Reconsidering Reagan: Racism, Republicans, and the Road to Trump

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

About the 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.

Review :
“Trained as both a lawyer and historian, Lucks steadily builds his case with both a prosecutor’s zeal and a scholar’s fine eye for evidence, causation, and context.” —Religion Dispatches “Reconsidering Reagan fills a gap in our national understanding of how white supremacy remains embedded in our laws and policies and how Reagan’s racism left a powerful legacy for Donald Trump.” —Mary Frances Berry, member and chair, US Commission on Civil Rights, 1980–2004, and author of History Teaches Us to Resist   “Daniel Lucks has written the first sustained and comprehensive treatment of Ronald Reagan’s racial politics. . . . This exploration truly helps us grasp the character and impact of Reagan’s leadership. Those who want to understand how the GOP became the party of Trump should read Reconsidering Reagan.” —Doug Rossinow, author of The Reagan Era: A History of the 1980s “Throughout his political career, Ronald Reagan was on the wrong side of almost every civil rights question. Too many accounts of his life have downplayed or ignored his shameful record on civil and human rights. In this powerful and persuasive book, Daniel Lucks shines an honest, uncompromising light on Reagan’s disgraceful legacy and draws a straight line from Reagan to Donald Trump.” —Robert Mann, author of Becoming Ronald Reagan: The Rise of a Conservative Icon “Deeply researched and forcefully written, Reconsidering Reagan provides a bracing reexamination of Reagan’s attitudes, rhetoric, and policies toward the question of civil rights and racial injustice. Lucks gives a searing indictment of Reagan’s leadership of the conservative movement that’s sure to revise our understanding of who Reagan was and what he stood for.” —Matthew Dallek, author of The Right Moment: Ronald Reagan’s First Victory and the Decisive Turning Point in American Politics “An elegantly written, powerfully argued, and unsparing indictment of Reagan’s racial record across his entire political career. . . . This history ought to trouble the consciences of principled conservatives and should be required reading for all Americans who seek to understand the trajectory of the Republican Party since Reagan.” —Geoffrey Kabaservice, director of political studies at the Niskanen Center and author of Rule and Ruin: The Downfall of Moderation and the Destruction of the Republican Party, from Eisenhower to the Tea Party