Lyndon Johnson’s Aides Are Mad That MLK Is The Hero Of Selma
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The new film Selma has opened to general critical acclaim — but it's also been the subject of a fierce backlash from LBJ loyalists. Both a Politico article by LBJ Library Director Mark Updegrove and a Washington Post article by former senior Johnson aide Joseph Califano charge the movie with serious historical inaccuracies. Like any biopic, Selma does condense and somewhat depart from the actual historical record. But Califano's charge that the movie "the movie should be ruled out this Christmas and during the ensuing awards season" goes well beyond standard-issue nitpicking.
But when you read these pieces closely, it seems that the big problem they have with the film is that it doesn't cast LBJ as the hero of the Voting Rights Act. But the fact that Selma doesn't do this is part of what makes it important. Hollywood too often gives us films about race in America where the real heroes are conveniently white. Selma doesn't.
Voting Rights and the Great Society
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2885460/Martin_Luther_King__Jr._and_Lyndon_Johnson_2.0.jpg)
Califano says Selma "falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr." It would be more accurate to say that the film paints a nuanced picture of the interplay between activists and politicians. Johnson and King are at odds at times, but Johnson explicitly — and correctly — says there is an inherent tension between their roles even as they share a commitment to broadly similar goals.
Updegrove, who perhaps should have paid closer attention to the film before writing his attack, says that Movie Johnson "resists King's pressure to sign a voting rights bill." In fact, in the film (as in real life) at the time of the Selma marches there was no voting rights bill to sign. The disagreement was that King wanted Johnson to make congressional passage of a voting rights bill a priority for his administration in early 1965, while Johnson preferred to try to move first on Medicare and Medicaid.
The film shows this because it's what happened. Let me quote from Gary May's Bending Toward Justice:
"Martin ... I'm going to do it eventually, but I can't get voting rights through in this session of Congress," Johnson said. He explained that Congress and the country needed time to adjust to the recent passage of the 1964 [Civil Rights] Act. Acting precipitously on voting rights would alienate southern legislators, whose votes Johnson needed to pass his Great Society initiatives. The president hoped that programs like Medicare, aid to education, and antipoverty measures would win him a place in history as the greatest president, greater even than his beloved Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was quick to remind King that these programs would aid blacks too — and would be more difficult to get through Congress if the more controversial and divisive voting rights bill came first.
Selma's sympathetic portrait of Johnson
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2885464/Lyndon_Johnson_and_Martin_Luther_King__Jr._-_Voting_Rights_Act.0.jpg)
One oddity of the Johnson-ist backlash to Selma is that the film offers a rather positive portrayal of Johnson. Updegrove complains that "Selma's obstructionist LBJ is devoid of any palpable conviction on voting rights" which is just plain wrong.
For instance, the films shows a conversation between Johnson and Alabama Governor George Wallace, an ardent segregationist, in which Johnson begins by trying to appeals to party loyalty and Cold War strategy, but when both fail, Johnson breaks down in frustration and says what he thinks — that Wallace is a dinosaur standing on the wrong side of history, and he has no intention of standing with him.
King has the agency
/cdn0.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/2885468/Selma_to_Montgomery_Marches_protesters.0.jpg)
Even so, it's Califano who nails what's really driving Selma's critics when he (somewhat preposterously) complains that "in fact, Selma was LBJ's idea."
In fact, Califano's own recounting of events doesn't remotely support this conclusion. Califano has Johnson observe to King that it would be good to highlight a locality in which voting rights violations were especially egregious, and then "Johnson met with King on February 9 and heard about King's choice, a place where just 335 of about 10,000 registered voters were black — despite a population that was 60 percent African American."
Which is to say that, according to Califano himself, Selma was King's idea.
And of course it was.
Selma doesn't offer a hostile portrayal of Johnson. What it does is tell a story in which King and his collaborators are the key actors, and Johnson is a bit of a bystander. His notion of doing the War on Poverty first and voting rights second isn't obviously wrongheaded or pernicious, but King doesn't agree with it. King and his collaborators choose the place and the time of the battle, Johnson tries a couple of times to talk them out of it, he fails, and ultimately he swings around to Johnson's viewpoint.
It's a different kind of story from, say, the Help or Lincoln where the subject is the rights of black people but the protagonist is a white person. Certainly one could image an excellent Lincoln-esque film that primarily highlighted the legislative machinations among white politicians and cast LBJ as the hero (I would watch). But the choice to make a different film that highlights activist demands and casts MLK as the hero isn't a form of historical inaccuracy or grounds for dismissing the movie. The idea that a film should be ruled out for having the temerity to focus on black people's agency in securing their own liberation is completely absurd. We've had too few such films in American history and everyone could stand to watch some more.
But when you read these pieces closely, it seems that the big problem they have with the film is that it doesn't cast LBJ as the hero of the Voting Rights Act. But the fact that Selma doesn't do this is part of what makes it important. Hollywood too often gives us films about race in America where the real heroes are conveniently white. Selma doesn't.
Voting Rights and the Great Society
Califano says Selma "falsely portrays President Lyndon B. Johnson as being at odds with Martin Luther King Jr." It would be more accurate to say that the film paints a nuanced picture of the interplay between activists and politicians. Johnson and King are at odds at times, but Johnson explicitly — and correctly — says there is an inherent tension between their roles even as they share a commitment to broadly similar goals.
Updegrove, who perhaps should have paid closer attention to the film before writing his attack, says that Movie Johnson "resists King's pressure to sign a voting rights bill." In fact, in the film (as in real life) at the time of the Selma marches there was no voting rights bill to sign. The disagreement was that King wanted Johnson to make congressional passage of a voting rights bill a priority for his administration in early 1965, while Johnson preferred to try to move first on Medicare and Medicaid.
The film shows this because it's what happened. Let me quote from Gary May's Bending Toward Justice:
"Martin ... I'm going to do it eventually, but I can't get voting rights through in this session of Congress," Johnson said. He explained that Congress and the country needed time to adjust to the recent passage of the 1964 [Civil Rights] Act. Acting precipitously on voting rights would alienate southern legislators, whose votes Johnson needed to pass his Great Society initiatives. The president hoped that programs like Medicare, aid to education, and antipoverty measures would win him a place in history as the greatest president, greater even than his beloved Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He was quick to remind King that these programs would aid blacks too — and would be more difficult to get through Congress if the more controversial and divisive voting rights bill came first.
Selma's sympathetic portrait of Johnson
One oddity of the Johnson-ist backlash to Selma is that the film offers a rather positive portrayal of Johnson. Updegrove complains that "Selma's obstructionist LBJ is devoid of any palpable conviction on voting rights" which is just plain wrong.
For instance, the films shows a conversation between Johnson and Alabama Governor George Wallace, an ardent segregationist, in which Johnson begins by trying to appeals to party loyalty and Cold War strategy, but when both fail, Johnson breaks down in frustration and says what he thinks — that Wallace is a dinosaur standing on the wrong side of history, and he has no intention of standing with him.
King has the agency
Even so, it's Califano who nails what's really driving Selma's critics when he (somewhat preposterously) complains that "in fact, Selma was LBJ's idea."
In fact, Califano's own recounting of events doesn't remotely support this conclusion. Califano has Johnson observe to King that it would be good to highlight a locality in which voting rights violations were especially egregious, and then "Johnson met with King on February 9 and heard about King's choice, a place where just 335 of about 10,000 registered voters were black — despite a population that was 60 percent African American."
Which is to say that, according to Califano himself, Selma was King's idea.
And of course it was.
Selma doesn't offer a hostile portrayal of Johnson. What it does is tell a story in which King and his collaborators are the key actors, and Johnson is a bit of a bystander. His notion of doing the War on Poverty first and voting rights second isn't obviously wrongheaded or pernicious, but King doesn't agree with it. King and his collaborators choose the place and the time of the battle, Johnson tries a couple of times to talk them out of it, he fails, and ultimately he swings around to Johnson's viewpoint.
It's a different kind of story from, say, the Help or Lincoln where the subject is the rights of black people but the protagonist is a white person. Certainly one could image an excellent Lincoln-esque film that primarily highlighted the legislative machinations among white politicians and cast LBJ as the hero (I would watch). But the choice to make a different film that highlights activist demands and casts MLK as the hero isn't a form of historical inaccuracy or grounds for dismissing the movie. The idea that a film should be ruled out for having the temerity to focus on black people's agency in securing their own liberation is completely absurd. We've had too few such films in American history and everyone could stand to watch some more.
Comments
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I question the timing of the movie and the events that have been taking place over the last few months.
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Bully_Pulpit wrote: »I question the timing of the movie and the events that have been taking place over the last few months.
what is there to question.. good move to me if they moved it up or not but its the holiday season its probably always in he plan -
Not gone lie.. I didn't read all that ? . With that said, LBJ well as JFK, didn't move on civil rights until they saw the Panthers and Black Muslims resisting with force and promising violent response to racist policies. I love how white people revise history to make them seem like heroes. Like they didn't see the effects of racism on blacks until the mid 1960s.
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So some in white america have a problem with a black film so called "inaccuracies" but have no problems at all with the factual inaccuaracies of the movie exodus!!!
? how they feel about everything. -
Lyndon Johnson was turning down civil rights proposals left and right when he was a congressman, he just pushed the civil rights agenda to look good as a president
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Billy_Poncho wrote: »Lyndon Johnson was turning down civil rights proposals left and right when he was a congressman, he just pushed the civil rights agenda to look good as a president
Most of the presidents that did "good" things for black people did so for reasons other than they were the right thing to do. -
The Lonious Monk wrote: »Billy_Poncho wrote: »Lyndon Johnson was turning down civil rights proposals left and right when he was a congressman, he just pushed the civil rights agenda to look good as a president
Most of the presidents that did "good" things for black people did so for reasons other than they were the right thing to do.
Exactly!
Same ? with Abe Lincoln and freeing the slaves but most don't want to tell the people that. -
There are no good presidents for black people it was just the right time to help their legacy and the agenda was right on time
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"manofmorehouse wrote: »Like they didn't see the effects of racism on blacks until the mid 1960s.
While people must think we're stupid -
So some in white america have a problem with a black film so called "inaccuracies" but have no problems at all with the factual inaccuaracies of the movie exodus!!!
? how they feel about everything.
Same thing I thought after reading the article. -
playmaker88 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »I question the timing of the movie and the events that have been taking place over the last few months.
what is there to question.. good move to me if they moved it up or not but its the holiday season its probably always in he plan
Its hard to know if releasing the movie around this time was always the plan but releasing it now will just stoke the the race fire thats been smoldering for months. The ? is on the verge of boiling over, I think we can agree on that. We dont need a race war right now if ever. We arent prepared for it.
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we didnt start the fire it was always burning since the world was turning....Bully_Pulpit wrote: »playmaker88 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »I question the timing of the movie and the events that have been taking place over the last few months.
what is there to question.. good move to me if they moved it up or not but its the holiday season its probably always in he plan
Its hard to know if releasing the movie around this time was always the plan but releasing it now will just stoke the the race fire thats been smoldering for months. The ? is on the verge of boiling over, I think we can agree on that. We dont need a race war right now if ever. We arent prepared for it.
Those people had the gas, matches, lighter and brush on deck from the jump
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playmaker88 wrote: »
we didnt start the fire it was always burning since the world was turning....Bully_Pulpit wrote: »playmaker88 wrote: »Bully_Pulpit wrote: »I question the timing of the movie and the events that have been taking place over the last few months.
what is there to question.. good move to me if they moved it up or not but its the holiday season its probably always in he plan
Its hard to know if releasing the movie around this time was always the plan but releasing it now will just stoke the the race fire thats been smoldering for months. The ? is on the verge of boiling over, I think we can agree on that. We dont need a race war right now if ever. We arent prepared for it.
Those people had the gas, matches, lighter and brush on deck from the jump
I agree...but we should not be goaded into an unwinnable war, we should be focused on cutting the head off the snake. -
a picture is worth 1000 words and this 1 is telling af
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white folks will take credit for the air you breath if you let'em
"yes African kings and Queens were white and they built the pyramids...yes we were the heroes of the civil rights era"
I remember one post a few years ago vibe said "yall hate whites so much but yall eat and read books" this mufuka actually believed whites created reading, writing and food ..
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You ain't lying. I was watching a video about Ancient Zimbabwe, and they were talking about how the white people couldn't believe that black people had build such a large city at that point in time.
In the comments there were some whites from South Africa insisting that white people were responsible for the buildings. How the hell could whites have done it when some of those sites were in ruins before Whites even made it down to that part of Africa. -
so black men cant be heroes?gtfoh
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Of course they can't. Didn't you know? All black heroes run for 100 yds on Sunday and Shoryuken their girlfriends on Monday all while ducking their 6 illegitimate kids.
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I remember one post a few years ago vibe said "yall hate whites so much but yall eat and read books" this mufuka actually believed whites created reading, writing and food ..
He said what now...
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »You ain't lying. I was watching a video about Ancient Zimbabwe, and they were talking about how the white people couldn't believe that black people had build such a large city at that point in time.
In the comments there were some whites from South Africa insisting that white people were responsible for the buildings. How the hell could whites have done it when some of those sites were in ruins before Whites even made it down to that part of Africa.
bruh I was just about to mention that..It was about the temples and palaces of worship in zimbabwe in those ancient kingdoms of africa series
a white man in the 1800s saw it for the first time and declared that whites built those places thousands of years ago in Africa...he or any other white man had zero idea that they existed yet alone has any european ever visited that place....yet they walk into a 3 thousand year old place that they had no idea even existed and claim white people built it .....? didnt even know what it was or why it was built but white people built
I hope he stumbled into a crocodile pit that same year -
white folks will take credit for the air you breath if you let'em
"yes African kings and Queens were white and they built the pyramids...yes we were the heroes of the civil rights era"
I remember one post a few years ago vibe said "yall hate whites so much but yall eat and read books" this mufuka actually believed whites created reading, writing and food ..
Wooow! lol.... This is funny as hell, yet.... very sad.
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If we didnt have pictures of Harriet Tudman crackas would claim she was white too
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The Lonious Monk wrote: »You ain't lying. I was watching a video about Ancient Zimbabwe, and they were talking about how the white people couldn't believe that black people had build such a large city at that point in time.
In the comments there were some whites from South Africa insisting that white people were responsible for the buildings. How the hell could whites have done it when some of those sites were in ruins before Whites even made it down to that part of Africa.
bruh I was just about to mention that..It was about the temples and palaces of worship in zimbabwe in those ancient kingdoms of africa series
a white man in the 1800s saw it for the first time and declared that whites built those places thousands of years ago in Africa...he or any other white man had zero idea that they existed yet alone has any european ever visited that place....yet they walk into a 3 thousand year old place that they had no idea even existed and claim white people built it .....? didnt even know what it was or why it was built but white people built
I hope he stumbled into a crocodile pit that same year
Yet they cannot show a BC monolith in northern Europe. Nothing. -
He's not a hero so ? crackas
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