Reagan, Neshoba and the Politics of Race
I will have more to say later about the race issue in American politics—as it happens, I have a book on this topic coming out shortly. But first I want to address a specific charge that Paul has repeated—that Ronald Reagan was some sort of crypto racist because he attacked “welfare queens” and gave his first major speech after receiving the Republican nomination in 1980 at Philadelphia, Mississippi, where some civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964.
The speech at the Neshoba County Fair is often used as proof positive that Reagan was courting the votes of racist Southerners by using code phrases like “states’ rights.” Indeed, Reagan did use that term in his Neshoba speech. However, if one actually listens to Reagan’s speech—available in MP3 format here—it is pretty clear that there was no winking and nodding going on. It was a standard campaign stump speech that was heavy on jokes about Jimmy Carter, concerns about inflation and unemployment, foreign policy, and the evils of bureaucracy.
When Reagan got to the point where he mentioned states’ rights, it was only after a discussion of wanting to devolve federal power and resources to the states in areas such as education. He argued that governmental functions that can best be delivered at the state and local level ought to be delivered at that level. In doing so, Reagan was simply stating a belief in federalism that echoed the words of Thomas Jefferson in his first Inaugural Address and first State of the Union message.
Ironically, the timing of Reagan’s speech at Neshoba came about because his advisers were actually trying to avoid sending a racist message. He had been scheduled to open his campaign with a speech to the Urban League in New York City. But his advisers feared that if he went from that event to Neshoba, he would be accused of precisely what he ended up being accused of anyway—winking and nodding on the race issue. This fact was reported by Lou Cannon of the Washington Post in his dispatch from Neshoba published on August 4, 1980. As Cannon wrote:
Originally, Reagan was scheduled to make the Urban League appearance first, and then fly to deliver his speech here at the Neshoba County Fair. But some in the campaign objected to the symbolism of Reagan going to a community where three civil rights workers were slain with the complicity of local policy officials in 1964. “It would have been like we were coming to Mississippi and winking at the folks here, saying we didn’t really mean to be talking to them Urban League folk,” said one Reagan source. “It would have been the wrong signal.”
Reagan went directly from Mississippi to the Urban League convention, where he made a strong pitch for black votes. He argued that the best federal policies for African Americans were the same policies that were best for Americans of all races: a strong economy, low taxes and so on. Reagan continued to make this argument as president, such as when he spoke to the annual meeting of the NAACP on June 29, 1981.
One can agree or disagree whether a “color blind” policy by the federal government is desirable. But it is unfair to imply that it is racist. To do so is to say that it is inherently racist to believe that government should be smaller, less intrusive and more limited in its scope. I don’t think anyone will deny that this is a legitimate view long held by people with no racist intent whatsoever.
Some will argue, nevertheless, that there was something sinister about Reagan’s 1980 visit to Neshoba, since it is deep in the heart of Dixie. But surely it would be wrong to assert that Republicans had no right to campaign there or that doing so was per se racist. It should be remembered that in 1980 Reagan was running against a man of the South, Jimmy Carter of Georgia, who had carried every Southern state except Virginia in 1976.
Perhaps Reagan should have found somewhere else to kick off his campaign other than a place where civil rights workers had been martyred. But the truth is that there is so much vile racist history throughout the South that it would be hard to find a site where there had never been a lynching, slave revolt, race riot or other despicable racist episode. In other words, those determined to use the location of Reagan’s Neshoba speech as evidence of racism undoubtedly would be able to find similar evidence if he had spoken just about anywhere in the South. The only way he could have avoided such a charge would have been by not campaigning in the South and ceding that region once again to Carter.
Finally, it’s worth noting that the Neshoba County Fair is not some obscure event visited only by politicians chasing racist votes. In fact, it is a major stop for presidential candidates of both parties. For example, Michael Dukakis spoke there on August 4, 1988. According to press reports, he made only a passing reference to civil rights and, like Reagan eight years earlier, basically gave a standard stump speech. Yet no one has ever suggested that Dukakis was winking and nodding to local racists by speaking in Neshoba and not giving a strong pro-civil rights speech.
After looking at the evidence a few years ago, Kevin Drum of the liberal Washington Monthly magazine concluded that Reagan had gotten a “bum rap” on Neshoba. I think it is past time that this hoary example of alleged racism is retired.
Comments (25)
The problem is that we have people like Lee Atwater saying that the racial appeal is important--that there is "dog whistle" politics going on in which "states' rights" means one thing to people like Bruce Bartlett and quite another to other groups:
>Atwater: As to the whole Southern strategy that Harry Dent and others put together in 1968, opposition to the Voting Rights Act would have been a central part of keeping the South. Now [the new Southern Strategy of Ronald Reagan] doesn’t have to do that. All you have to do to keep the South is for Reagan to run in place on the issues he’s campaigned on since 1964… and that’s fiscal conservatism, balancing the budget, cut taxes, you know, the whole cluster…
>Questioner: But the fact is, isn’t it, that Reagan does get to the Wallace voter and to the racist side of the Wallace voter by doing away with legal services, by cutting down on food stamps…?
>Atwater: You start out in 1954 by saying, 'Nigger, nigger, nigger.' By 1968 you can't say 'nigger' - that hurts you. Backfires. So you say stuff like forced busing, states' rights and all that stuff. You're getting so abstract now [that] you're talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you're talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is [that] blacks get hurt worse than whites. And subconsciously maybe that is part of it. I'm not saying that. But I'm saying that if it is getting that abstract, and that coded, that we are doing away with the racial problem one way or the other. You follow me - because obviously sitting around saying, 'We want to cut this,' is much more abstract than even the busing thing, and a hell of a lot more abstract than 'Nigger, nigger.'
October 30, 2007 9:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
Either Reagan and his advisors were the densest people on the planet or you are just being disingenuous. Reagan did not have to be a racist to use the racism of his supporters. To use race loaded terms as if they had not racial meaning is absurd. To go to Philadelphia, Mississippi and talk about state's rights was and is morally repugnant.
Daniel A. Greenbaum
October 30, 2007 9:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
False. Subliminal messages are powerful, racism need not be overt to be racially impactful.
October 30, 2007 10:19 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow Bruce Bartlett's assistant is back. Or if it is Bruce Bartlett, he's still not bringing his A-game.
The whole "welfare queen" notion was racist, plain and simple. It also addressed a problem that didn't actually exist.
thosethingswesay.blogspot.com
October 30, 2007 10:41 AM | Reply | Permalink
There may be yankies who would be fooled by this defense of Regan. Here in the south we know what states rights means. It means that the locals controll rather than the federal government that orders you to free your slaves and desegregate. It was the rallying cry of segregationist and their slave holder ancestors. It was the principal that motivated the CSA's loosing effort. Every redneck with the stars and bars on his pickup or t-shirt knows what states rights means and so do the political operatives writing GOP speaches south of the Mason-Dixon. The GOP gets the vote of every parent who sends their children to some white flight, racist, christian academy that is funded with the same hate that killed Emmitt Till.
October 30, 2007 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reagan used a lot of racist innuendo other than the, "state's rights" comments in Philadelphia, MS. He insinuated that MLK was a communist; something only the most hardcore segregationists believed. Reagan's entire presidency was replete with racist innuendo and insinuations.
D.
October 30, 2007 10:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Reposted as a new post as it should have been instead of as a reply.
October 30, 2007 10:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
I will tell you another group of voters who know what 'states rights' means, African Americans. If you mention states rights in your campeign they know that you are their enemy and are in favor of allowing the states to revert to the racist ways they behaved before the federal government prevented them from using the dogs and water cannons in defense of opression.
October 30, 2007 10:54 AM | Reply | Permalink
The more the GOP attempts to run from it's racist past, the less importance it will have in the voting patterns of African Americans. GW garnered 9-11% of the Black vote. Bush used Colin Powell like a stepchild.
Even JC watts was embarassed by the top tier GOP POTUS candidates refusing to appear before a largely Black audience at Morgan State University in Baltimore.
Until I hear the GOP address it's full history including fracturing into the Liliy Whites (White party members) and the Blacks and Tans (Progressive Whites & Black party members) in some states, the James Watts' "tight shoes" White elitism in the GOP, the Lee Atwater era, and the current disgrace going on in the Civil rights Division of the DOJ including chief John Tanner, the Republican Party has nothing to say to me or my family. Any words coming out of the mouth of a GOP operative regarding race will be treated as static.
October 30, 2007 11:49 AM | Reply | Permalink
Bruce, cut us a break. Everybody can figure out the "subliminable" message sent by opening a campaign where the civil rights workers were murdered. The message was clearly "white racists in, civil rights movement out."
October 30, 2007 11:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
wanting to devolve federal power and resources to the states in areas such as education
If memory serves me correctly, there was some minor kerfuffle over federal intervention "areas such as education" in the South.
October 30, 2007 12:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
October 30, 2007 2:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Thanks for pointing that out. I had heard of the States' Rights party that split from the dems but I had never putit together with the GOP adopting the states rights position.
October 30, 2007 2:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
Here's Reagan's opening statement:
October 30, 2007 3:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
You're welcome.
Reagan took the Republican Party from virtual irrelevance to the ascendancy it now enjoys. The essence of that transformation, we shouldn't forget, is the GOP's successful wooing of the race-exploiting Southern Democrats formerly known as Dixiecrats. And Reagan's Philadelphia appearance was an important 'first date' in that courtship.
October 30, 2007 3:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
So Bruce, what you are saying is that Reagan was for equal rights for blacks, he made that clear, and as a result millions of southern (and northern) white racists stayed home on election day? Funny, that's not how I recall it.
Mind you, I am not saying that Reagan was a racist. In fact, conservatism is not a racist political philosophy. The problem is there are not enough authentic conservatives to win national elections, and so the conservative political movement decided long ago to make an alliance with Southern white agrarian evangelical racists, an alliance that continues to this day. And of course, you know perfectly well that what I am saying is true.
October 30, 2007 5:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Bruce,
Given your spin on Reagan, I was just wondering what your spin on your dear "conscious of the Senate" home state Senator Robert Byrd would be in that book of yours you are writing on race and politics. Do you think Byrd is not a racist too. After all, you could possibly be one of the folks he is referring to in his interview with Tony Snow.
P.S. Was it the Heirtage Foundation that fired you?October 30, 2007 5:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
I think like most politicians, Reagan knew exactly what he was doing when he spoke at Philadelphia, MS and mentioned states' rights. He may have a good alibi that he had spoken of states' rights elsewhere and that federalism was core to his philosophy. But he and his advisers must have known that it would be taken as a wink and a nod by southern racists. My guess is they decided they were going to do whatever it takes to win and if the code of racists was a winning strategy, then that's what they were going to do. From their standpoint, this was not so egregiously offensive that it was going to turn off white moderates. And if they pick up a few racists along the way, then they're not going to tell them to go away.
But this by itself is hardly proof that Reagan's GOP majority was built through racism. What's more interesting is the question of whether the GOP's economic message was ALSO latently racist. To what extent were poor southern whites attracted to Reagan's small government, anti-welfare message - something that was manifestly not in their economic interest - because they thought that blacks were benefiting more than they were? To what extent were they attracted to his message of anti-communism because they thought blacks were sympathetic to communism? Where does the latent racism manifest itself, not the subliminal or overt racism? That's what is interesting.
October 30, 2007 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
Re: Reagan took the Republican Party from virtual irrelevance to the ascendancy it now enjoys.
??? Between the death of FDR and the election of Reagan the GOP won 4 of the 8 presidential elections. That's hardly "irrelevance".
October 30, 2007 6:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
How much of that time were they the majority of either house of congress?
October 30, 2007 8:06 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jesus H. Christ on a Crutch. I have never read such vile, half baked, dishonest, gutter tripe.
There is an old maxim among lawyers that even if your argument doesn't persuade you, make it anyway, the Judge might buy it.
But this... this takes the cake. I've seldom seen such pervasive intellectual dishonesty on display, such vile cynicism, such an amoral and contemptuous display for the audience.
This is the sort of smirking, vile, condescending bull that causes the entire argument to be thrown out.
It's so contemptible on so many different levels. For one thing, he equates the recent shocking murder of civil rights workers, an action that brought national attention and was one of the fulcrums in the civil rights campaign... and blithely dismisses it as being on the same plane and same level as stuff that occurred a century ago.
His shocking ahistoricity denies any historical significance to the incident, for both racists and for the civil rights movement, and simply equates it with the other 10,000 lynchings and race riots that formed a part of Southern history. All of which were bad and awful, not all of which were considered key pivotal historical events.
Nor does he explain the choice in any positive sense, except as 'one place is as good as another.' But the South has a rich and storied history of culture, he could have started off at the birthplace of Mark Twain or William Faulkner, or picked out something of positive significance to the civil rights movement or southern culture.
In the end, Bartlett's argument speaks to a deep and abiding contempt for his audience, a condescending air that we are too stupid to appreciate his utter hypocrisy, a lazy and slovenly attitude towards the very truth or the fundamentals of debate.
I cannot help but feel insulted by this passage.
Bruce Bartlett, you sir, are a douche, and I am only sorry I cannot say this to your face.
October 30, 2007 9:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
Reality check:
Joe Scarborough on his MSNBC TV show this AM
stated that he knew "Reagan Democrats" in Florida and elsewhere who could not, even in 2008, bring themselves to vote for a Black man (Read Barack Obama).
Reagan knew exactly how to tailor his message to reach his racist focus group. Reagan's legacy will have to include the fact that he had to be aware of the target audience he was attempting to reach.
If Guiliani is the GOP POTUS candidate, I'm betting he can best Barry Goldwater's 6% African-American vote percentage for the lowest Black vote received by a GOP Presidential candidate. This will be even more certain if Guiliani accepts your historical analysis of the GOP and Black voters.
October 31, 2007 5:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
First, Byrd should've retired long ago.
Second, he's apologized many times. "I know now I was wrong. Intolerance had no place in America. I apologized a thousand times . . . and I don't mind apologizing over and over again. I can't erase what happened."
How does Byrd being an idiot and apologizing equate to wishy washy, sycophantic explanations of Reagan's use of racist code words? When's the last time anyone save Lee Atwater on his deathbed apologized for GOP race baiting?
I grew up in the south and have family ties to Newt Gingrich. The schools in my county weren't desegregated until 1971! Coincidentally, the first private school in the county opened that same year.
I've seen this stuff up close and it ain't pretty. The worst of it is behind us, but I still hear the n-word fairly frequently around there.
October 31, 2007 10:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe a better phrase would have been "the Conservative wing of the Repubicna party"
Those 4 elections you mention are 2 for Ike and 2 for Nixon, neiter of whom is particluar conservative by teh domestic policy standards of the current republian party. And as someone else pointed out the Democrats controlled the Legislative agenda during that entire period.
We've gone from Ike's term where the right wing loons were locked away in an attic to today where any sane republican who dares to deviate from the Club for Growth/supply sider snake oil is an endangered species.
October 31, 2007 2:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
Exactly... he went to the site of the most infamous "integrated" civil right murders, and called for states rights in the context of education (i.e. school desegregation, busing, rise of the segregation academies that whose fight for taxfree status was the real original cause for the rise of the moral majority)... Reagan was indeed dog whistling to the racists that he was one of them.
That is how it was recongnized by all sides at the time.
Bartlett and Drum are wrong. And most of the commenters, and Atwater are right... deliberately appealing to southern white racism to the core.
November 1, 2007 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink