By Rob Oldham
Believe it or not, the Civil Rights Movement to end the institutionalized segregation of African-Americans occurred 50 years ago. Yes, the events that probably dominated our generation’s high school civics courses are now as old as World War I was to our parents when they were growing up.
So what has changed in how we see the Civil Rights Movement? Was it really just like the documentaries, the books, and the films say it was?
Hindsight bias is a phenomenon where humans are clearly able to see the course of action they should have taken after the opportunity has already passed. Hindsight bias is important to understanding Ava DuVernay’s “Selma.” Set in 1965, the film depicts the efforts of Civil Rights Movement leaders Martin Luther King Jr., Ralph Abernathy, Andrew Young, John Lewis, and many others as they lead a 50-mile march in Alabama from Selma to Montgomery. This march is a show of solidarity to convince moderate whites to join the fight against segregation. In addition, King uses the march and the publicity surrounding it to leverage President Lyndon B. Johnson into pushing the Voting Rights Act through Congress. Arguably the crowning achievement of King’s movement, the Voting Rights Act was the enforcement mechanism that used the power of the federal government to force county registrars to register African-Americans to vote.
Historical films are expected to be accurate, but it is not clear if “Selma” is. There is considerable controversy about whether “Selma’s” depiction of President Johnson as a pragmatic gradualist instead of a champion for racial equality is accurate. John and King are unable to testify to the politics of the Civil Rights Movement, and other Civil Rights icons like Abernathy, Young, and Lewis are all well into their twilight years. Before too long, the 1960s Civil Rights Movement will be legend; “Selma” and other documentations are how the next generations will learn of one of America’s greatest injustices. Regardless of what President Johnson’s actual role in the movement was, history will remember him in how he is depicted in culture. Of course, modern depictions will always diverge from what reality was. Our present-day biases influence and shape our view of the past.
So what was it really like back then? To be President Johnson? To live as Martin Luther King Jr.? Would most Americans have viewed the Civil Rights Movement in the same manner that we do today?
In “Selma” we can see the incredible difference between contemporary and historical thought on the Civil Rights Movement. It is easy to look back on the Civil Rights Movement and cherish the pure intentions of King and his followers; it is nothing to deride President Johnson for his delayed response to King’s demands. Our own bias when looking into the past shows us how simple the answer to legalized segregation was, when in the 1960s, it was anything but simple. “Selma” is mostly able to capture this complexity.
In 1965 many Americans did not see the Civil Rights Movement as a pure cause. It was intertwined with the anti-Vietnam effort,` which is still today a very contentious issue. Many had their view on the movement distorted by violent radicals like Malcolm X (he makes a brief appearance in “Selma”), who tended to dominate the headlines. King himself was not free from impropriety. There were serious allegations that King was a communist. Acting on this, the FBI, which is highly regarded in today’s world, obsessively stalked King. They documented his extramarital affairs and other moral shortcomings that do not fit well with today’s observers who tend to deify him.
Many Americans, mostly in the South, also bought into the ideas of Alabama Gov. George Wallace that segregation was more of a conflict between the different levels of a federalist government system rather than a problem of deep-rooted hatred. Gov. Wallace tried to show that forced integration would be an act of unconstitutional tyranny by the federal government. He thought the states should have the prerogative to segregate schools, parks, elections, and other public accommodations as they saw fit. After all, a simplistic reading of the Constitution does not obviously outlaw “separate but equal.” Many Americans still buy into strict federalism today. The argument for states’ rights is front and center in many debates including same-sex marriage and education reform.
The world in 1965 was not as simple as we see it today. Whites who supported King and his followers, particularly in the South, tore apart their families when they joined the Selma march. It was not a world where you were beloved for standing up for equal rights. It was a world where you were hated, outcast, and even murdered. Dealing with legalized segregation was never as clear cut as it is today. We often harshly judge those who failed to oppose it in the 1960s. Hindsight bias may allow us to look at the world as black and white, but it was really anything but.
“Selma” is able to walk a narrow line between over-simplifying the Civil Rights Movement and not giving its immortal leaders due. It does present the audience with overly-simplistic caricatures of the pure and just (King and his followers), the southern demons (Gov. Wallace and Selma Sheriff Jim Clark), and the flimsy, but improving, moderate (President Johnson) who probably best represents where most Americans stood on the issue in 1965. But, it also shows movement’s ambiguities and flaws. It depicts the fracturing of King’s marriage. It shows how some of the other leaders were growing disillusioned with nonviolence and how their understandable rage could cloud their better judgment. The moral ambiguities never take center stage though, as the film rightfully focuses on immortalizing King’s contributions to racial equality and giving all Americans a more clear conception of what it means to live “in a more perfect union”.
As all historical good films should, “Selma” provokes questions from its contemporary audience. One is central to the notion of hindsight bias: What will we look back on in 50 years and see as being as great an injustice as the treatment of African-Americans in the 1960s? Many southern states are vehemently opposing federal court decisions that are striking down same-sex marriage bans. The state of Georgia still prevents undocumented students from attending the best state colleges and requires them to pay out-of-state tuition for the lesser institutions. Drug laws and prison systems seem to particularly target young African-American males as they are incarcerated at a much higher rate than any other demographic. These issues might seem complex now, but so did legal segregation in the 1960s.
At the end of “Selma” President Johnson sits down with Gov. Wallace and asks him why he does not avoid the trouble and simply concede the right to vote to African-Americans. . Gov. Wallace’s deeply racist response indicates that he is unwilling to move on the issue. After listening to it, President Johnson responds that he does not want to be caught on the same side of history as Wallace and proceeds to move forward with the Voting Rights Act.
Johnson’s fear about how history will judge us should rest with all Americans. One day it might be abundantly clear as to what the right answer are to the divisive issues of our time as it is with segregation today. One day it might be our children who look back on us with the judgment of hindsight bias and wonder why we didn’t do more.
So yes, the present is complex and ambiguous. Nothing is as clear cut as it appears in hindsight. That is why we must be ever cognizant of judgment we will inevitably face from history. Fear of this judgment is healthy and through it we can begin to understand the complexities that underlay the Civil Rights Movement which “Selma” so beautifully brings back to life. Past that, we may even understand our own complexities and doubts about the present.
