My favorite alternate history hypothetical, known to me as the “Good Nixon” scenario, asks what if Richard Nixon had won the 1960 Presidential election and ended up shepherding the Civil Rights Act into law. Key to establishing the plausibility of the hypothetical is the knowledge that as of the late-1950s, Nixon was a member of the faction of the Republican Party that believed the right strategy was the court the black vote and regain its old pre-FDR loyalty to the New Deal. The Nixon we know is the Nixon of the Southern Strategy, but the Nixon who almost won in 1960 was the Good Nixon.  This is nicely illustrated by the above snippet from Ebony, located by Ta-Nehisi Coates. 

My favorite alternate history hypothetical, known to me as the “Good Nixon” scenario, asks what if Richard Nixon had won the 1960 Presidential election and ended up shepherding the Civil Rights Act into law. Key to establishing the plausibility of the hypothetical is the knowledge that as of the late-1950s, Nixon was a member of the faction of the Republican Party that believed the right strategy was the court the black vote and regain its old pre-FDR loyalty to the New Deal. The Nixon we know is the Nixon of the Southern Strategy, but the Nixon who almost won in 1960 was the Good Nixon. 

This is nicely illustrated by the above snippet from Ebony, located by Ta-Nehisi Coates.