Replacing Grant with Reagan would Reward Racism

A conservative push to replace President Ulysses S. Grant's image on the $50 bill with that of President Ronald Reagan would be a step backwards, removing an historic figure that fought racism to recognize one that profited from it. 

Grant arguably did more to end slavery than any politician other than Abraham Lincoln. Reagan, on the other hand, built his presidential campaign on not-so-subtle racism, the keystone to Lee Atwater's "Southern Strategy", which rebuilt the GOP. 

For anyone who doesn't remember Reagan's campaign (or for whom reality has been obscured by the GOP's revisionist history) NYT's columnists Bob Hebert and Paul Krugman make it plain: 

Krugman pointed a finger at Republican deity Reagan.

Thus Ronald Reagan, who began his political career by campaigning against California’s Fair Housing Act, started his 1980 campaign with a speech supporting states’ rights delivered just outside Philadelphia, Miss., where three civil rights workers were murdered.

And later:

Philadelphia story: in December 1979 the Republican national committeeman from Mississippi wrote a letter urging that the party’s nominee speak at the Neshoba Country Fair, just outside the town where three civil rights workers had been murdered in 1964. It would, he wrote, help win over “George Wallace inclined voters.” 

Sure enough, Reagan appeared, and declared his support for states’ rights — which everyone took to be a coded declaration of support for segregationist sentiments. 
Reagan’s defenders protest furiously that he wasn’t personally bigoted. So what? We’re talking about his political strategy.

Then Herbert joined it:

He was tapping out the code. It was understood that when politicians started chirping about “states’ rights” to white people in places like Neshoba County they were saying that when it comes down to you and the blacks, we’re with you.

And Reagan meant it. He was opposed to the landmark Civil Rights Act of 1964, which was the same year that Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney were slaughtered. As president, he actually tried to weaken the Voting Rights Act of 1965. He opposed a national holiday for the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. He tried to get rid of the federal ban on tax exemptions for private schools that practiced racial discrimination. And in 1988, he vetoed a bill to expand the reach of federal civil rights legislation.

The contrast between Reagan's legacy and President Grant's accomplishments couldn't be more stark. From an OpEd by Professor Sean Willantz:

Grant "fought hard and successfully for ratification of the 15th Amendment, banning disenfranchisement on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude. When recalcitrant Southern whites fought back under the white hoods and robes of the Ku Klux Klan, murdering and terrorizing blacks and their political supporters, Grant secured legislation that empowered him to unleash federal force. By 1872, the Klan was effectively dead.

For Grant, Reconstruction always remained of paramount importance, and he remained steadfast, even when members of his own party turned their backs on the former slaves. After white supremacists slaughtered blacks and Republicans in Louisiana in 1873 and attempted a coup the following year, Grant took swift and forceful action to restore order and legitimate government. With the political tide running heavily against him, Grant still managed to see through to enactment the Civil Rights Act of 1875, which prohibited discrimination according to race in all public accommodations.

Leave Grant's image where it belongs, on the $50 bill, and Reagan revisionism to the extremists.