Hillary's Lesson in Black History

Late last week, Hillary Clinton taught us a very interesting lesson in revisionist history. It turns out despite what’s being covered in curriculums across the country, and the greater public understanding, it wasn’t the real sacrifices of Martin Luther King Jr.— including his own life—that served as a major impetus for the passing of the Civil Rights act. It wasn’t the courage of the thousands of people who faced death, dogs, and lynching that fomented change in this country. It was apparently the power of Lyndon Johnson.

Ignoring the fact that recordings of Lyndon Johnson’s comments in the White House make Dog the Bounty hunters rant sound like the I Have a Dream speech, Johnson never supported the Civil Rights Act, nor would there have been such an act for him to pass had it not been for the Philip A Randolphs, James Farmers, Rosa Parkses and Martin Luther King Jrs of the world. However I take personal offense to the Senator’s comments for greater reasons than its inaccuracy. Obama’s campaigners got it right, Hillary Clinton was attacking Obama’s very desire to hope to be president or to hope for change.

Essentially what she said to black people was even the one hero that we allow you to have every year on the third Monday in January, in some states, was essentially powerless. What she said to every black child across the country is that this eloquent, educated, leader no matter how large his constituency had less value in the acquisition of advancement for the cause of his people than a racist who signed a piece of paper in the hopes that black people would become distracted enough to stop their financial and political assault on the United States. She believes this garbage at the core of her being. For her, it wasn’t possible for Martin Luther King to foment change then and it’s not possible for Senator Obama to foment change today. What does that mean for the hopes and dreams of African American children?

If Senator Obama who has successfully obtained degrees from two ivy league universities, been elected to state congress and now serves in the US congress can not dare to hope to be an harbinger of change in our society, what does that say for black peoples ability to hope to effect change in their lives and their communities? I wonder if she shares Lyndon’s sentiments:

"These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days and that's a problem for us since they've got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference. For if we don't move at all, then their allies will line up against us and there'll be no way of stopping them, we'll lose the filibuster and there'll be no way of putting a brake on all sorts of wild legislation. It'll be Reconstruction all over again."
--Sen. Lyndon B. Johnson (D., Texas), 1957