ANALYSIS: ‘Reagan’ movie misses late president’s bumpy relationship with Black America

ARLINGTON, Virginia – “Reagan,” the movie starring Dennis Quaid as the 40th U.S. president and Jon Voight as a Russian Reagan analyst, opened here at the start of the Labor Day weekend. The 100-seat theater was nearly full.  When the two-hour, 15-minute biopic ended, some people applauded. At least a dozen of them hung around afterward to chat. Reagan was one of the most consequential commanders-in-chief of the United States’ nearly quarter-of-a millennium history, whether citizens adored or despised him. Conspicuously missing from the celebratory Hollywood-style movie, except for one anecdote from Reagan’s youth, was his combative and complicated relationship with Black America. More about that very soon. The late President Reagan greets several university presidents during a White House ceremony marking National Historically Black Colleges Week on Monday, Sept. 25, 1984, in Washington. From left are: Luna Mishoe, president of Delaware State university, James Cheek, president of Howard University in Washington, D.C., Henry Ponder, president of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee, and Reagan. Photo credit: The Associated Press Reagan was the torchbearer of the 1980s conservative revolution. He loathed big government, unions, socialism, and most of all, communism. When Reagan took office 43 years ago, America and its Western...