For More Than Bread: Community and Identity in American Polonia, 1880-1940 Book

Former Reaganite Bruce Bartlett provides an intriguing history of racism within the Democratic Party, arguing that it was really the Democrats who were the bad guys. In fact, for a long time the Democrats were not the bad guys so much as the worse guys, and readers who enjoy antiquarian detail of long past political battles will like much of what Bartlett has to say. However, Bartlett shamelessly skips the later history of the GOP, when conservative heroes Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan embraced not segregation but the segregationists, fighting for the "right" to discriminate, a battle which they most fortunately lost. Bartlett doesn't tell us how Reagan, running for governor in California, promised to give homeowners the "right" to include restrictive covenants (i.e., no blacks) in their deeds of sale, and, running for president, promised southerners that he would give tax free status to racist "private academies" so that their kids could continue to attend private schools. Fortunately, Reagan did not keep these promises once in office, but as president he did provide passionate support to the apartheid regime in South Africa, a "cause" also beloved of the Moral Majority. Reagan hated the civil rights movement and opposed it every step of the way. Bartlett gives an entirely one-sided history, but the side that he gives is well done. Just don't forget about the other side.