Sharpton Pushing Decades Old Canard About 1980 Reagan Speech Which WASN'T On The Site Of 1964 Mississippi Murders
06/24/2013
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Via NewsBusters on Twitter:

I wrote about this in 2011:

Then there was Ronald Reagan's speech at the Neshoba County Fair in August, 1980. You will hear, over and over again, that Reagan went to Philadelphia, Mississippi, (partly at the behest of then-Congressman Trent Lott, another guy who said somethingthat turned out to be "racist" after liberals and neoconservatives had interpreted it )and spoke about "States Rights" near the site of the murders of three civil rights workers, who had been murdered sixteen years earlier. In so doing, he was supposed to be sending a message to White Supremacists.
For a recent example, see Righting Reagan's Wrongs?, By Bob Herbert, NYT, November 13, 2007. For a fairly despicable example, see WALTER FIELDS: No tears for Reagan, BlackAmericaToday.com, June 8, 2004. (Reagan had died on June 5th.) And white liberals, are, if anything, even worse.

It happens that neither the speech nor the murders took place in the town of Philadelphia—the murders took place on the side of a road between Philadelphia and Meridian, because that's where murders take place—on back roads.

The Neshoba County Fair, where Reagan spoke, doesn't take place in Philadelphia, MS, either—there isn't room. Philadelphia is the county seat, and has about 7,000 inhabitants. The fairgrounds, in the hills seven miles from town, cover sixty acres.

The connection is entirely imaginary.

The Neshoba County Fair is a place where you get a lot of Mississippi voters, is all, and it's apparently pretty rural. Around the hundredth anniversary of Reagan's birth, I wrote

It's hard to realize how far back Reagan goes—when he went to the Neshoba County Fair in 1980, local Mississippians presented him with a horse carriage—the kind of surrey mentioned in Oklahoma!,Reagan, a youthful 69, said at the end of his speech

"Now I know I have to conclude, and you've been very patient, but before the press says it, I just want to say one thing about that surrey over there. I can remember when I rode one of those for real."

1980 is now 33 years ago, and 1964 is 49—things are much different in Mississippi, but Al Sharpton hasn't changed.

I believe I'm not alone in having called Sharpton "the most notoriously inflammatory race-baiter and rabble-rouser in America".

Quick question—now that it's not 1950 or 1980, has President Obama ever spoken on or near the site of a vicious, racially motivated multiple murder of whites by blacks?

Yes, of course he has! That's because such murders have been taking place in every large city in America for years, especially the President's adopted home town of Chicago, and his current residence  in DC.

But don't expect to see headlines about it.

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