This is a scenario that is not meant to be entirely realistic. It is also not meant to portray MLK as anything other than a strong and great man. This scenario takes place in a world where Dr. King’s beliefs were not as strong as they were in our world. He is, in this scenario, less able to stick to his morals and his methods. The point of divergence is in in the 1950s, when MLK is still popular but right from the early days of his involvement in the civil rights movement, he faces scares that he cannot shake off. Simply put, he is not the same man he was, and seeing attempting assassinations and murders of black people cause him to lose faith in his methods.
The 1950s
-MLK-
Martin Luther King would begin his involvement in the civil rights movement during the bus boycotts of 1955. Rosa Parks would narrowly escape an assassination attempt during the boycotts and this would put stress on King from the beginning.
All the way through his peaceful civil rights activist days he would constantly see failure after failure.
When multiple black people attempted to attend a desegregated high school in Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus sent in two hundred and fifty state troopers to keep the peace by refusing to let the black students into the school. Plans were made by the NAACP to have the students skip the first day of the school term and instead all organise and go together on the second day. One student did not receive word of this plan and turned up alone on the first day. She would be harassed and abused by a white mob and would be killed after getting pushed over and trampled. The school would stay segregated as the other black students refused to try and enter the second day or any other.
The 1960s
-MLK 2-
Gradually MLK would begin to lose faith in his non violent direct action tactics as he and his fellow civil rights activists would be put down repeatedly.
When it came to campaigns in Selma, a peaceful march of black people was violently put down by state troopers who used lethal and brutal force to break up the group. The troopers would go as far as to actively seek out and oppress the media by destroying all footage of the events. This would mean that there would be no second Selma march as whites would not show up to aid the blacks in their efforts.
When returning home after the failure in Selma, MLK would discover that his wife had been murdered by the KKK. This would be the breaking point for MLK as he lost all faith in the ability of non violent methods to truly make change in the USA.
The 1960s
-Black Nationalism-
The black nationalist movement would gain great traction from the failures of the non violent civil rights camp.
During the March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael and MLK would unite in making joint, highly militant speeches to the black people of the US. MLK would now become radicalised to the ideas of black power and black nationalism as no whites had come to help him in his previous efforts and segregation had hardly changed in his days of peaceful campaigning.
The Black Panther Party would be established in 1966 and MLK would work with them to aid black communities. Although MLK would never become a Marxist or anti-capitalist like many in the Black Panthers, he would still come to advocate for an amount of black self determination and with MLK’s large support base, he would bring many more blacks to this belief.
The 1960s
-Black Nationalism 2-
Fred Hampton would visit Jackson Mississippi in the late 1960s and would see a city with a very large population of blacks. He would also see that the areas surrounding Jackson in western Mississippi and parts of Eastern Louisiana had very high black populations compared to a lot of the US where areas of black majority were scattered. With the help of Martin Luther king and Malcolm X (who narrowly escaped assassination in 1965 after leaving the nation of Islam for the more prominant Black Panthers) Hampton would campaign for a new black state in this black majority area.
As years went by, popularity grew for a project known as “the 51st state of New Afrika” and blacks across Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas began a new campaign to the local legislatures of the three states to allow for secession. These campaigns would be violently put down and this would end up causing an all out race war in Jackson and some areas across western Mississippi, Eastern Louisiana and south western Arkansas.
After campaigns were put down, and brutal violence had broken out between blacks and whites across three southern states, the federal government finally stepped in and sent federal troops to end this. One of the last Presidential actions of Lyndon B. Johnson would be to pass a motion through Congress to force state legislatures in Louisiana and Mississippi to hold a referendum in a demarcated area called “The Black State”. This referendum would decide if the people of Fred Hampton’s “New Afrika'' would be in favour of creating a new US state. The referendum was won for the Black Nationalists and after months of campaigning, the state legislatures of Louisiana and Mississippi allowed for the area (including the city of Jackson) to secede and become the 51st US state of “New Afrika”.
The 1970s
-The New Afrikan Front-
New Afrika would see an immediate problem after passing its constitution in 1970. The city of Jackson would see heavy racial violence as Mississippi was in the process of moving its state capital to Gulfport. During this turbulent time, the first senatorial elections were meant to take place in New Afrika. When the Republican Party tried to run two white candidates, and the Democrats the same, the black population revolted. Neither of the main political parties of the US would ever run again in this state. Instead, the New Afrikan Front Party (NAFP) would win both senators after the election was delayed. This party was mostly black, however had a few white members which allowed for relative peace to develop with the white minority on average not being too aggressive.
The New Afrikan Front would split however, shortly after the assassination of Malcolm X (now an extremely close brotherly friend of MLK) by a communist who was against Malcolm X’s religiosity. MLK founded the Liberal Democratic Party of New Afrika in 1973. The rest of the NAFP would side with Fred Hampton and establish the Communist Panther Party.
The 1970s
-A left wing haven-
Both the Liberal Democratic Party of New Afrika (LDP) and the Communist Panther Party (CPP) were some degree of left wing that was not the norm in the US.
In the 1973 Gubernatorial Elections, Chokwe Lumumba would become the Governor of New Afrika as a member of the LDP. 1973 would also be the year that the house and Senate of the legislature of New Afrika would become split by the LDP and CPP. the CPP would gain a narrow majority and would go on to work well with the LDP to implement left wing policies to support previously highly poor black communities. Welfare, cheaper healthcare and better education would follow the CPP victory. Communities that previously had no governmental help now started to prosper under socialist leadership.
The 1970s
-A Brighter Socialist Future-
With the image of success in New Afrika, the left could receive a new lease of life in the US. Many in the US were disenfranchised by the two main parties even more so than before as neither party had tried to resolve any civil rights issue and it had led to the splitting up of Mississippi and Louisiana as well as more black violence across the country than ever.
The young generation and many blacks that couldn’t move to New Afrika, as well as some from all different walks of life, turned to a new political party that had risen out of the dust of a conflict within the Democrats after a crushing defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Presidential Election.
The Prosperity Party was a union of the Communist Party of the USA, the Socialist Party of America and a few Democrats that fled what they saw as a failing party that couldn’t combat the Republicans. It is a party that seeked to end the two party system in America and try to implement left wing policy in order to win over the American people to socialism and progressivism.
The 1970s
-A Reagan Presidency-
When Reagan became President in 1976, he had a hardline stance against black and white integration. The creation of New Afrika only hardened this stance as Reagan believed that it was just as much a state's right to keep segregation as it was New Afrika’s right to base their entire state around the preservation of black self rights and self determination.
Reagan would cut taxes while slashing public services throughout his two terms (the second ending in 1984). This would be quite popular with the middle and upper class white population, but a large amount of the black population and working class whites would be up in arms as the wealth gap grew and poorer people were left behind. The race tension that had been ever increasing and never improved, caused Reagan to be the subject of two assassination attempts by black nationalists and subject to critisism by the Prosperity Party, which rapidly grew in Congressional elections during his presidency.
The 1980s
-Fresh Elections-
The 1984 House of Representatives election would see a house more divided than ever before. Senatorial elections would look similar. The Prosperity Party would gain over twenty seats in the house (the first time since its formation that it would have over ten) and would come close to winning a senator in Louisiana and California.
These elections would lead to the Prosperity party becoming king makers in the House and almost having the ability to have power in the senate, scaring the establishment Democrats and Republicans.
The 1984 Presidential election would see George H. W. Bush become President and he would attempt to appease blacks and the working class by trying to get congress to pass the “Workers Safety Revival Act”. The act was destroyed by the Republicans (still mostly in a Reagan mindset of rejecting higher government spending), the Democrats (that believed the bill was a step in a good direction but was filled with holes, like blatantly trying to win over black people with civil rights activism that wouldn’t be accepted by state legislatures), and the Prosperity Party (that didn’t think it was anywhere near enough and needed to have more funding towards poor communities).
That is as far as I have gotten with this scenario, however I wanted to share it in its current form to get people’s opinions and also to see how people think I could expand it. I want to expand into how the world could be effected. Things like Vietnam, the protests surrounding it, Thatcher and the wider UK. Could communist nations become involved with the Prosperity Party? When would MLK and Fred Hampton die in this timeline? Thanks for reading if you have and all comments are appreciated.
The 1950s
-MLK-
Martin Luther King would begin his involvement in the civil rights movement during the bus boycotts of 1955. Rosa Parks would narrowly escape an assassination attempt during the boycotts and this would put stress on King from the beginning.
All the way through his peaceful civil rights activist days he would constantly see failure after failure.
When multiple black people attempted to attend a desegregated high school in Arkansas, Governor Orval Faubus sent in two hundred and fifty state troopers to keep the peace by refusing to let the black students into the school. Plans were made by the NAACP to have the students skip the first day of the school term and instead all organise and go together on the second day. One student did not receive word of this plan and turned up alone on the first day. She would be harassed and abused by a white mob and would be killed after getting pushed over and trampled. The school would stay segregated as the other black students refused to try and enter the second day or any other.
The 1960s
-MLK 2-
Gradually MLK would begin to lose faith in his non violent direct action tactics as he and his fellow civil rights activists would be put down repeatedly.
When it came to campaigns in Selma, a peaceful march of black people was violently put down by state troopers who used lethal and brutal force to break up the group. The troopers would go as far as to actively seek out and oppress the media by destroying all footage of the events. This would mean that there would be no second Selma march as whites would not show up to aid the blacks in their efforts.
When returning home after the failure in Selma, MLK would discover that his wife had been murdered by the KKK. This would be the breaking point for MLK as he lost all faith in the ability of non violent methods to truly make change in the USA.
The 1960s
-Black Nationalism-
The black nationalist movement would gain great traction from the failures of the non violent civil rights camp.
During the March Against Fear, Stokely Carmichael and MLK would unite in making joint, highly militant speeches to the black people of the US. MLK would now become radicalised to the ideas of black power and black nationalism as no whites had come to help him in his previous efforts and segregation had hardly changed in his days of peaceful campaigning.
The Black Panther Party would be established in 1966 and MLK would work with them to aid black communities. Although MLK would never become a Marxist or anti-capitalist like many in the Black Panthers, he would still come to advocate for an amount of black self determination and with MLK’s large support base, he would bring many more blacks to this belief.
The 1960s
-Black Nationalism 2-
Fred Hampton would visit Jackson Mississippi in the late 1960s and would see a city with a very large population of blacks. He would also see that the areas surrounding Jackson in western Mississippi and parts of Eastern Louisiana had very high black populations compared to a lot of the US where areas of black majority were scattered. With the help of Martin Luther king and Malcolm X (who narrowly escaped assassination in 1965 after leaving the nation of Islam for the more prominant Black Panthers) Hampton would campaign for a new black state in this black majority area.
As years went by, popularity grew for a project known as “the 51st state of New Afrika” and blacks across Mississippi, Louisiana and Arkansas began a new campaign to the local legislatures of the three states to allow for secession. These campaigns would be violently put down and this would end up causing an all out race war in Jackson and some areas across western Mississippi, Eastern Louisiana and south western Arkansas.
After campaigns were put down, and brutal violence had broken out between blacks and whites across three southern states, the federal government finally stepped in and sent federal troops to end this. One of the last Presidential actions of Lyndon B. Johnson would be to pass a motion through Congress to force state legislatures in Louisiana and Mississippi to hold a referendum in a demarcated area called “The Black State”. This referendum would decide if the people of Fred Hampton’s “New Afrika'' would be in favour of creating a new US state. The referendum was won for the Black Nationalists and after months of campaigning, the state legislatures of Louisiana and Mississippi allowed for the area (including the city of Jackson) to secede and become the 51st US state of “New Afrika”.
The 1970s
-The New Afrikan Front-
New Afrika would see an immediate problem after passing its constitution in 1970. The city of Jackson would see heavy racial violence as Mississippi was in the process of moving its state capital to Gulfport. During this turbulent time, the first senatorial elections were meant to take place in New Afrika. When the Republican Party tried to run two white candidates, and the Democrats the same, the black population revolted. Neither of the main political parties of the US would ever run again in this state. Instead, the New Afrikan Front Party (NAFP) would win both senators after the election was delayed. This party was mostly black, however had a few white members which allowed for relative peace to develop with the white minority on average not being too aggressive.
The New Afrikan Front would split however, shortly after the assassination of Malcolm X (now an extremely close brotherly friend of MLK) by a communist who was against Malcolm X’s religiosity. MLK founded the Liberal Democratic Party of New Afrika in 1973. The rest of the NAFP would side with Fred Hampton and establish the Communist Panther Party.
The 1970s
-A left wing haven-
Both the Liberal Democratic Party of New Afrika (LDP) and the Communist Panther Party (CPP) were some degree of left wing that was not the norm in the US.
In the 1973 Gubernatorial Elections, Chokwe Lumumba would become the Governor of New Afrika as a member of the LDP. 1973 would also be the year that the house and Senate of the legislature of New Afrika would become split by the LDP and CPP. the CPP would gain a narrow majority and would go on to work well with the LDP to implement left wing policies to support previously highly poor black communities. Welfare, cheaper healthcare and better education would follow the CPP victory. Communities that previously had no governmental help now started to prosper under socialist leadership.
The 1970s
-A Brighter Socialist Future-
With the image of success in New Afrika, the left could receive a new lease of life in the US. Many in the US were disenfranchised by the two main parties even more so than before as neither party had tried to resolve any civil rights issue and it had led to the splitting up of Mississippi and Louisiana as well as more black violence across the country than ever.
The young generation and many blacks that couldn’t move to New Afrika, as well as some from all different walks of life, turned to a new political party that had risen out of the dust of a conflict within the Democrats after a crushing defeat to Ronald Reagan in the 1976 Presidential Election.
The Prosperity Party was a union of the Communist Party of the USA, the Socialist Party of America and a few Democrats that fled what they saw as a failing party that couldn’t combat the Republicans. It is a party that seeked to end the two party system in America and try to implement left wing policy in order to win over the American people to socialism and progressivism.
The 1970s
-A Reagan Presidency-
When Reagan became President in 1976, he had a hardline stance against black and white integration. The creation of New Afrika only hardened this stance as Reagan believed that it was just as much a state's right to keep segregation as it was New Afrika’s right to base their entire state around the preservation of black self rights and self determination.
Reagan would cut taxes while slashing public services throughout his two terms (the second ending in 1984). This would be quite popular with the middle and upper class white population, but a large amount of the black population and working class whites would be up in arms as the wealth gap grew and poorer people were left behind. The race tension that had been ever increasing and never improved, caused Reagan to be the subject of two assassination attempts by black nationalists and subject to critisism by the Prosperity Party, which rapidly grew in Congressional elections during his presidency.
The 1980s
-Fresh Elections-
The 1984 House of Representatives election would see a house more divided than ever before. Senatorial elections would look similar. The Prosperity Party would gain over twenty seats in the house (the first time since its formation that it would have over ten) and would come close to winning a senator in Louisiana and California.
These elections would lead to the Prosperity party becoming king makers in the House and almost having the ability to have power in the senate, scaring the establishment Democrats and Republicans.
The 1984 Presidential election would see George H. W. Bush become President and he would attempt to appease blacks and the working class by trying to get congress to pass the “Workers Safety Revival Act”. The act was destroyed by the Republicans (still mostly in a Reagan mindset of rejecting higher government spending), the Democrats (that believed the bill was a step in a good direction but was filled with holes, like blatantly trying to win over black people with civil rights activism that wouldn’t be accepted by state legislatures), and the Prosperity Party (that didn’t think it was anywhere near enough and needed to have more funding towards poor communities).
That is as far as I have gotten with this scenario, however I wanted to share it in its current form to get people’s opinions and also to see how people think I could expand it. I want to expand into how the world could be effected. Things like Vietnam, the protests surrounding it, Thatcher and the wider UK. Could communist nations become involved with the Prosperity Party? When would MLK and Fred Hampton die in this timeline? Thanks for reading if you have and all comments are appreciated.
