Thread by @ashtonpittman

THREAD: There is a persistent historical myth that needs to be corrected. It's important.

Contrary to popular myth online, Ronald Reagan did not launch his 1980 campaign at the Neshoba County Fair in Philadelphia, MS (site of the Mississippi Burning murders).

Keep reading 👇🏻 1/

This myth appears everywhere. If you Google "Ronald Reagan campaign launch," this is the top link that comes up (other Neshoba links follow). 👇🏻 2/

If you search, "Where did Ronald Reagan launch his presidential campaign?," this inaccurate Q&A comes up.

Reagan did not give his "I Believe un State's Rights" Neshoba speech on August 8, 1979.

In fact, he did not even launch his campaign until November 1979. 3/ 👇🏻

I've mostly let this slide, because Reagan DID give an infamous race-baiting speech, joined by Dixiecrats, at the Neshoba County Fair—but on 8/3/1980—after he'd secured the Republican nomination, and three months before the election.

Our elections ain't that short here. 4/

But when I saw this myth repeated in the introduction of a book written by a historian I greatly admire ("In Search of Another Country" by Joe Crespino; very important work you should read despite this one error), I knew this myth had gone too far. 5/

This is an image from Ronald Reagan's 1980 campaign launch. This is not the Neshoba County Fair, you may notice.

Date: November 13, 1979
Location: New York
Medium: TV
Link:
6/

Reagan's 1980 campaign launch speech may shock in the Trump era. Ex:

"It's time we stopped thinking of our nearest neighbors as foreigners...we can dare to dream (of a day when Americans, Mexicans & Canadians) flow more freely across the present borders than they do today." 7/

Flash forward 35 years, and a future Republican president offered a very different view of Mexicans in his 2015 campaign launch speech:

"They're bring drugs. They're bringing crime. They're rapists." 8/

But Reagan's Neshoba County speech, on Aug. 3, 1980, was also a far cry from the more nationally unifying campaign launch speech he gave in New York 9 months earlier.

His appeals to "state's rights" was all about wooing Southern segregationists. 9/ neshobademocrat.com/Content/NEWS/N…

I suspect that the reason this myth began is because the Neshoba County speech was the first Reagan gave in his GENERAL ELECTION campaign after the GOP convention, and that got short handed as "general campaign launch," and then "campaign launch." 10/

It also probably helps people who see the racist-baiting Southern Strategy as an important part of Reagan's 1980 campaign (remember, southern strategist Lee Atwater was on the campaign) to tie it up into a neat bow. 11/

Saying, "Reagan kicked off his campaign with a speech on state's rights surrounded by Rebel flags at the Neshoba County Fair in the town of the Mississippi Burning murders" does wrap that narrative up in a nice m, on-the-nose bow.

But it's factually inaccurate. 12/

Honestly, to tell the true story of race+politics in America, it's important to note that Reagan's real 1980 launch speech struck a very different tone than the Mississippi speech. His immigration rhetoric was to the left of even Bernie Sanders' today.

But in Mississippi... 13/

Well, in Mississippi, he used the same kind of dog whistles that Dixiecrats had been using for decades to woo racist white voters.

And Reagan won nearly every state in the US that year, appealing to more liberal Northern views in the North and racist views in the South. 14/

Reagan's Neshoba speech wasn't just a Reagan campaign idea.

In 1979, MS GOP Committee Chair Michael Retzer wrote the RNC calling for them to send the party's eventual nominee (whoever it was) to Neshoba to woo "George Wallace-inclined voters." (Link: msbusiness.com/2015/08/david-…) 15/

George Wallace, of course, was the racist Dixiecrat Alabama governor who infamously said, "Segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever!"

Reagan's "state's rights" Neshoba speech was a strategy the GOP had already planned for the eventual nominee, whoever won. 16/

Anyway, this may seem like a minor thing for a 18-part thread. But I believe in getting history right. I hope this was helpful (and might help correct the record in some capacity). Because I've seen too many stories by good journalists misstating this, and even historians. 17/

Also: Joe Crespino elsewhere shows quite a wealth of knowledge about the circumstances around it, so the book introduction was likely an oversight.

Tidbit: The Klan endorsed Reagan shortly before the speech: historynewsnetwork.org/article/44535 18•

Here's the link to Reagan's Neshoba County speech on film. In 2016, Donald Trump Jr. also gave a speech there to support his father's campaign: