the Cold War? If the US is preoccupied, does the USSR play harder ball?

Thanks, I try.

The economic problems will be worse, actually. President Wallace is not going to hop off the gold standard like Nixon did (at the least, not as fast), large scale unrest is expensive and fewer blacks working + more police will put a major strain on the already failing cities: New York City might well go bankrupt ITTL and it won't be alone. Combine late '60s unrest with mid to late '70s economic problems….

The South has enough blacks in the countryside for things to get really bad, and there are a whole bunch of northern cities (plus LA) with very large black minorities across a fairly wide spread of the city making law and order expensive, deadly, lots of property damage, and the wholesale flood of whites to gated suburbs + private security. Which they have to pay for, in increasingly worse economic situations.

So longer on the gold standard, oil shocks, a possibly worse '73 Yom Kipper War, higher Viet Nam expenditures coupled with domestic spending lower than (and way less productive as well) the Great Society is going to be nasty.


Overseas a President Wallace determined to win Viet Nam probably can—but we're talking about levelling the North's cities and dams and power and infrastructure coupled with whatever the generals want. If Creighton Abrams ends up in charge at he did IOTL at the least he'll have a solid strategy (if Westmoreland stays in charge the US is screwed) but he'll want and might get close to a million troops.

That leaves, as you mentioned, the USSR with a free hand. If they feel like invading the Middle East to secure oil… the US can't do anything, and NATO is too invested in Europe to counter.

Odds are the USSR will avoid Israel in a Mid-East invasion scenario…*but if they don't Israel goes nuclear eventually—probably hits the oil fields and the Mossad (and their military counterparts) are good enough to smuggle nukes into Moscow and Leningrad and anywhere else. (Of course the Russians are probably smart enough to be very very nice to Israel but if not….)


I'm not sure what other good options are open to the Russians. Invading Europe is still nuts, as is going big into China. Pressuring the Japanese mostly means the Japanese ramp up defence spending (and giving the US a nice bit of hard currency).


Their alternative scenario is pretty much their OTL one on steroids—make big plays in Africa, and smaller ones in Latin America. They could probably pump in enough resources to force the South Africans to go nuclear, which would make yet another nasty chunk of the world nastier.


Any which way a US falling apart in the early '70s leaves Europe & Japan on their own facing the Russians (the US nuclear umbrella and tank divisions unusable in Viet Nam, yes, other stuff… nope), China unable to cozy up a little to the US as a counterbalance to the USSR, a wide open Mid-East, and potentially worse Africa/Latin America.
 
Top