President MLK

[Steven Jones]

What would it have taken for Martin Luther King Jr. to have become US
President? I'm creating a world where this has happened. Would King have had
the numbers (especially in southern states) to win the primaries, let alone
the election? Which election would he have stood in, 1960 or 1964? Goldwater
seems easier to beat than Nixon. (I know that in hindsight, none of us would
have voted for Nixon, but the people back then were unaware of just how
crooked he actually was.)

[David Lamb]

Post by Steven Jones
What would it have taken for Martin Luther King Jr. to have become US
President? I'm creating a world where this has happened. Would King have
had the numbers (especially in southern states) to win the primaries,
let alone the election? Which election would he have stood in, 1960 or
1964? Goldwater seems easier to beat than Nixon. (I know that in
hindsight, none of us would have voted for Nixon, but the people back
then were unaware of just how crooked he actually was.)

Does the election have to be that early? Perhaps he and Bobby Kennedy
survive their 1968 assassination attempts and RFK picks him as
vice-presidential running mate; King becomes the main candidate in 1972
or 1976.

[Kent Allard]

Post by David Lamb

Post by Steven Jones
What would it have taken for Martin Luther King Jr. to have become US
President? I'm creating a world where this has happened. Would King have
had the numbers (especially in southern states) to win the primaries,
let alone the election? Which election would he have stood in, 1960 or
1964? Goldwater seems easier to beat than Nixon. (I know that in
hindsight, none of us would have voted for Nixon, but the people back
then were unaware of just how crooked he actually was.)

Does the election have to be that early? Perhaps he and Bobby Kennedy
survive their 1968 assassination attempts and RFK picks him as
vice-presidential running mate; King becomes the main candidate in 1972
or 1976.

It would probably have to be 1976 since J. Edgar Hoover was still alive in 1972.

[Joseph Power]

On Wed, 21 Sep 2011 20:29:19 +1000 in rec.games.frp.gurps, "Steven Jones"

Post by Steven Jones
What would it have taken for Martin Luther King Jr. to have become US
President? I'm creating a world where this has happened. Would King have had
the numbers (especially in southern states) to win the primaries, let alone
the election? Which election would he have stood in, 1960 or 1964? Goldwater
seems easier to beat than Nixon. (I know that in hindsight, none of us would
have voted for Nixon, but the people back then were unaware of just how
crooked he actually was.)

If Dr King was convicted of a felony he would be ineligible to be President.
(I tried to out but, while several on-line articles mention arrests, I couldn't
find any that mentioned actual convictions.)

1960 would have been far too soon (the majority of Jim Crow laws were still in
effect and, given the backlash against desegregating schools just a few years
earlier, few whites would have thought it a good idea.

1964 would have required LBJ to decide not to run (unlikely) and Hubert Humphrey
not to then be anointed as the candidate (just as unlikely). Remember that the
strong opposition to the Viet Nam war was still a few years away and that the
dixiecrats were still one of the principal power blocs of the Democratic party.

Liberals, "knowing" a black man could not be elected President would almost
certainly have pushed RFK to run instead. (The same RFK who authorized tapping
King's phone in 1963.)

As mentioned in another post, J. Edgar Hoover was an implacable enemy of MLK and
would never have allowed him to be President.

To create a counterfactual history where MLK could become President (without
making major changes to history soon after the civil war), you would probably
need someone like Malcolm X to become radicalized at a much earlier date and
accrue enough of an armed following to take over one or more southern states and
foment mutiny in the armed forces. Electing King could then be seen as a way of
diffusing an otherwise inevitable all-out race war (that whites would have won,
but which would have been incredibly costly).

"I want to be the white man's brother, not his brother-in-law."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.