Reagan And Race: Words From The White House

Racism in America? A thing of the past, said Ronald Reagan.

After all, he fought the KKK back in 1951, and it was in the script—the Klan only went after white people!

All quotes below, Paul Slansky, The Clothes Have No Emperor.

[1981]

6/12
President Reagan fails to recognize his only black Cabinet member, Housing Secretary Samuel Pierce, at a White House reception for big city mayors. "How are you, Mr. Mayor?" he greets him. "I'm glad to meet you. How are things in your city?"

6/29 "I regard voting as the most sacred right of free men and women."
—President Reagan who, mouthed pieties aside, refuses to commit to supporting an extension of the Voting Rights Act

[1982]

1/8 The White House announces that President Reagan—who often wonders why people think he's anti-civil rights—has signed off on Ed Meese's plan to grant tax-exempt status to South Carolina's Bob Jones University and other schools that practice racial discrimination.

1/12 President Reagan explains that there must have been some kind of "misunderstanding" regarding his efforts to grant tax exemptions to segregated schools, since he is "unalterably opposed to racial discrimination in any form."

1/15 President Reagan phones The Washington Post to explain that when his new policy toward segregated schools was announced, he "didn't know at the time that there was a case pending." CBS quickly obtains a memo in which intervention in the Bob Jones University case was specifically requested, and on which Reagan had written, "I think we should."

5/10 Taking questions from students at a Chicago high school, President Reagan explains why his revised tax exemption policy could not possibly have been intended to benefit segregated schools. "I didn't know there were any," he says. "Maybe I should have"—Maybe?—"but I didn't."

9/16 REAGAN ASSERTS BLACKS WERE HURT BY PROGRAMS OF THE GREAT SOCIETY
—The New York Times

[1983]

6/29 President Reagan suggests that one cause of the decline in public education is the schools' efforts to comply with court-ordered desegregation.

10/19 Asked at his 20th press conference if he believes that Martin Luther King, Jr., had Communist ties, President Reagan alludes to a court order sealing transcripts of phone taps until 2018, quipping, "We'll know in about 35 years, won't we?"

11/2 President Reagan signs a bill making Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday a national holiday. When the crowd sings "We Shall Overcome," the President does not join in.

Jules Feiffer, 1983 (click image for dialog)

During the 1984 re-election campaign, the Reagan team shows its faith that PR shall overcome:

"Your policies are not in the least anti-black or anti-poor. As a matter of fact, it's my opinion that your fight against inflation, your war on the drug traffic, your tough stand against street crime, your effort in revitalizing the nation's economy, are all of great importance to us poor people and us black people in America."
—Letter allegedly received by President Reagan from a 39-year-old black man whose identity, as is so often the case with these epistles of unsolicited support, goes unrevealed.

"I feel more patriotic towards my country. I feel more proud to be an American."
—Black youth in the [campaign] film

Reagan fantasy and obliviousness: not limited to US affairs—

8/24 [1985] President Reagan tells an interviewer that the "reformist administration" of South African president P. W. Botha has made significant progress on the racial front. "They have eliminated the segregation that we once had in our own country," says the President, "the type of thing where hotel and restaurants and places of entertainment and so forth were segregated—that has all been eliminated."

7/22 [1986] Addressing the nation to explain his opposition to sanctions against South Africa, President Reagan refers to it as "South America." Says Bishop Desmond Tutu, "Your President is the pits as far as blacks are concerned ... I found the speech nauseating."

In 1988—

3/16 President Reagan—who still can't understand why he's perceived as insensitive to minorities—vetoes a major civil rights bill that would restore anti-discrimination laws removed by a Supreme Court decision. The veto is soundly overridden.

On January 15, 1989—a few days before departing the White House—

In a 60 Minutes interview airing on Martin Luther King, Jr.'s, birthday, President Reagan—again citing his half-century-old support for desegregation of baseball as proof of his commitment to equality—suggests that many civil rights leaders are just using racism to promote themselves. "Sometimes I wonder if they really want what they say they want," he says, pointing out that they are "doing very well leading organizations based on keeping alive the feeling that they're victims of prejudice."