In 1964, when members of the White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan abducted and murdered James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwerner, Klan organizer Edgar Ray Killen was arrested and charged with the murders, but his first trial ended in a hung jury. On August 4, 1964, forty-four days after they disappeared, authorities found the bodies buried in a dam on the Old Jolly Farm, a stone’s throw from the open field where Reagan chose to give his speech. As the mostly white crowd that included members of the Klan looked on, Reagan gave a thirty-three-paragraph, dog-whistle-filled speech about
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