The Truth About LBJ and MLK

Winston Churchill famously said “history is written by the victors,” and truth is often the first casualty in the aftermath of conflict.

Last week, “historian” Mark Updegrove, who doubles as a paid employee of the taxpayer-financed Lyndon Baines Johnson Presidential Library, stretched the envelop in a Politico article in which he claimed that the new movie “Selma,” (starring Giovanni Ribisi, Oprah Winfrey, and David Oyelowo as Martin Luther King), distorts the relationship between President Lyndon Baines Johnson and the civil rights leader. Ironically, Updegrove claims that the movie misrepresents historical truth when it is Updegrove’s narrative that repeats the sanitized “history” of the poisoned relationship between LBJ and MLK.

Next, former LBJ associate Joseph Califano jumped into the fray in the Washington Post, claiming that the “Selma” movie doesn’t properly reflect the productive relationship between Johnson and King.

Of course, both Updegrove and Califano failed to even mention Dr. King’s pivotal opposition to the Vietnam War, which would win the enmity of LBJ. Updegrove and Califano are both trying to truncate history with this omission.

The truth is that Lyndon Baines Johnson was a life-long segregationist who resisted numerous attempts to eliminate the poll tax and literacy tests during his twenty-three year career in the House and Senate. He blocked every major and minor piece of meaningful civil rights legislation as the leader of the Southern block in the US Senate, and as its powerful Majority Leader.

More