What if Civil Rights Act is Passed in 1948 instead of 1965

Gigachad3k

Gigachad3k

What if the Civil Rights Movement several decades earlier in the 1940's during WW2? What if Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman pushed for civil rights legislation during the 1940s? that by the 1950's, Segregation in America is outlawed and African-Americans are fully "equal" in the same way that they were by the end of OTL's 1960's?

How Does the Elections from 1948 to Now look like?

How does American Society look like now?

How does the Timeline Look like?
 
Asami

Asami

Banned
Dardani1996 said:
What if the Civil Rights Movement several decades earlier in the 1940's during WW2?
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It would be far less easy than the 1965 Civil Rights Act.

Dardani1996 said:
What if Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman pushed for civil rights legislation during the 1940s? that by the 1950's, Segregation in America is outlawed and African-Americans are fully "equal" in the same way that they were by the end of OTL's 1960's?
Click to expand...

That wouldn't have happened. FDR would have lost the support of the Southern Democrats if he pushed too hard on Civil Rights, and would have likely had to face-down a nomination challenge by conservative Democrats like Cactus Jack in 1940 or 1944; and it would've probably made him reconsider a third/fourth term, and concede.

If Truman had pursued it unilaterally, he would've lost support of his Southern Democrats, and would've probably lost in 1948 to Dewey as more states and votes swung to Strom Thurmond.

Dardani1996 said:
How Does the Elections from 1948 to Now look like?
Click to expand...

"Dewey Defeats Truman" for 1948, tbh.
 
Gigachad3k

Gigachad3k

Sakura_F said:
It would be far less easy than the 1965 Civil Rights Act.



That wouldn't have happened. FDR would have lost the support of the Southern Democrats if he pushed too hard on Civil Rights, and would have likely had to face-down a nomination challenge by conservative Democrats like Cactus Jack in 1940 or 1944; and it would've probably made him reconsider a third/fourth term, and concede.

If Truman had pursued it unilaterally, he would've lost support of his Southern Democrats, and would've probably lost in 1948 to Dewey as more states and votes swung to Strom Thurmond.



"Dewey Defeats Truman" for 1948, tbh.
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Until the New Deal, African Americans were supporters of the Republican Party because it was Republican President Abraham Lincoln who helped in granting freedom to American slaves; at the time, the Republicans and Democrats represented the sectional interests of the North and South, respectively, rather than any specific ideology, and both right and left were represented equally in both parties.
The African-American trend of voting for Democrats can be traced back to the 1930s during the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program provided economic relief to African Americans; Roosevelt's New Deal coalition turned the Democratic Party into an organization of the working class and their liberal allies, regardless of region. The African-American vote became even more solidly Democratic when Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for civil rights legislation during the 1960s. In 1960, nearly a third of African Americans voted for Republican Richard Nixon.
 

GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
"Big Jim" Folsom, governor of Alabama, gave a Christmas message in 1949 in which he asked, are we really doing right by our Negro citizens? He was talking about state spending for education and the like, not civil rights, but it was still a remarkable statement. And would be unlikely to happen later.

There really was a golden period in the years '46, '47, '48. We had won the war, we were the savior of western democracy, people felt good about the future. Plus, the economy didn't slump like people had feared, and that's always big.

And then the big ticket items of:

the Soviet Union tests their first nuclear bomb in '49 (although still much smaller arsenal than us for a long time),

China "goes communist" in '49,

and the Korean War starts in 1950.

And then American citizens are scared, angry, pissed off, feel like their leaders have done a poor job and have not been straight with them, and not very open to any proposals for new ways of doing things.
 
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pdf27

Dardani1996 said:
Until the New Deal, African Americans were supporters of the Republican Party because it was Republican President Abraham Lincoln who helped in granting freedom to American slaves; at the time, the Republicans and Democrats represented the sectional interests of the North and South, respectively, rather than any specific ideology, and both right and left were represented equally in both parties.
The African-American trend of voting for Democrats can be traced back to the 1930s during the Great Depression, when Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal program provided economic relief to African Americans; Roosevelt's New Deal coalition turned the Democratic Party into an organization of the working class and their liberal allies, regardless of region. The African-American vote became even more solidly Democratic when Democratic presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson pushed for civil rights legislation during the 1960s. In 1960, nearly a third of African Americans voted for Republican Richard Nixon.
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If you look at the platforms for each party at the time, it's clear just how much more committed to Civil Rights the Republicans were than the Democrats - but looking at the arithmetic in Congress makes it clear that no Republican president at the time could do very much by means of legislation while any Democratic president would split the party very badly indeed.
The most I could see actually happening at this point would be if Dewey (who appears to have been very strongly against the Jim Crow laws) had come to power and decided to start taking on various laws under the 14th Amendment and then use the US Marshall Service to enforce any judgements. That is what happened under Brown .vs. Board of Education, which was enforced by Eisenhower who was very close to Dewey politically.
The problem with this, of course, is that Dewey has neither the nationwide respect that Eisenhower had nor the progress made in public attitudes over the extra 5-10 years. Which will make the whole affair - if he does try it - much more contentious and possibly bloody.
 

Alexander the Average

I imagine that the 60s would be a bit different politically with the struggle for political and civil rights largely won in the 50s. I can see a greater shift towards an emphasis on equality of outcome and eliminating the lingering cultural and structural forms of racism that may continue to survive. Another thing to consider is that, with desegregation in place and full civil rights meaning that state governments have to be more responsive to the needs of the African-American vote, I imagine that quality of life for African-Americans would probably be better, which might slow down the migration of African-American workers from the rural south to northern cities. It would also be interesting to see where various Civil Rights leaders end up in an America a few decades ahead of OTL in terms of basic rights.
 

David T

Trivial point: The Civil Rights Act passed in 1964, not 1965.

More important: It is simply not politically possible for a strong civil rights bill to pass in 1948, if only because of the filibuster in the Senate. Even a measure as popular as the anti-lynching bill failed in the Senate in the 1930's because the votes for cloture were just not there. Two-thirds of those voting were required--which means 33 senators (out of 96) could block legislation. The South by itself already had 22 votes--and could find allies not only in the border states but in conservative senators from the farm belt and Rocky Mountains. These senators were inclined to see the filibuster as an important weapon for the smaller states; moreover, they wanted the support of Southerners on farm bills, etc. Robert Caro in his account of the 1957 bill in *Master of the Senate* quotes one Southerner as saying "You get up to 33 real fast."

You might ask how in that case the 1957 act could pass. Part of the answer is that, as strange as it may seem, in OTL southern Democrats like Richard Russell (according to Caro) actually *wanted* a watered-down civil rights bill to pass (though of course they could never admit this, and all but a handful had to oppose it publicly, vote against cloture, etc.) so that LBJ could get the credit and thus have a chance at winning the Democratic presidential nomination in 1960. (For the same reason, LBJ was never asked to sign the Southern Manifesto denouncing *Brown v. Board of Education.*) Once LBJ was elected president, the Southerners thought, he would show his true conservative colors...Anyway, as watered down as the 1957 act was, it did set a precedent that a civil rights bill could pass the Senate. But in 1948 it is doubtful that even a weak civil rights bill could pass, let alone a robust one.
 
Asami

Asami

Banned
Dardani1996 said:
I Just Alternate History and we need to discuss Imagine how would it look like in your own Opinion
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Well, even if we supposedly discard the fact it would be sunk like the Lusitania (which would mean this is an ASB discussion), it wouldn't change very much. Coercion of black voters would still occur, and segregation, unless specifically banned in the CRA of 1948, would still remain; but perhaps it would focus more on the but equal parts of "Separate but equal". You'd see higher African-American voting rates in 48, 52, 56 and 60 (since they already had the right to vote by 1948, but their votes were being suppressed by the Southern states and some parts of the North).

But the social problems of African-Americans and White Americans would still exist, even if the Civil Rights Act was forwarded 2 decades.

But I still think that Truman would lose in 1948 to Dewey due to a stronger Dixiecrat campaign under Thurmond, that, or his "victory margin" would significantly lesser than it was, and give his presidency a much harder time.
 
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GeographyDude

Gone Fishin'
http://www.bucknell.edu/50YrsAfter

The 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act are the twin pillars of American civil rights law. The former outlawed segregation in restaurants, hotels, and workplaces, while the latter finally enfranchised African American voters nearly a full century after the ratification of the 15th Amendment. . .
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. . . And in 2013, the Supreme Court struck down a core provision of the 1965 Voting Rights Act, just as numerous states were passing restrictive voter identification laws likely to suppress the turnout of black and poor citizens. . .
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So still, very much live issues! Maybe if the 1970s had gone better. Maybe if you aren't trying to do affirmative action during an economically flat time.

So, if Civil Rights had happened during the growing post-war economy of the '40s, '50s, and 60s, things may have gone a heck of a lot better.
 
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