Since this is the turn of the 19th to 20th centuries I'll put the WI here.
In 1896, decades after the end of Reconstruction, the state of North Carolina elected Daniel Lindsay Russell, a Republican, to the governorship by a margin of less than ten thousand votes. Russell, who had a majority in the state legislature thanks to an alliance between the Republican and Populist parties, signed a bill that made it easier for blacks and poor whites to vote, among other things.
Unfortunately, this brief experience came to an end in 1898, when the Democrats ran on a campaign of fear and racism, retook both houses of the legislature and disenfranchised blacks and many poor whites. In one particularly nasty case, a former Democratic congressman, Alfred Moore Waddell, who had been defeated by Russell himself in 1878, led a coup d'état in Wilmington, killing and chasing the city's African American population out of the city.
Was there anything that could be done to prevent segregation from coming to North Carolina for as long as possible? Looking at Wikipedia it seems that one of the major issues Russell faced as governor was that the Republican-Populist alliance began to fall apart, something that was seen in the 1896 gubernatorial election itself when the Populists ran a candidate of their own that stole a lot of votes from him (and probably from the Democrats too). Could the alliance keep itself together, starting by having them unite in the gubernatorial ticket and thus secure a more decisive victory?
Was there anything president McKinley could've done to help? Assuming North Carolina stays under Republican control for long enough for them to send some senators to Washington, could this cripple the Southern segregationists' ability to filibuster things such as anti-lynching laws in the Senate?
In 1896, decades after the end of Reconstruction, the state of North Carolina elected Daniel Lindsay Russell, a Republican, to the governorship by a margin of less than ten thousand votes. Russell, who had a majority in the state legislature thanks to an alliance between the Republican and Populist parties, signed a bill that made it easier for blacks and poor whites to vote, among other things.
Unfortunately, this brief experience came to an end in 1898, when the Democrats ran on a campaign of fear and racism, retook both houses of the legislature and disenfranchised blacks and many poor whites. In one particularly nasty case, a former Democratic congressman, Alfred Moore Waddell, who had been defeated by Russell himself in 1878, led a coup d'état in Wilmington, killing and chasing the city's African American population out of the city.
Was there anything that could be done to prevent segregation from coming to North Carolina for as long as possible? Looking at Wikipedia it seems that one of the major issues Russell faced as governor was that the Republican-Populist alliance began to fall apart, something that was seen in the 1896 gubernatorial election itself when the Populists ran a candidate of their own that stole a lot of votes from him (and probably from the Democrats too). Could the alliance keep itself together, starting by having them unite in the gubernatorial ticket and thus secure a more decisive victory?
Was there anything president McKinley could've done to help? Assuming North Carolina stays under Republican control for long enough for them to send some senators to Washington, could this cripple the Southern segregationists' ability to filibuster things such as anti-lynching laws in the Senate?