"Based on several LBJ biographies, I'd say not entirely. It's true that early on Johnson told King he didn't want to drive off support for Great Society legislation by inflaming southern allies, but he was a persistent and masterly behind-the-scenes manipulator. He fought passionately for voting rights without any push from King." http://www.npr.org/2015/01/09/376120614/the-selma-criticism-for-how-it-portrays-lyndon-b-johnson-is-it-fair
"As he did with slavery and Japanese-American internment, Obama sought to incorporate Ferguson into the turbulence of American history. The Department of Justice's damning Ferguson report, which it released last week after a lengthy investigation, depicted a present-day municipal government dedicated to theplunder and predation of its black citizens. Obama readily observed that Ferguson wasn't an isolated case, but also noted that these racist acts are no longer "endemic" in America. He also refused to accept that Ferguson meant that the struggles of Bloody Sunday were for naught. "If you think nothing’s changed in the past fifty years, ask somebody who lived through the Selma or Chicago or L.A. of the 1950s," he said to applause.
At times, it felt like Obama was addressing not the civil-rights movement veterans who had assembled in Selma, but today's new generation of activists and marchers. "We do a disservice to the cause of justice by intimating that bias and discrimination are immutable, or that racial division is inherent to America," Obama told the crowd and the country. "To deny this progress—our progress—would be to rob us of our own agency; our responsibility to do what we can to make America better."
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