Obama Needs a History Lesson about Hillary and King

The Obama camp did it again. They manufactured yet another issue out of a non-issue when they pounded Hillary Clinton for supposedly defiling Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. by minimizing his role in the civil rights struggle. Here's Hillary's terrible sin per the Obama campaign crowd: she said that Dr. King's dream was realized when President Lyndon Johnson shoved the 1964 Civil Rights Bill through Congress. This was anything but a put down of King.

Hillary paid tribute to King for laying the groundwork for the civil rights bill and gave justifiable credit to Johnson for ramming the bill through a bickering, divided and very recalcitrant Congress. Her point was that presidents that have their public policy priorities screwed on right can make changes, monumental changes, for good.

If Hillary could be faulted for anything it's that she didn't go far enough. If Johnson hadn't forcefully intervened and jawboned, prodded, arm twisted, and embarrassed the slew of wavering and hostile Congressmen to the bill into supporting the bill, or at least tempering their opposition to it, King's dream would have remained just that, an empty dream. King recognized that. In a Playboy interview in 1965, he said this about Johnson: "He has demonstrated his wisdom and commitment in coming to grips with the problem (racial discrimination). My impression is that he will remain a strong president for civil rights." History amply proved that, and Johnson despite his Vietnam War tumble from historical grace, still is regarded as the president that did more for civil rights than any other president.

But I'd go even further still. King gets much deserved praise and is much honored for igniting the national fervor for civil rights and galvanizing thousands to put their bodies on the line in the civil rights battles. Yet, there's an ugly side and often forgotten note to that. The street marches and demonstrations also stirred the first tremors of white backlash. The George Wallace surge in the North, the open hostility of many Northern whites to housing and school integration, and the Republican reawakening in the South was a direct outcropping of the civil rights push. This stiffened the spines of Southern Democrats and conservative Northern Republicans who dug their heels in and flatly opposed the bill, piled amendment after crippling amendment onto the bill initially, and employed every legal and parliamentary dodge and stall tactic they could dredge up to delay a vote on it, if not to kill it outright.

King could do nothing about this. JFK who introduced the bill couldn't do anything about it either. He was at his wits end after months and months of Congressional ducking and dodging on the bill about how to get it moving. By the time Johnson took office, following JFK's murder, the bill was still born in Congress. There was every chance that it could be shelved. However, Johnson would have none of that. He was a Southerner and he knew the mood and temper of the South. From his decades in the Senate he knew where the political skeletons were buried and how to rattle them. He did what King and Kennedy didn't have a prayer of doing, he got the sympathetic ear of enough Southerners to take some of the steam out of their vehement opposition to the bill. The rest of course is history. The Civil Rights Bill, not King's marches and demonstrations, broke the back of legal segregation in America and became the watchword for progressive, visionary social legislation for decades to come.

King and all the top civil rights leaders knew that history had been made with the passage of the bill, and that the man that played the towering role in making that history was LBJ A t the signing ceremony for the bill, King and the other civil rights leaders beamed when Johnson handed them the pens after the signing. They effusively praised him for his tireless effort.

Hillary's statement was a simple, honest, and respectful nod to Johnson for his indispensable part in making civil rights a legal fact and reality in America. This was the same nod that King and the civil rights leaders made more than four decades ago to him.

This is a nod that the Hillary haters have forgotten or deliberately distorted in their clinical obsession to smash mouth every Hillary utterance. This is a history lesson that Hillary got right about King and Johnson, and one that the Obama campaign flunked badly.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His forthcoming book is "The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House" (Middle Passage Press, February, 2008).

Comments

[SamBrown]

Thank you for an enlightening piece Mr. Hutchinson.
Of course most of the people who need to be reminded of the facts in your column will probably just skim it so they can hurry up and get in their snarky bit about take your pick, Billary/Hussein Obama/libr­uls/repugs etc...

[apresdeluge]

Well said sir! Unfortunately, the Obama supporters are buying into the slander against Bill & Hillary Clinton. I say, debate ideas and leave race out of the fray. It will end up hurting the Democratice party in the general election.

[sunblessed]

Blacks would have won their civil rights with or without LBJ. A country cannot deny a group of people their god-given rights forever. If LBJ had not passed civil rights legislation, the Civil Rights Movement would have become less patient with white resistance and much more forceful. Every group of people has a right to pick up arms and defend themselves when they are being oppressed and abused. Continued resistance to equality by white America would have resulted in less non-violent marches and more aggressive campaigns. As a result, white America would have been faced with a choice: either acknowledge the natural rights of blacks, or suppress wide-spread black uprisings by slaughtering them while the entire world watched. America would not have been able to claim to be the "land of the free" if it chose the latter. America's hands were tied. Black Americans were not going to give up. They had waited too long. Freedom is worth fighting and dying for, and black people were ready to do both if necessary.

Statistically speaking, a very small percentage of the overall white population "joined hands" with black citizens to fight for civil rights. The vast majority of whites were either apathetic or actively supported segregation by voting for pro-segregationist governors, senators etc. If it hadn't been for white apathy and resistance, it would not have taken America an embarrassing 100 years (after the formal end of slavery) for the federal and state governments to finally recognize black citizens as equals nationwide.

If anyone should be given some credit, it is black America. Without the challenge they posed to America to live up to its ideals of equality and democracy, we would not be able to truthfully call ourselves a democracy today. America was not a democracy, in the true sense of the word, when it was denying its black citizens the right to vote and live freely.

[findingthetruth]

If Hillary Clinton is succeeding with such division among Americans NOW, imagine as a leader!!!!

[daveny]

Three problems with your history lesson that the Hillary camp might want to reflect on.

1) If it weren't for people being inspired and motivated to be active and get on the front lines, there would have been no reason for, or support of LBJ's efforts.

2) The "backlash" you speak of -- in terms of the violent reaction to protesters -- actually did a lot to push the mushy, decent, middle of the country to throw their support behind the civil rights movement.

3) I don't doubt for a minute that Bill and Hill are not racist in the slightest. But since when have any of them shown any interest in listening to, and acting on, the demands of the public? When haven't they been willing to sell any constituency down the river for political expediency? And when, praytell, have either of them shown a capacity to rally not just their hardcore base, but Americans of all stripes, to some higher cause?

(correct answer to #3... Never, always, and never.)

[RusStyles]

Earl:

I wholeheartedly disagree. When those southern racists sicced dogs on peaceful protesters and the photos hit the front of international newspapers, whoever was the president would have felt pressure to stem the flow of negative publicity. After all, it during the era of the red scare and spreading democracy. How could America hold itself up as the paragon of life, liberty and justice and deny tax-paying citizens basic human rights? So the grass roots efforts and sacrifices made by MLK and his followers played the lion's share of the role, and should receive the lion's share of the credit. Not LBJ, who would have probably done nothing sans the external pressures

[Manicsuperstar]

What Hillary should have said, and what she meant, was that it took someone boring, much maligned but politically savy like LBJ (i.e., her) to get the Civil Rights act through Congress, not someone hopeful, youthful but inexperinced like JFK (i.e., Obama), who didn't have the polictical skill to get the job done. That was the point. She had enough sense not to explicitly criticize JFK but then blundered into an even bigger mess by allowing certain people to jump to the conclusion that she was making light of MLK and the Civil Rights movement. It was a clumsy moment that has been blown out of all proportion by the media and certain members of the black community looking for a way to wedge black votes away from Clinton. In the end, this will backfire on Obama, because most white people are going to consider this a non-issue and resent the way it has been escalated into a major race issue. Even if they don't say anything in public for fear of being labeled racist, they will vent their resentment in the privacy of a ballot box. This issue needs to go away fast or it will cost Obama the election.

[Kreskytim]

I wish everyone would just STFU!
Move on. The cable new networks are working everyone up over nothing.

[January]

Getting a Civil Rights Bill passed was a monumental achievement. The irony is that what Dr. King asked for, all along, was simply obedience to the law of the land. We had the law in amendments to the Constitution. But we did not have obedience.

It was necessary to enforce the enforcement, as law without application merely sounds good rather than doing good.

If BHO's responese to HRC on the subject is an example of his advisors quality, he needs help.

[TommyMcCarthy]

No serious person believes either of the Clintons harbor some top secret racism.

Those that have suggested so are, at best, irresponsible.

Those in the Obama camp that condone and/or encourage such suggestions share complicity with those who make them.

The Senator himself could go along way towards diffusing this ugliness with a forthright disavowal of this idea.

Locked in the heat of a primary campaign, against an opponent he plainly dislikes, he seems unwilling to do so, perhaps because he believes he is recieving some political gain from the current controversy.

Even if that is true, any such "bounce" will be short-term and illusory,.­..not to mention ill-gotten.

I might add that Sen. Obama's tacit acceptance of the political "fruits" of this poisonous interlude are at direct odds with his uplifting rhetoric about "hope" and "a new kind of politics", and will cost him much more, long term, than could ever be gained from those simple-minded folk who have no understanding of history, and salivate over yet ANOTHER reason to disparge Sen. Clinton.

The Republicans, of course, are having great fun watching us on the left step in Macacca over this

This is one issue from which they are immune....­not because no one would accuse THEM of harboring racist views....b­ut because no one would believe them when they denied it! (One need only to conjure up a mental picture of those seven empty podiums at the NAACP debate....­...schedul­ing conflitcts, don't you know...)

One can assume Dr. King himself would be APPALLED by the whole ugly business.
I know I sure am........­..........­.........t­m

[letsgetsmart]

Isn't it amazing what a little knowledge of history will do. This should be front page on all newspapers. Thank you for reminding people how our government used to work. Sure there is bickering and keeping an eye on special interests as well as giving special interests a good look but that is how we get things down. The public pushes an issue and if we have voted correctly our elected leaders pass the laws. Isn't that what a law is? Someones opinion that enough of the rest of us agree with and that passes the constitution test. Johnson does get credit for his effort but what he did was pick up the ball that had been carried by a lot of others first. Once again, thanks for the sanity.

[standforpeace]

The main problem with Clinton's statement is that it made no sense (unless it was intended to stir up unconscious racism in the American public). Here's what I mean. Why would she argue that King had the dream, but it took a president to get it done? How does that argument help her? Last I checked, Obama was running for the office of president too. In other words, just like Clinton he wants to be in a position to turn dreams (of justice or otherwise) into reality.

Now if what she really meant, was that "It's the role of Blacks to dream and call the nation to move toward justice, but it will take a powerful white American to make those dreams reality" then all of a sudden her comment makes all the sense in the world. It's just a subtle ploy to remind everyone of their rightful places in the scheme of things, and she needs to be called on it.

Who is to say whether this was an intentional effort to tap the racism of listeners or just an accidental statement of how she unconsciously sees the world. Either way, it's important that her statement not go unchallenged. It is only by highlighting the implicit assumptions behind such statements that we can challenge them.

[traveler501]

Excellent piece...th­anks for writing it. Apparently though by even mentioning the name, Hillary, you have stirred up the little Clinton-haters. Funny little Clinton-haters.

[GoodbyeKitty]

Thinking on MLK and the civil rights movement, I cant help but be irritated that many African Americans disparage gays for daring to put their civil rights struggle in the same basket as African American's.

When one considers that the bigots in the MLK camp forced him to ditch Bayard Rustin, who one of Rev. King's most energetic and leading fighters, becuase Rustin was gay and they were so afraid that his gayness would hurt their struggle.

Lynching a man becuase he is black is no different than tying a man to a fence and beating him to death because he is gay. Killing one person is no different than killing a thousand.

Bigotry is everywhere and some of the most disgusting forms in our society are found in christian churches.

[sonofloud]

Thanks for some objectivity.