The Other Reagan Legacy--In His Own Words
The popular notion is that Ronald Reagan said virtually nothing about civil rights and race matters before, during, and after his stint as California governor and as president. Quite the contrary, Reagan said quite a bit about race relations in America.
- On the 'white's only' restrictive covenant he signed on his house in 1941:
"I never read the deed and wouldn't have known how to interpret the legal technology there."
- On the 1954 Supreme Court Brown vs. Board of Education school desegregation decision:
"There was nothing that said there had to be---while it said you could not enforce segregation, it did not say that you had to force integration." - On racial discrimination:
"You can pass a law, but you don't change the heart of the individual who is discriminating now." [MORE] and [Blacks, gays mourn Reagan in own ways ] and [Remembering the Dead: Reagan Armed Iraq and Iran in 1980s War That Killed Over 1 Million] and [Ignoring AIDS: The Reagan Years ]