This is likely sliding into ASB territory but if US Representative George Henry White got the Vice Presidency in 1901 he could have been the first.
When is the Earliest a possible time we could have a Black President?
- Thread starter StarSettler
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Now, bit of ASB but if MLK decided to go into politics, we may have been able to see a black president in the 70s, of course given he avoids his assassination.
It's also possible, which also means with a hypothetical George White presidency, we may have also seen earlier desegregation.
FatedMatrioshkaBrain
Banned
If we're going by demographic trends I think maybe 2000? Keep in mind that there were several things that had to go right for Obama. And even then he still nearly lost.
Brooke was absolutely the first that could have made it by the VP route. Powell was probably the first with a realistic chance of being elected POTUS. Wilder is an interesting choice but he did not have the gravitas in his party the way Powell did. In any event I think the 1990's is the best answer to the OP.
Tom Bradley wins the 1982 California governorship election. IOTL he was defeated by less than 100 thousand votes.
ANYONE who won that election would have a good governorship, as the Californian economy boomed during that time. Tom Bradley is reelected in 1986, and uses his position as Governor of the most populous state to launch a nomination for President in 1992, on a Democratic ticket. If he wins enough support and/or Bill Clinton doesn't run, he has a chance in being nominated and win the 1992 Election (Even if by a smaller margin)
ANYONE who won that election would have a good governorship, as the Californian economy boomed during that time. Tom Bradley is reelected in 1986, and uses his position as Governor of the most populous state to launch a nomination for President in 1992, on a Democratic ticket. If he wins enough support and/or Bill Clinton doesn't run, he has a chance in being nominated and win the 1992 Election (Even if by a smaller margin)
Is it possible to have a black revolutionary army hero succeed George Washington in 1896?
Perhaps as a way to show American liberalism
Perhaps as a way to show American liberalism
Jackson was very comfortably in 2nd place in 88, winning 11 states (plus DC and PR) and roughly a third of the vote and delegates. You can try to describe his activist campaign as vain, but it doesn't change the fact that it was relatively successful. To add perspective, that's only a little worse than Kennedy's performance in 80 and better than Sander's performance in 20, neither of which are easily dismissed as irrelevant.
Is there any that after losing Colfax's trust and potentially wanting a better reconstruction, that Ulysses Grant chooses Fredrick Douglas as his VP nominee for the 1872 election?
Given that in otl the Republicans dominated the popular vote and absolutely eviscerated the Democrats in the electoral vote, the GOP probably doesn't have to worry about losing even with a African American VP candidate, and given that this was at the height of Reconstruction, this would probably be the best chance where a African American could get the VP nomination.
Not to mention that Horace Greely dying a couple months early could screw the Democrats even more.
Given that in otl the Republicans dominated the popular vote and absolutely eviscerated the Democrats in the electoral vote, the GOP probably doesn't have to worry about losing even with a African American VP candidate, and given that this was at the height of Reconstruction, this would probably be the best chance where a African American could get the VP nomination.
Not to mention that Horace Greely dying a couple months early could screw the Democrats even more.
Technically, in the 1860s or 1960s.
Practically, sometime in the late 20th Century.
Practically, sometime in the late 20th Century.
One possibility would be a different outcome to the 1880 presidential Nomination. The guy I am referring to is Blanche Bruce. Now Bruce wouldn't be the president, but he did have votes cast for him for the VP position. It could be possible, though rather unlikely that he wins the nomination. The president would be James Garfield. Garfield was later assassinated and in OTL the position went to his VP Chester Arthur, but if Bruce was the VP instead, he could have become the president.
Douglass - No. Bruce - No America was just not ready then. VP nominations were controlled by the party machinery, hence Arthur. In no possible world in that time would there be a black VP candidate.
I suspect Colin Powell would have crashed and burned had he run in either 1996 or 2000 - his opponents in the Republican primaries would have attacked him relentlessly on his social liberalism which would have left him struggling with a lot of the core Republican vote in the general (in fact between him and Gore in 2000 some evangelicals might well opt for Gore.)
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I agree. I think the same is true for female candidates; I don’t think it’s a coincidence that Britain’s first female PM for example was a Tory, same with Merkel in Germany. I guess conservative female candidates are perceived as less ‘shrewish’ than their liberal or progressive counterparts or something. Someone like Colin Powell or Clarence Thomas running as a Republican in the 90s is the earliest and most realistic I can see a black candidate be president in the US through an electoral victory.
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Do you need a post-1900 POD? If so, could we have had a Civil Rights movement in the early 20th century?
If you're OK with pre-1900 PODs, then we could look for ways the US could have banned slavery earlier, and then done a better job of preserving the civil rights of the freed slaves.
If you're OK with pre-1900 PODs, then we could look for ways the US could have banned slavery earlier, and then done a better job of preserving the civil rights of the freed slaves.
Note that Secretary of State Powell was in Europe on Feb 26th 2001 while Bush/Cheney/everyone else in the line of succession was in D.C. along with most of Congress, the entire Supreme Court, and all but a few state governors. Also, the half-mile wide asteroid 2001 EC passed within 4 lunar distances of Earth that morning but was not spotted until several days later.
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New Zealand PMs. Jenny Shipley (National) took over as party leader between elections. Helen Clarke (Labour) voted in three times (ousting Shipley the first), Jacinda Ardern (Labour) voted in twice - the second time with an outright majority under a PR system, which is quite an achievement.
New Zealand is a bit of a special case - first to give women the vote, extreme Thatcherism under a nominally Labour goverment in the early 80s, and a form of PR since 1996 - but it shows that in at least some places women don't need to be Tory to win.
One possible idea is that Jimmy Carter decides to have Representative Barbara Jordan as his running mate in the '76 election. Then Carter gets assassinated during his time in office, either in '79 by Raymond Lee Harvey or while on the campaign trail '80 by John Hinckley Jr., and VP Jordan not only becomes the first African American president, but also the first female president.