In August 1980, Ronald Reagan launched his campaign as the Republican nominee for president with a rally outside of Philadelphia, Mississippi — where the Freedom Summer workers James Chaney, Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were murdered by the KKK in 1964.

In his speech, Reagan announced his commitment to “states’ rights.”

The message could not have been more clear:

Reagan aimed not just to end but to reverse the progress of the Civil Rights era.

And he did — ushering in decades that have seen the mass incarceration of black and brown people, the evisceration of affirmative action programs, a racist “war on drugs,” stunning reversals on voting rights, and the slashing of the social safety net.

Flash forward 40 years.

Donald Trump announces that he will resume his mass rallies beginning in Tulsa, Oklahoma, on June 19.

Tulsa is the site of one of the worst massacres of black people in our nation’s history. In 1921, white mobs descended on what was at the time the wealthiest black community in the United States, destroying 35 square blocks and killing as many as 300 residents.

June 19 is known as Juneteenth, celebrating the end of four centuries of slavery in this country and memorializing slaves in Texas who were not freed until two-and-a-half years after the Emancipation Proclamation.

The parallels between Reagan’s and Trump’s rallies are near perfect. Both men aimed to launch election campaigns with racist appeals at sites symbolizing white supremacy and violence — and both were committed to racist policy agendas.

But there is one gigantic difference between then and now:

Americans are rising up in a way without parallel in the last half-century.

• We are rising up to lament the killings of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery and so many more of our fellow citizens.

• We are rising up to demand an end to bias and brutality by law enforcement.

• We are rising up to call out the ongoing injustices of systemic racism.

The demands from protesters are transforming the debate and policy on policing practices and systemic racism.

And so Donald Trump has been forced to give up his Juneteenth rally.

Now, we should have no illusions about what’s going on: Trump will still hold the rally in Tulsa — the next day.

Ultimately, the changing of the date of a rally is of little significance.

But the rising political power that forced the change IS of political significance.

Now is the time to collectively — unwaveringly — turn up the pressure and demand transformative change.

Visit sixnineteen.com — sponsored by the Movement for Black Lives — to join one of the actions happening all across the country on the weekend of Juneteenth.

In unity,

- Robert Weissman, President of Public Citizen

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