Reagan launched his candidacy in a county where civil rights workers were murdered.

Evidence

It was a wonderful touch for the man who announced his candidacy for the White House in notorious Neshoba County, Mississippi, the place where the civil rights workers James Chaney, Michael Schwerner, and Andrew Goodman were murdered. “I believe in states’ rights,” Reagan had told the crowd then, just three years before. — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 284

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Glaude’s broader thesis about how valuing white lives shapes political strategy — Reagan’s states’-rights launch is a counterpoint to his later King-holiday ceremony. — connects to: Reagan opened his 1980 campaign at the Mississippi Klan-murder site invoking states’ rights — Randall Balmer, Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the…, 150