"The treatment of the Negro is a greater national disgrace than Japanese internment." Senator Robert A Taft May, 15, 1947
WI: James F. Byrnes became FDR’s running mate in 1940?
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Good for him, David T (may he Rest in Peace) has a post on Taft's Civil Rights record.
I have already answered the first two assertions (that Blacks were not pro-New Deal and that the New Deal excluded Blacks) at https://www.alternatehistory.com/fo...-election-in-1940.524449/page-7#post-22835197
Here I'd like to address your final assertion--that Taft was an outspoken champion of civil rights. The problem here is that Taft in 1940 had spent less than two years in the Senate and didn't have much chance to establish a civil rights record. He could offer Blacks promises--but so did Willkie. But anyway, looking at Taft's overall record on civil rights (mostly after 1940, I would say it is more mixed than you portray it. Yes, he did support anti-lynching bills and opposed the poll tax. But he got into a serious dispute with civil rights leaders over the question of the FEPC (Fair Employment Practices Commission). Taft favored a "voluntary" FEPC--one that could investigate and publicize cases of discrimination, but had no other powers besides mediation and conciliation. The civil rights leaders wanted a "compulsory" FEPC, one "with teeth"--one that could actually punish discrimination. This divergence led civil rights leaders to accuse Taft of betraying the 1944 GOP platform calling for a permanent FEPC. Here's an editorial from the NAACP's *The Crisis* in 1945:
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The Crisis
The Crisis, founded by W.E.B. Du Bois as the official publication of the NAACP, is a journal of civil rights, history, politics, and culture and seeks to educate and challenge its readers about issues that continue to plague African Americans and other communities of color. For nearly 100 years...books.google.com
The controversy has been summed up as follows by David Karol, *Party Position Change in American Politics: Coalition Management,* p. 113 https://books.google.com/books?id=6sAYM1YKt-0C&pg=PA113
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You may ask: Did these civil rights leaders really speak for the Black community? At least judging from Taft's re-election to the Seante from OH in 1950, it seems likely they did. Taft considerably increased his vote from 1944 with the electorate as a whole, but did poorly with Blacks. As explained in the *Negro Year Book 1952* https://archive.org/details/negroyearbook52tuskrich/page/302
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Senator Taft and the Negro Vote
On Oct. 16, 1951, Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohio announced his candidacy for the Republican nomination for the Presidency in 1952. .. The Republican leader,
who barely squeezed through in 1944 with a plurality of 17,000, piled up a commanding margin of 430,900 over his Democratic opponent in 1950, winning
57% of the total vote of more than 3,000,000.
The increase in Mr. Taft's popularity among voters of Ohio was not reflected in the Negro districts of the larger cities. Although his Democratic opponent, State
Auditor Joseph T. Ferguson, was reported to be a man of limited abilities and little renown, he carried the Negro districts in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus, Toledo, Dayton, Akron, Springfield, Youngstown, Canton, and Massillon. As among Negro voters generally throughout the nation, there was a slight decline in the precentage of the Democratic vote from 1948 but not enough to place these districts in the Republican column, indicated in Table 1.
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Why did Negro voters fail to go along with the majority of Ohioans in support of Senator Taft? The Senator actively campaigned for their vote and had the
support of most of the Negro press and of the Negro Republican leadership. The answer seems to lie in the Senator's avowed opposition to an FEPC law with
enforcement powers. The voters had seen a voluntary plan, such as advocated by the Senator, fail in Cleveland to be supplanted by an ordinance with the neces-
saryenforcement powers. The majority of Negro voters in the state refused to give their support to a candidate who was committed to vote against a bill which
they cherished as one of most vital of the civil rights proposals.
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I don't think Senator Taft's opposition to a compulsory FEPC was motivated by racism. It was a reflection of his general suspicion of expanding the federal government's powers. But most Blacks evidently disagreed with him. They were aware the federal government had often treated them unfairly, but nevertheless found it essential in the struggle against the *private* discrimination they faced. This is not to deny that Seantor Taft had Black admirers, one of the most prominent being Zora Neale Hurston. But she was not paritcuarly representative of Black opinion--after all, she also opposed *Brown v. Board of Education!* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zora_Neale_Hurston
Fair enough. I was reacting against the no Republican from TR to Everet Dirksen gave a hoot about civil rights, stereotype. Clarence Potter gave a 3 hour speech in favor of school integration five years before Brown
This is a hinge point, because toward the end of World War II, replacement soldiers were assigned on a desegregated basis.
If this had come a little bit sooner . . .
If the story of the Tuskegee Airmen received publicity earlier,
If the story of the black tankers and white paratroopers were known at all, I think around the time of the Battle of the Bulge, and a white paratrooper even wrote a poem about this,
then . . .
Equal rights may have come earlier and easier. Hard to deny someone first-class citizenship when you know they’ve fought honorable beside you and have earned that citizenship.
It happened after the Civil War (not just in the South; there were "sundown towns" in many northern and western states, and several state referendums for race-equal suffrage failed in 1866-1867).
The denial continued right through the Spanish-American War (see the Brownsville Incident of 1906) and World War I - and even after World War II in the South.
I can only say, in a re-play, I hope WWII would be different.
After all, it was kind of the re-branding of the United States. And perhaps the UK as well. When you said “couldn’t be arsed with” or similar a while back, I gathered that you were from the UK. Although this is a great expression we Yanks could certainly borrow!
I doubt if Byrnes as VP would make much difference in the war. He would still make the immense contribution he made OTL in his "Assistant President" role. The knock-ons I suggested would all take effect later.
Which I have.When you said “couldn’t be arsed with” or similar a while back, I gathered that you were from the UK. Although this is a great expression we Yanks could certainly borrow!