I’m not super familiar with this period in general besides some podcasts I’ve listen to. What could have been the best case scenerio? The U.S. is at it’s absolute drunken power height but the left is also as invigorated as it had been since the 30s.
If Fred Hampton did not get assassinated by the Chicago PD, he would’ve been assassinated by the CIA after becoming a national figure.
The coalition of minority liberation movements (Black, Chicano, Indigenous) and students was never going to be enough to challenge the state. They needed a coalition with the industrial trade unions. But all the communists were purged from the unions in the early 50’s.
There’s a reason the Red Scare targeted communists in the labor movement first. The industrial proletariat is the class best situated to overthrow capitalism. If they stop play along, this entire game grinds to a halt.
The real key depends on whether they could’ve converted enough white working class to the cause I suppose. And based on support for MLK in ‘66 - which was only 33% favourable - a number I’m sure was even lower if the poll had been solely of white people - it doesn’t look good.
Note that MLK actually only got more unpopular between then and his death, once he started criticising the invasion of Vietnam. In fact, his popularity - which was +6 favourable just over a year before that ‘66 poll - specifically started to fall once he changed tack from focusing on segregation in the South to poverty in the North - and MLK wasn’t suggesting anything near as radical as the BPP or the Young Lords. Marching in Chicago he was hit in the head and knocked over by a bottle by counter-protestors, and had this to say:
“I have seen many demonstrations in the South, but I have never seen anything so hostile and so hateful as I’ve seen here today,” he said.
Based on white Amerikkka’s reaction to even a slight raising of gears in the civil rights movement, I am 100% confident they would’ve closed ranks against any nascent nationwide movement of minorities, especially one that was explicitly revolutionary and anti-capitalist at the height of the Cold War.
The real answer of course is the state would’ve just kept trying to assassinate the leaders until they succeeded, and used COINTELPRO to smash the movement generally.
