Question

Short Essay Question:

President Ronald Reagan is remembered as a president that won the hearts of many white suburbanites because he opposed school desegregation. He claimed that school desegregation “takes innocent children out of the neighborhood schools and makes them pawns in a social experiment that nobody wants.” Reagan, however, also shocked many white suburbanites when he fired 11,500 air traffic controllers, after they refused to go back to work during their 1981 strike. Reagan’s unprecedented dismissal of skilled workers encouraged other private employers to do the same, undermining the rights of all American workers.

How have the experiences of white and black Americans been similar under specific public policies and political ideologies? How have they been different? Make your argument by using class readings and lectures, with reference to at least two of the following:

Culture of poverty

D. Vance, Hillbilly Elegy

Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title VI

Southern strategy

Redlining

War on Poverty

Answer 1