My novel in progress, set in the Florida Panhandle in 1955, started me thinking that if only I had a time machine, I could go back to 1955 until the Pandemic is over. That means worrying about the KKK, but I’ll stay out of sight.
Crap, there’s a cold war going and the feds are developing ICBMs with nuclear war heads, Eisenhower might use force to protect Taiwan while sending military advisers to South Vietnam. All of that is bad and might wipe out the world. Little did he know how much of a mess those advisers would ultimately cause: 1,353,000 deaths, including 58,220 U.S. casualties.
Meanwhile, everyone’s worried about polio, with over 16,000 new cases each year, 1,879 of which were fatal. Those who loved gallows humor suggested saving the coupons (redeemable for merchandise) from their Raleigh cigarette packs for an ion lung. Since I’m suddenly psychic, I know that Salk’s polio vaccine will be out in a couple of months.
Marian Anderson has just become the first Black singer to sing at the Metropolitan Opera. My characters would like that. About a month later, fifteen-year-old Claudette Colvin was kicked, handcuffed, and verbally abused by police in a Montgomery bus for refusing to give up her seat to a white lady. My psychic powers tell me that her lawsuit resulted in bus segregation becoming unconstitutional the following year.
The U.S. is in the middle of the second, so-called “Red Scare.” McCarthyism is sweeping the country like a virus.
Okay, the hell with it, I think I’ll stay here in 2020 in spite of the year’s threats and challenges.
Malcolm's Round Table 
The Red Scare was a little over the top, but communism is pretty scary. It makes sense people are afraid of it. People truly suffer under communism.
I think it’s really cool you mentioned Claudette Colvin 🙂 It’s sad that she’s mostly forgotten by history, just because she wasn’t “proper” enough to be the face of the civil rights movement.
I always thought we could contain communism without stealing away people’s rights here at home. Yes, Colvin isn’t known to many people; that’s why my characters intend to mention what happened to her in Montgomery. Someday, we might right the wrong of her obscurity.