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As part of his 1980 presidential campaign, Ronald Reagan made an appearance at the Neshoba County Fair where he gave a speech on August 3, 1980. The speech drew attention for his use of the phrase "states' rights". Critics claim that Reagan's choice of location for the speech (the fairgrounds were just a few miles from Philadelphia, Mississippi, a town associated with the 1964 murders of civil rights workers) was evidence of racial bias. During his speech, Reagan said: He went on to promise to "restore to states and local governments the power that properly belongs to them." The use of the phrase was seen by some as a tacit appeal to Southern white voters and a continuation of Richard Nixon's Southern strategy, while others argued it merely reflected his libertarian economic beliefs. ==Reception== Reagan's critics, interpreting the words "states' rights" as akin to a desire to return to pre-Civil Rights laws regarding segregation, felt that he was at least insensitive to the concerns of blacks, or that he even was using this location and these words as a cynical, coded appeal to the white racist vote. Columnist Bob Herbert of ''The New York Times'' wrote, "Everybody watching the 1980 campaign knew what Reagan was signaling at the fair," and that it "was understood that when politicians started chirping about 'states’ rights' to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you". Paul Krugman, also of the ''Times'', noted that a Republican national committee member from Mississippi had urged Reagan to speak at the county fair, as it would help win over “George Wallace-inclined voters”, and wrote that this was just one of many examples of "Reagan’s tacit race-baiting in the historical record." Eulogizing on Reagan's death, ''Washington Post'' columnist William Raspberry noted of the incident: Others, including the ''Washington Post'' editorial page, contended that there was nothing racist about Reagan's use of the phrase "states' rights" in the context of the speech; ''The National Review'' criticized Jimmy Carter's allegations of racism, calling them "frightful distortions, bordering on outright lies." David Brooks of ''The New York Times'' responded to the article by fellow Times columnist Krugman, and called the attention paid to the "states' rights" phrase a "slur" and a "distortion." He wrote that the campaign had been somewhat forced by the county fair organizers who had announced Reagan's appearance, and that the "states' rights" phrase was used in the part of his speech, but that the speech was mostly about inflation and the economy and how it related to schools. Brooks wrote that Reagan had been courting black voters at that time, and he flew to New York City after the speech to deliver an address to the Urban League. In the same article, Brooks does admit, however, that: This caused Bob Herbert to respond a few days later with an op-ed column titled "Righting Reagan’s Wrongs?", in which he wrote: 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Reagan's Neshoba County Fair "states' rights" speech」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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