Afternoon Must-Read: Matthew Yglesias: Lyndon Johnson’s Aides Mad MLK Is Hero of Selma

…[but] tell[s] a story in which King and his collaborators are the key actors…. Johnson[‘s]… notion of doing the War on Poverty first and voting rights second isn’t obviously wrongheaded or pernicious, but King doesn’t agree…. Johnson tries a couple of times to talk them out of it… fails… swings around to King’s viewpoint…. 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…