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Reconsidering Reagan

Racism, Republicans, and the Road to Trump

Author Daniel S. Lucks
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Hardcover
$28.95 US
Beacon Press
On sale Aug 04, 2020 | 352 Pages | 9780807029572
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2021 Prose Award Finalist

A long-overdue and sober examination of President Ronald Reagan’s racist politics that continue to harm communities today and helped shape the modern conservative movement.

Ronald Reagan is hailed as a transformative president and an American icon, but within his twentieth-century politics lies a racial legacy that is rarely discussed. Both political parties point to Reagan as the “right” kind of conservative but fail to acknowledge his political attacks on people of color prior to and during his presidency. Reconsidering Reagan corrects that narrative and reveals how his views, policies, and actions were devastating for Black Americans and racial minorities, and that the effects continue to resonate today.

Using research from previously untapped resources including the Black press which critically covered Reagan’s entire political career, Daniel S. Lucks traces Reagan’s gradual embrace of conservatism, his opposition to landmark civil rights legislation, his coziness with segregationists, and his skill in tapping into white anxiety about race, riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the Presidency. He argues that Reagan has the worst civil rights record of any President since the 1920s—including supporting South African apartheid, packing courts with conservatives, targeting laws prohibiting discrimination in education and housing, and launching the “War on Drugs”—which had cataclysmic consequences on the lives of Black and Brown people.

Linking the past to the present, Lucks expertly examines how Reagan set the blueprint for President Trump and proves that he is not an anomaly, but in fact the logical successor to bring back the racially tumultuous America that Reagan conceptualized.
Introduction

PART I: UP FROM RACIAL LIBERALISM

CHAPTER 1
Early Reagan: The Unmaking of a Racial Liberal

CHAPTER 2
On the Wrong Side of History: States’ Rights vs. Human Rights

PART II: RIDING THE WAVE OF THE WHITE BACKLASH (1966–1980)

CHAPTER 3
Reagan’s First Campaign: Riots, the Rumford Act, and Backlash Politics

CHAPTER 4
Reagan’s 1968 Race for the Presidency: “Law and Order” and the Southern Strategy

CHAPTER 5
The Perfect Targets: Black Radicals and Welfare Moochers

CHAPTER 6
Reagan’s Near Miss in 1976: Welfare Queens, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace Voters

CHAPTER 7
Let’s Make America Great Again: Reagan’s 1980 Triumph

PART III: PRESIDENT REAGAN: ROLLING BACK THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION (1981–1989)

CHAPTER 8
Launching a Counterrevolution in Civil Rights

CHAPTER 9
Controlling the Civil Rights Commission and Igniting Old Conservative Battles

CHAPTER 10
South Africa: Reagan’s Embrace of the Apartheid Government and the Fight for Sanctions

CHAPTER 11
The Battle for the Judiciary

CHAPTER 12
The War on Drugs, Willie Horton, and the Criminalization of Blackness

CONCLUSION
Reagan’s Racial Legacy and the Road to Trump

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index
Daniel S. Lucks holds a PhD in American history from the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. He is a graduate of the University of California Hastings College of the Law and lives in Los Angeles.
Daniel S. Lucks View titles by Daniel S. Lucks

About

2021 Prose Award Finalist

A long-overdue and sober examination of President Ronald Reagan’s racist politics that continue to harm communities today and helped shape the modern conservative movement.

Ronald Reagan is hailed as a transformative president and an American icon, but within his twentieth-century politics lies a racial legacy that is rarely discussed. Both political parties point to Reagan as the “right” kind of conservative but fail to acknowledge his political attacks on people of color prior to and during his presidency. Reconsidering Reagan corrects that narrative and reveals how his views, policies, and actions were devastating for Black Americans and racial minorities, and that the effects continue to resonate today.

Using research from previously untapped resources including the Black press which critically covered Reagan’s entire political career, Daniel S. Lucks traces Reagan’s gradual embrace of conservatism, his opposition to landmark civil rights legislation, his coziness with segregationists, and his skill in tapping into white anxiety about race, riding a wave of “white backlash” all the way to the Presidency. He argues that Reagan has the worst civil rights record of any President since the 1920s—including supporting South African apartheid, packing courts with conservatives, targeting laws prohibiting discrimination in education and housing, and launching the “War on Drugs”—which had cataclysmic consequences on the lives of Black and Brown people.

Linking the past to the present, Lucks expertly examines how Reagan set the blueprint for President Trump and proves that he is not an anomaly, but in fact the logical successor to bring back the racially tumultuous America that Reagan conceptualized.

Table of Contents

Introduction

PART I: UP FROM RACIAL LIBERALISM

CHAPTER 1
Early Reagan: The Unmaking of a Racial Liberal

CHAPTER 2
On the Wrong Side of History: States’ Rights vs. Human Rights

PART II: RIDING THE WAVE OF THE WHITE BACKLASH (1966–1980)

CHAPTER 3
Reagan’s First Campaign: Riots, the Rumford Act, and Backlash Politics

CHAPTER 4
Reagan’s 1968 Race for the Presidency: “Law and Order” and the Southern Strategy

CHAPTER 5
The Perfect Targets: Black Radicals and Welfare Moochers

CHAPTER 6
Reagan’s Near Miss in 1976: Welfare Queens, Jesse Helms, and George Wallace Voters

CHAPTER 7
Let’s Make America Great Again: Reagan’s 1980 Triumph

PART III: PRESIDENT REAGAN: ROLLING BACK THE CIVIL RIGHTS REVOLUTION (1981–1989)

CHAPTER 8
Launching a Counterrevolution in Civil Rights

CHAPTER 9
Controlling the Civil Rights Commission and Igniting Old Conservative Battles

CHAPTER 10
South Africa: Reagan’s Embrace of the Apartheid Government and the Fight for Sanctions

CHAPTER 11
The Battle for the Judiciary

CHAPTER 12
The War on Drugs, Willie Horton, and the Criminalization of Blackness

CONCLUSION
Reagan’s Racial Legacy and the Road to Trump

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

Author

Daniel S. Lucks holds a PhD in American history from the University of California, Berkeley and is the author of Selma to Saigon: The Civil Rights Movement and the Vietnam War. He is a graduate of the University of California Hastings College of the Law and lives in Los Angeles.
Daniel S. Lucks View titles by Daniel S. Lucks

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