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Reagan and Race: "He Maintained A System Of Rich And
Poor, A System Of Black And White"
Reagan and the Homeless Epidemic in America
Reagan, Class and Organized Labor: "One Of The Most
Damaging Presidents In American History"
Allied with Apartheid: Reagan Supported Racist South African
Gvt
Reagan and Race: "He Maintained A System Of
Rich And Poor, A System Of Black And White"
We take a look at Reagan's policies on race and civil rights
with the Rev. Graylan Hagler, discussing the former president's
assault on affirmative actions and social welfare programs
and the rise of the crack epidemic in African American communities.
Throughout the week on Democracy Now!, we have reported extensively
on the Record of Ronald Reagan during his 8 years in office.
From Iran-Contra, to the bloody US-fuelled conflicts in Central
America, to his administration's arming of both Iran and Iraq,
to his invasion of Grenada and the nuclear arms race. Our
series is called "Remembering the Dead." Later in
the program, we will take a close look at Reagan's policy
toward apartheid South Africa.
But first, we are going to shift gears and take a close look
at Reagan's policies at home, here in the US. Among Reagan's
achievements that you won't hear about from most of the pundits
is that Reagan was the first president to turn the US into
a debtor nation, nearly tripling the nation's debt in his
8 years in office. He was also the first president since the
Great Depression to see unemployment hit more than 10%. Reagan
cracked down on organized labor and America's homeless population
grew to over 2 million people. On the issue of race, the most
cited moment of the Reagan presidency during the past week
was that he signed legislation for a national holiday honoring
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.. But this is hardly representative
of Reagan's policies on race and civil rights.
Ronald Reagan launched his campaign for the presidency in
Philadelphia, Mississippi. That is the place now infamous
from the civil rights movement. It was where three civil rights
workers were murdered in one of the most well-known cases
of racist violence from the 60s. During his first run for
office, Reagan proudly waved his Dixiecrat credentials, saying:
"I believe in states' rights and I believe in people
doing as much as they can for themselves at the community
level and at the private level."
After taking office in 1981, Reagan began a sustained attack
on the government's civil rights apparatus, opened an assault
on affirmative action and social welfare programs, embraced
the White racist leaders of then-apartheid South Africa and
waged war on the tiny, Black Caribbean nation of Grenada.
During his presidency, Reagan fired members of the U.S. Commission
on Civil Rights who criticized his civil rights policies,
including his strong opposition to affirmative action programs.
One of the commissioners recalls that the judge who overturned
the dismissal did so because "you can't fire a watchdog
for biting." Reagan also attempted to limit and gut the
Voting Rights Act and he slashed important programs like the
Comprehensive Employment and Training Act that provided assistance
to many African Americans.
- Rev. Graylan Hagler, president of Ministers for Racial,
Social and Economic Justice.
Reagan and the Homeless Epidemic in America
Reagan's budget cuts and overhaul of tax codes led to an
explosion of homelessness in the U.S. during his 8 years in
power. We speak with Carol Fennelly, a leading activist on
homeless issues during the Reagan presidency.
Throughout the week, Ronald Reagan has been praised almost
non-stop on television, in newspapers and in magazines. Politicians
and pundits from both establishment political parties have
been practically falling over each other to heap praise on
Reagan. And as he is glorified for what are termed his accomplishments
and legacy, there is one term that was rose to prominence
during Reagan's time in power that is seldom mentioned. That
is "homelessness."
In fact many homeless rights activists say the single most
devastating thing Reagan did to create homelessness was when
he cut the budget for the Department of Housing and Urban
Development by three-quarters, from $32 billion in 1981 to
$7.5 billion by 1988. The department was the main governmental
supporter of subsidized housing for the poor. Add this to
Reagan's overhaul of tax codes to reduce incentives for private
developers to create low-income homes and you had a major
crisis for low-income families and individuals. Under Reagan,
the number of people living beneath the federal poverty line
rose from 24.5 million in 1978 to 32.5 million in 1988.
And the number of homeless people went from something so
little it wasn't even written about widely in the late 1970s
to more than 2 million when Reagan left office. But as Reagan
proudly declared that the number of homeless shelters had
increased significantly during his presidency, the homeless
epidemic did not go ignored by everyone, especially not in
Reagan's back yard in Washington DC. Homeless rights activist
Mitch Snyder and a dedicated group of homeless people and
activists waged a many year campaign to win rights for people
forced to live on the streets. Ultimately, they formed a movement
based at what came to be known as the Community for Creative
Non-Violence or CCNV. We are joined now by one of the people
who was a leader of the homeless rights movement at CCNV during
the Reagan years.
- Carol Fennelly, was a leading activist on homeless issues
during the Reagan presidency. Along with Mitch Snyder, she
was instrumental in establishing the Community for Creative
Non-Violence in Washington DC. She is currently the Director
of Hope House in Washington.
Reagan, Class and Organized Labor: "One Of The
Most Damaging Presidents In American History"
We speak with Dolores Huerta of the United Farm Workers
of America and Francis Fox Piven, one of the country's leading
sociologists, about class and organized labor during Reagan's
presidency.
As we move to the issue of workers right's and labor under
Ronald Reagan. Many critics of the former president recall
with great anger the policies of Reagonomics. His administration
was one of the worst in history for organized labor. And his
track record was consistent almost from the beginning of his
career in the public eye. In the late 1940's, as president
of the Screen Actors' Guild union, Ronald Reagan testified
before the House Un-American Activities Committee on so-called
"subversive activity" in Hollywood, reporting on
actors, directors, and screenwriters deemed Communist sympathizers.
And in the 1960's and 70's, as Governor of the State of California,
Reagan fought the efforts of migrant farm workers to win union
contracts, vetoing the Agricultural Labor Relations Act, a
bill granting farm workers collective bargaining rights. In
one well-publicized episode, then-Governor Reagan appeared
on television eating grapes in defiance of a union-sponsored
boycott against miserable working conditions in California's
vineyards.
In August of 1981, thirteen thousand members of the Professional
Air Traffic Controllers Organization, or PATCO, ignored federal
laws prohibiting strikes and walked off the job in protest
of long shifts and mandatory overtime. PATCO was one of a
few unions that backed the newly inaugurated Ronald Reagan
in the 1980 election, but the union would soon regret its
decision to support the President. On August 3rd, Reagan ordered
the striking controllers back to work:
(Tape)
"Let me read the solemn oath taken by each of these
employees. I am not participating in any strike against
the government of the United States or any agency thereof.
It is for this reason that I must tell those that fail to
report to duty this morning they are in violation of the
law, and if they do not report for work within forty-eight
hours, they will be terminated."
Two days later, Reagan made good on his promise, firing more
than eleven thousand air traffic controllers, jailing strike
leaders and ultimately abolishing the union. It was the first
time in U.S. history that permanent replacement workers had
been used on such a wide scale to break a strike.
- Francis Fox Piven, one of the country's leading sociologists.
She is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and
Sociology at the City University of New York. She is author
of a number of books on class, including "Regulating
the Poor," "Poor Peoples' Movements," and
"The New Class War."
- Dolores Huerta, Co-founder of the United
Farm Workers of America with Cesar Chavez. Her efforts
to organize the mostly immigrant farm workers of California
in the 1960's and 70's were resisted at every turn by then-Governor
Ronald Reagan.
Allied with Apartheid: Reagan Supported Racist South
African Gvt
Throughout his presidency, Reagan supported the apartheid
government in South Africa and even labeled Nelson Mandela's
African National Congress a notorious terrorist organization.
We speak with South African activist Father Michael Lapsley
who lost his hands, one eye and was burned severely in an
assassination attempt under the De Klerk government.
Former South African President Nelson Mandela recently announced
that he was retiring from public life. And Mandela will not
be among the foreign dignitaries attending services for Ronald
Reagan. After all, Mandela was languishing in a South African
prison throughout the duration of Reagan's presidency. But
this history has been effectively re-written in the US. The
dominant view is that the US was on the right side in South
Africa, that it opposed apartheid. But nothing could be further
from the truth, particularly when Reagan was president. Reagan
labeled Mandela's African National Congress a notorious terrorist
organization, while continuing Washington's support for the
apartheid regime. In 1981, Reagan explained to CBS that he
was loyal to the South African regime because it was "a
country that has stood by us in every war we've ever fought,
a country that, strategically, is essential to the free world
in its production of minerals."
But even as the majority of the American people came to oppose
South Africa's apartheid regime, Reagan stood by his friend.
African American leaders and organizations pressured Congress
to take action and ultimately it passed sanctions against
South Africa. True to form, Reagan vetoed the bill. But to
Reagan's shame, Congress overrode the veto. Today, we are
going to look at Reagan's support for apartheid South Africa
with one of the victim's of that regime-Father Michael Lapsley.
In 1990, three months after the release of Nelson Mandela,
the De Klerk Government sent Father Lapsley a package containing
two magazines. Inside one of them was a highly sophisticated
bomb. When Lapsley opened the magazine, the explosion brought
down ceilings in the house and blew a hole in the floors and
shattered windows. It also blew off both of the priest's hands,
blew out one of his eyes and burned him severely. He flew
in from South Africa last night and now joins us in our firehouse
studio.
- Fr. Michael Lapsley, director of the Institute for Healing
of Memories. Previously he worked at the Trauma Center for
Victims of Violence and Torture in Cape Town, which assisted
the Truth and Reconciliation Commission headed by Archbishop
Desmond Tutu. He flew in from South Africa last night.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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