Ronald Reagan was a well-known actor who in 1980 was elected the 40th President of the United States, after having first served as Governor of California. A Republican, Reagan instituted an economic policy based on reducing taxes, regulation, and government spending (nicknamed “Reaganomics”). Although President Richard Nixon was the first to use the phrase “War on Drugs” and initiate some of its key policies, it is Reagan who is most closely associated with the drug war. Although conventional wisdom holds that Reagan ramped up anti-drug efforts in response to the crack epidemic, in The New Jim Crow Alexander suggests that the drug war actually preceded the rise in popularity of crack, and that the Reagan administration in fact deliberately increased public hysteria about the threat of crack in order to build support for militant policing and mass incarceration. Reagan’s political legacy is controversial; highly popular among conservatives, he is also widely associated with civil rights infringements, a steep decline in social welfare, and the reversal of racial progress.
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Ronald Reagan Character Timeline in The New Jim Crow
The timeline below shows where the character Ronald Reagan appears in The New Jim Crow. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Introduction
...was devised as a response to the crack cocaine epidemic; however, the reality is that Reagan announced the initiative before crack was really a problem. When crack did emerge as a...
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Chapter 1: The Rebirth of Caste
...Republican party; the “war on drugs” originally proposed by Nixon later became a centerpiece of Reagan’s campaign and presidency. Reagan drastically expanded federal law enforcement agencies with astonishing speed at the...
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...American conservatives utilized the crack epidemic as an excuse to wage war on black people. Reagan’s administration deliberately fueled public hysteria over crack, encouraging the association between the drug and black...
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...Drugs achieved enormous public support, and President George Bush, Sr. picked up where his predecessor, Reagan, left off. The public continued to panic about a drug crisis that was mostly the...
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Chapter 2: The Lockdown
...with). She notes that even the conservative Supreme Court justice Anthony Kennedy—who was appointed by Reagan—has called mandatory minimum sentencing unnecessary and “unjust.”
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Chapter 3: The Color of Justice
...black culture and drugs that was deliberately created by the media and government during the Reagan years. As a result, ordinary Americans have internalized the racist association between black people and...
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