the ronald reagan legacy project owning memory

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The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project: Owning Memory

Tressie McMillan

MURAP 2009; Mentor: William Sandy Darity, Jr.

7/23/2009


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The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project: Owning Memory

Tressie McMillan

During the 2008 Presidential election both Democrats and Republicans assumed the

mantle of Ronald Reagans legacy in an attempt to claim ownership of fiscal responsibility,

foreign policy moralism, and the unassailable cloak of patriotism. The media, political pundits,

academics or the candidates themselves never questioned Reagans credentials as party standard-

bearer. In short, the silence that enveloped claims of Reagans greatness actually validated them.

While the political right may revere Reagan, as a president the legacy of his presidency has

consequences for all of America.

Public monuments that enshrine Reagan communicate his policies as American ideals.

The value of that is not lost on the Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, an arm of the non-profit

political action committee Americans for Tax Reform. Led by staunch conservative and former

political operative Grover Norquist the Legacy Project says their mission is to, honor the legacy

of our 40th president bynaming significant public landmarks after President Reagan in the 50

states and over 3,000 counties of the United States (Norquist, 2008). The Legacy Project

proposes no criteria for these monuments other than they should be significant and public. It

can be argued that the very fact that they are public placed on a visible landscape,

subconsciously communicating the myth of Reagans greatness makes them significant.

The problem with the myth is that it is contradicted by the reality of his presidency. For

most African Americans, particularly those who lived in urban communities during Reagans two

terms, the reality is marked by reduced social spending, increased defense spending, high

unemployment and increased racialized rhetoric. (Davidson, 2004) That experience is erased


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from cultural memory in this orchestrated narrative. The validity of monuments like the ones

armies of Reagan supporters have been encouraged to establish in their local communities, need

to be questioned explicitly. Agencies that organized their creation and the costs of allowing the

myth to continue unchallenged must be examined and exposed.

The first step in countering the myth is to understand how it took shape. From there, it is

important to understand what the parties engaged in the creation of the myth stand to gain from

its acceptance. Exposing the propagation of Reagans legacy as a marketing machine moves the

story from the category of tradition destroying the automatic assumption of its inherent

rightness moving it into the more proper category of belief. Belief, by its very nature, opens

Reagans legacy to challenge and discussion. This paper also charges elected government

representatives with responsibility for vigorously debating monuments in public spaces. Those

debates should include guidelines that encourage a future-oriented, pluralistic view of American

ideals. All of these changes should be understood within the context of the importance

monuments have in shaping cultural narratives and national identities.

Cultural Memory and Monuments

Before an argument can be made about the propriety of a public memorial to Ronald

Reagan the issue of why we should care must be addressed. If memorials were just placards and

placeholders for our collective memory, it would be difficult to make a case against erecting a

concrete symbol for a dead United States president. However, it is understood that collective

memories and the monuments that represent them are important because they convey value and

meaning. That this conversation often happens subconsciously as a person is driving the

Ronald Reagan highway; busy driving but aware that the name is somehow valuable, for


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example gives monuments even greater importance. Thus, the communicative message made

by any particular naming [of monuments] should be explicitly considered. (Bartow, 2007)

Pierre Nora pioneered the concept of lieux de memoire, loosely translated as sites of

memory. Nora distinguishes between history and memory and examines the role that memorials,

or the physical locations of shared remembrances, plays in both. In the most practical terms,

history is posed as the story of the triumphant and the literate, whereas memory is the

democratic enterprise of oral traditions, folklore, and material culture. (Legg, 2005)

According to Nora, memorials are a tradition of memory. What we choose to remember

becomes a cultural tradition; handed down to subsequent generations and used to define who we

are. (Nora, 1989) Traditions typically are accepted as good, if not always accurate

While history is too often enslaved to an acknowledged narrative of the past in its

reimagining, memorials are supposed to be the organic cultural responses to a metanarrative.

Monuments are defined as physical, such as commemorated locations or statues. (Nora, 1989)

While some scholars debate what constitutes a memorial and the precise role they play in the

formation of national identity, the idea that memorials matter is not debated. Noras most basic

assumption is that these memorials are necessary because real memory had withered away in

modern society. (Legg, 2005)

Monuments matter. As people become more involved in the minutiae of

contemporary life, there is no space temporal or spiritual for consecration of active memory.

Active memory is understood as the daily recognition of customs and memories through routine

tasks. For example, an ancient society that made codified religious laws a part of their every

activity lived lives of active memory. When we lose the desire for or structure of active memory


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we do not lose our need to remember. There is a collective human desire for geographies of

critical relationships that will remember for us.

While this desire for tangible reflections of memory is natural, the modern execution of

memorials has become anything but natural. The Ronald Reagan Legacy Project, in collusion

with media and academic agencies, is not an organic response to a collective need for another

mythic American President. It is a public manifestation of the private desire of select entities to

stake a claim to modern presidential politics and a political brand, with all associated concepts of

commerce intentional. The Project is not a secret, but its motivations are lost in the execution of

the memorial. Without contextual juxtaposition, public debate or an articulated counter-response,

the symbolic odes to Reagans greatness become a subconscious communication of values not

necessarily shared by all Americans. For example, black Americans could interpret Reagans

choice to launch his presidential campaign in 1980 with a speech that endorsed states rights at

the site where three civil rights workers were murdered in 1964 as an endorsement of racism.

States rights has long been used as code for white supremacy and the subjugation of blacks.

Reagans version of American values followed him into the White House. Once elected he tried

to reverse a long-standing policy of denying tax-exempt status to private schools that practice

racial discrimination and grant an exemption to Bob Jones University. (White, 2002) Bob Jones

University is a conservative Christian college that, until 2007, prohibited interracial dating, citing

the word of God that said the races should not mix. Black Americans who repudiate Reagans

values, then, are not reflected in a monument that ignores the realities of their experience with

Reagans policies.

Monuments, again, matter. They matter enough to the putative social cohesion

(Osborne, 2001) of our national culture to be questioned, challenged and justified. Simply put,


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the African American experience cannot be written out of the definition of what is American

and still have the definition be real or valuable. Paul Connerton properly identifies control of

social memory as an issue of active domination. Control of a societys memory largely

conditions the hierarchy of power. (Connerton, 1989). Monuments, inevitably, intersect with

power. The ownership of monuments is an active expression of power. Ownership of Ronald

Reagan is a dangerous act of power which specifically aims to render the African American

experience of his presidency invisible and unimportant. When viewed as a tool of power,

monuments become matters not of vanity but of continued subordination of subaltern groups.

Cultural memory theorists have been too generous in assigning credit to memorials for

encouraging historical revisionism that reimagines the past in light of present understanding.

Legg concludes that researchreveals that most [sites of memory] validate and authenticate

consensual notions of the past while they simultaneously invite alternative readings. However,

that research (Charlesworth 1994; Clark 2000; Flores 2002) does not challenge the notion of the

memorial as an impetus for alternative historic readings. Instead, it assumes Noras basic premise

that this is the case.

But it is not possible to discern which comes first: an inquisitive readership or the

monument. With such a powerful tool as monument, the risk is too great that the latter causal

relationship is weak or non-existent. The most cautious assumption is an uninformed,

uninquisitive reader of memorials who has neither the inclination nor the resources to think

critically about a memorials meaning. In fact, if Noras other claim that as stress-inducing

modernity tears memory from history is accepted, then it is reasonable to assume that the stress

of modernity limits the likelihood of people engaging with monuments in a reflective way.


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When we remove the faulty assumption of an engaged readership, the wielding of

monuments by the powerful against the inclusion of the perspectives of the dispossessed

becomes dangerous. When not properly debated or framed, monuments do not become conduits

for dialogue within a nation, but roadblocks to pluralistic remembrances of shared pasts

experienced differently along lines of race or ethnicity. This is the case with the Ronald Reagan

Legacy project.

This paper does not challenge the importance of monuments. It, in fact, proposes that

monuments are too important in a pluralistic society to be erected without debate or legislative

guidelines. What we choose to memorialize should be considered in public and political

discourse as matters of national importance. In the campaign to emblazon as many national

landscapes with Reagans name and likeness as possible, the political and public response to

memorialization has been woefully dismissive of the importance of monuments. The result is a

proxy ownership of American ideals by people not elected or particularly concerned with any

democratic representation of history that takes into account the diversity of the nation and the

diversity of the national experience.


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Remembering Reagan

Ronald Reagan and Reaganomics the brand of trickle-down economics that

simultaneously ushered in a booming Wall Street and cultivated a dying main street is

remembered differently by different Americans.

If you are black and remember the 1980s you may have been surprised when, during the

2009 presidential election, candidates from both parties paid homage to the greatness of Ronald

Reagan. There were the Republican nominees on January 30, 2008 in Simi Valley, Ca on a stage

built to spotlight Ronald Reagans retired Air Force One. (Bunch, 2009) The Boeing 707 loomed

behind the debate dais. Suspended from the roof, it literally and figuratively framed the entire

debate. Mitt Romney, Mike Huckabee, Ron Paul and John McCain were dwarfed by the greater

narrative of Ronald Reagan as the quintessential American President. It was a role the former

actor was conscious of during his life, but even he may have been surprised by the grandiosity of

the role as it has been written since his withdrawal from public life in 1994 and subsequent death

in 2004. It was perfectly scripted: a suspended Air Force One, staged with his favorite jelly

beans; Nancy Reagan, frail in a trademark ruby red frock; and a Hollywood TV producer in

CNNs David Bohram behind the scenes.

The candidates were not oblivious to the subliminal context. A war of sorts broke out as

each candidate tried to best the other in how many times he could invoke Reagans name. Mitt

Romney would eventually win with an astonishing 28 of the total 54 utterances of Reagans

name during the event credited to him. (Malcolm, 2008) (Raasch, Opinion, 2008)

Watching the debate at home I wondered if they were talking about the same Ronald

Reagan whose name was often coupled with profanity by the people I knew. So, too, did many


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others wonder about this new and improved Ronald Reagan. Russell Mokhiber and Robert

Weissman, activists with the grassroots organization Common Dreams, said of the media

coverage in the wake of Reagans death that the odes to his cheerfulness and optimism should

be replaced with reflections on how his policies destroyed lives. (Mokhiber & Weissman, 2004)

Journalist Amy Goodman of Pacifica radio declared, Much of the reporting and commentary,

under the guise of respecting the dead, has represented a dramatic rewriting of the history of the

Reagan years in office. (Goodman, 2007)

Among the African American community that sentiment was even sharper. The Citizens

Commission on Civil Rights accused Reagan of causing an across-the-board breakdown in the

machinery constructed by six previous administrations to protect civil rights. (Davidson, 2004)

Journalist Joe Davidson acknowledges the human desire to speak well of the dead, but says it is

important to remember that Ronald Reagan engaged in, a sustained attack on the governments

civil rights apparatus, opened an assault on affirmative action and social welfare programs,

embraced the white racist leaders of then-apartheid South Africa and waged war on a tiny, black

Caribbean nation. (Davidson, 2004) Ronald W. Walters, a professor of government and politics

at the University of Maryland, told BET.com just a few hours after Reagan died that, Ronald

Reagan, it is fair to say, was really an anathema to the entire civil rights community and the civil

rights agenda.

During the 1980s an unemployment rate of 10.8% meant my college educated mother had

to drive two cities away to Winston Salem, NC to work a factory job. Declining tax revenues due

to increased unemployment meant fewer classes in art and music at my elementary school. Cuts

to education spending also meant no more school breakfast for my classmates who did not get it

at home. The neighborhood Boys and Girls Club, where latch key kids went after school, closed


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during the summer and never re-opened when Ronald Reagans trickle down economic

principles bottlenecked around the wealthiest Americans.

African Americans in more urban communities, with fewer resources, experienced

Reagans policies even more acutely. Thanks to Reagans sole African American appointee,

Samuel Pierce Jr., the Housing and Urban Development office (HUD) appropriations for low-

income housing were cut by nearly half and funding all but ended for new housing construction.

(Stegman, 1996) He also reduced spending on housing assistance for the elderly and significantly

cut disability rolls. Reagans belief that government was not responsible for social programs is

reflected in reduced spending, as viewed by the following graph (According to the Center on

Budget and Policy Priorities, as reported by the Los Angeles Times as Reagan left office in

1989):


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Fiscal year (In millions of

dollars)

1981

1988

Training and employment

$9,106

$2,887

Energy assistance

$1850

$1162

Health services, including

community health centers andcare for the homeless

$856

$814

Legal Services

$321

$232

Compensatory Education

$3,545

$3,291


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This reduction in social spending was not just a series of numbers and budget decisions.

Each number represents a real impact to the lives of everyday Americans. The decimation of

Americas social safety net at the same time the nation was experiencing record high

unemployment created a perfect storm of poverty, homelessness, public health crisis, and

declining education achievement. As the oft-repeated, seldom attributed saying goes, when white

America catches a cold, black America catches pneumonia. The sum total of Reagans legacy

with black America the combination of his economic policies and cavalier attitude towards

minorities was a very bad case of pneumonia.

All of this begs the question of how and why the black experience of Ronald Reagans

presidency is erased in its retelling? It is clear that the memorialization of Reagan is not an

organic response to the human need for myth and heroes. It is, instead, a very calculated and

organized initiative that encompasses both the private and public sector.

The Machine

Ronald Reagan has something normally reserved for alma maters: an alumni association.

The Ronald Reagan Alumni Association, according to Reagans Deputy Assistant Bruce

Chapman in a speech given in 2002, has over 4900 members. (Chapman, 2004) Chapman

proudly refers to these members as Reagans invisible hands; continuing the work of defending

his legacy and promoting his beliefs from their respective posts. He says that these soldiers of


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Reagans army will continue to build the lasting and consequential monuments of his time on

earth.

Invisible hands sounds more ominous than benevolent when taken together with

Reagans assault on the black community. The invisible nature of the term suggests a covert

methodology, if not a covert mission; and secrecy in government rarely produces positive

outcomes. Bartow says the political processes through which naming decisions are made are

frequently invisible to the public. (Bartow, 2007)

The Legacy Project has had a remarkable amount of success. There are currently 28

highways, roads, streets and byways named for Ronald Reagan. (Reagan Records

Administration) All but 7 of those were dedicated before his death in 2004. 23 states, 41

counties, one nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, a stamp in Grenada, and a public square in Poland

all bear Reagans name, thanks largely to the Legacy Projects efforts. By contrast, George H.W.

Bush has just one navy carrier named for him and a park and high school. He attended the high

school and the park is located adjacent to the school. They are not, by any stretch of the

imagination, illogical choices. Ironically, an alumni association for George H.W. Bush was

initiated but failed to mobilize. No active membership could be located. Reagan honors follow

only John F. Kennedys in volume. Granted, at approximately 110 structures to Kennedys over

600 it is a distant second, but it could be argued that Kennedys glamorous administration and

historic assassination lends itself to national nostalgia.

How is it that Ronald Reagan competes with American royalty in public namesakes? One

answer can be found in the organizational strength behind his legacy. Unlike a local school board

in Iowa who decides to name a new school for an assassinated president, Reagans legacy


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machine supersedes local politics. Norquists Ronald Reagan Legacy Project had a series of early

successes. The first of which was in renaming Washington National Airport after the 40th

president.

The Renaming of Washington National

Washington National airport was already named for a President, the first one: George

Washington. As the nearest commercial airport to the nations capital, Washington National was

conspicuous and busy: two things that made it all the more appealing to Norquist and his

supporters. Norquist had allies in the republican-controlled senate who were happy to take up an

issue that could conveniently paint the opposition as unpatriotic. In November of 1997 a bill was

introduced in the Senate to rename Washington National airport for Ronald Reagan. That

renaming the airport was about more than revering Reagan was not a secret. In a 1998

Washington Post article supporter George Allen, then governor of neighboring state Virginia,

said, That with the new name, generations of lawmakers would be greeted by a memorial to a

famous opponent of federal spending. (Washington Post, 1998) Conservatives salivated over the

idea of generations of liberals having to fly in and out of Reagan airport. That the bane of the

conservative party, President Bill Clinton, was the current occupant of 1600 Pennsylvania

Avenue was just more red meat for the hungry anti-liberals.

Politics, as is the case with most things in Washington, D.C., motivates the Reagan

memorialization project. This was particularly true of the renaming of Washington National.


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Also, like most things in Washington, D.C., politics largely ignored the impact of its aims on the

citizens of District.

Most Americans think of Washington, D.C. as the nations capital, and the seat of our

national government. As the majority of elected officials are white and male it is easy to assume

that Washington, D.C. follows suit. D.C., the epicenter of American politics is dominated by

white men. However, D.C, the city, is one of nineteen American cities that is majority black.

(U.S. Census Bureau, 2009) The conflict between the white Washington elite and the black,

urban population that literally surrounds the Capitol has been commented upon before. However,

in the debate over renaming Washington National the perspective of the majority of the citys

residents, largely black and working class, was barely commented upon at all.

What little debate there was about renaming of the airport centered upon issues of theory,

patriotism and jurisdiction. (Bunch, 2009) Democratic legislators suggested it was too soon to

honor a President that was still alive. Some states have guidelines about how much time must

lapse, post-mortem, before any public landscape can be named for a political figure. Some

members of congress suggested such a guideline be used in judging the appropriateness of

renaming Washington National. Norquist, however, simply rebutted with the seemingly

innocuous suggestion that Reagan should be honored on his 87th birthday on February, just a few

months from the time legislation was introduced to rename the airport. The insinuation that an

ailing Reagan might not live or remember, due to his diagnosis of Alzheimers, the honor should

it be delayed positioned that line of dissent as petty and cruel.

Other public figures mentioned that Reagan had, himself, signed legislation that

transferred ownership of the airport from federal to local authority, making any federal resolution


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an overreach of power. Again, nostalgia and public sympathy undercut the logic of this argument.

Few officials wanted to be portrayed as more beholden to political process than to the patriotic

notion of honoring an American president.

Then there was the small issue of who would pay all the associated costs of renaming the

airport. The resolution that eventually passed did not allow for financial provisions. The local

Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority controlled the companion train stop for

Washington National Airport. Congress requested the WMATA rename the airport metro station

for conformity. The local government refused to pay, and chose instead to pass responsibility to

the WMATA which is a tax supported entity. WMATA declined to pay the approximate $400,000

cost. Congress responded by threatening to cut-off federal funds to the WMATA if they did not

comply. In the end, WMATA, and by extension the minority taxpayers of D.C. paid the price to

rename the airport metro station, under duress. (Layton, 2001)

Naming Washington National Airport after Ronald Reagan was a dismissal of the impact

Reagans domestic and international policies had on the black tax payers who would eventually

pay literally and figuratively for a Conservative political nose thumbing.

During his two terms, Ronald Reagan enacted and enabled policies that

disproportionately impacted African Americans, particularly those who lived in urban areas like

the black residents of Washington, D.C. (Davidson, 2004) An exploration of how the creation of

a Reagan monument operated along lines of race and access offers insights that can be

extrapolated to explore how monuments are erected in other communities, and the country as a

whole.


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dangerous for black folks. When power structures are nostalgic it is almost always a yearning for

a less diverse America that does not have to entertain the rights of minorities. Congress should

not be beholden to nostalgia but aware of the impact monuments have on shaping national

identity, both now and in the future.

It is also important to note that the law offers no avenue for the removal of monuments.

Thus the value of a monument and the message it conveys about its namesake outlives the living

memory of its first-hand experiencers. Thus, proactive debate prior to naming a monument is

crucial. It is even more so to minorities as they do not have access to the kind of power that

stands a chance of shaping public perception of a monument and its meaning after it has taken

root in the public consciousness.

When what we structurally remember is chosen and shaped to reflect the power

shareholders to the exclusion of a pluralistic reality, power is reinforced by the national meta-

narrative these monuments subconsciously author. To the degree that this narrative is both

exclusionary and false for black Americans, it is also false for all Americans.

Conclusions

Cultural memory theorists, legal scholars and historians agree that monuments are

important to the formation of national identity. If there is any doubt as to the vital role they play

in consecrating ideals, values and culture, one need only look to the great effort of some to own

monuments that reflect their agendas. The extreme extent to which the Ronald Reagan Legacy

Project and others go to procure public landscapes in Reagans honor should serve to warn

politicians and citizens to the power of structural memories.


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The failure to solicit public debate about whom we, collectively, deem worthy of

enshrinement says that public intellectuals and elected officials have failed to properly educate

the general populace. This ignorance leads to a cavalier disregard from the majority and low-

hanging fruit for opportunists. Every American should demand pre-emptive debate about the

naming of public monuments. However, black Americans indeed, all minorities should be

particularly vigilant. With no easy avenue of recourse, reactive solutions are few. The best hope

for integrating the minority experience into the greater American narrative is for studied

proactive diligence. We should make these demands of our academic institutions, elected

officials and ourselves. Those who experienced the seedier side of Reagans policies should have

an articulated response to the opposing rhetoric. The right should not be allowed to own public

sentiment or to shape a legacy of Reagan that does not reflect the black reality.

With a proper understanding of the significance of monuments those with the most to lose should

they be forgotten are empowered to make sure they are not.


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Works Cited

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Bartow, A. (2007). Trademarks of Privilege: Naming Rights and the Physical Public Domain.

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